I was once with a man who seems to be a lot like OP. I was very young and very trusting. He almost killed me within 2 months of dating me.
My ex BF was very smart. He was also cocky in most ways but he, too, had a physical problem ( not a congenital handicap) that he tried desperately to keep hidden. He was repulsed by what he saw as a flaw marring his otherwise extremely handsome appearance. He also liked and could afford a flashy expensive lifestyle. He bought me a Mercedes convertible while we were dating. A few weeks later, he tried to run over me in a parking lot with the same car. Psycho.
He was into collecting guns. ( Not sure if OP collected guns but he had a habit of waving them around in public and in his car).
He had a huge safe built into the basement floor of his new house. He spent thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars on very rare unfired special edition Colts and so forth. He had a custom made shotgun which he used for skeet shooting that had multiple barrels of different sizes. He won trophies for shooting.
This man tried to kill me about a week before we were to get married because in his warped mind, I had " betrayed" him by listening to some very serious things his best friend had to tell me. His best friend called me while he was out of town on business with some " very private" info which would definitely have been publicly damaging to the man. He didn't go after his friend, a large male, who knew what ALL of the secrets were, he went after me, a very small frame young woman for answering my own phone. I listened to his friend, because again, huge " secrets" were told that were true. I needed to know what I was getting into. ( I got OUT).
The day he found out that I knew his dirty big secrets, he threw me across furniture and I smashed into a wall. I was thrown to the floor, then dragged by my hair along the carpet. He was hitting my head with his fists from one side and then the other. He was hitting me and cursing me the entire time. He was in a blind rage. I didn't dare move or speak. I believe he would have shot me in an instant if I had done anything until I saw a clear escape as we moved to a doorway. I was younger and faster and a lot more scared so I could run faster. I ran out and got help from the police.
My ex didn't respect women. He had been my Government and Economics teacher when I was a Sr. in HS years earlier and he didn't respect the girls in his classes then. I had forgotten much of this until a former classmate reminded me not too long ago. He picked one small cheerleader up and threw her around the room, yelling school cheers. He tried to look up skirts, using his hands on our legs. He looked down our tops when he came up behind us, walking around his classroom. He played with our hair during our exams, when we had to concentrate. He stood in the doorway of his classroom at free time and class changes to watch the girls bend over at the water fountain just across the hall from his doorway. He seduced a student a year older than me and got the school principal to allow her to help him in his film darkroom. ( No one knew that there was sex going on. I've heard it from both of them since).
But the things were: Ego and Rage. I think there is a type of man who has extreme ego conflicts. I think OP has because of his legs, and I know why my ex did. There's also an inflated ego component fighting to stay on top- The " macho man" syndrome. with OP, it was because he had won fame and acclaim and I guess money for his running.
With my ex, it was his extremely prestigious government position. He had charisma and he had an extraordinary position created for him in our government.
I think both men had paranoia and also hair-trigger tempers. My ex was very paranoid, mostly related to me and my actions when I was with him. I'm sure this was a long standing pattern for him.
I think OP also had a lot of paranoia and also the same hair trigger rage type of temper.
When certain personality traits and anger combines in some people like this, they want their own pain to stop more than they want anything else in the world. Some kill themselves. Some kill ( or try to kill, or threaten to kill) the woman at their side.. You know, the one they said they love and want and cherish so much. The kind of obsession that brings death.
As a therapist, I would sum it up thusly: A pathological lack of ego boundaries and impulse control. They weren't born this way because their IQs and ability to understand concepts is intact..
JMO.. We probably all know someone with some of these characteristics but it is rare to find several extremely destructive forces in so many areas of one person's personality in the absence of Anti-Social Personality disorder ( also known as a psychopath or sociopath in societal terms). Neither of these men appear to fit the criteria for Anti-Social Personality disorder. They do have a rage disorder under a certain set of circumstances.
