I read your post history.

I'll be honest with you. I am that guy. I'm a bit better now, but it isn't totally healed. If you wanna read about how I started fixing it, check out my post history. I used to think I was a sociopath; I've always been "different." I don't usually feel any emotion besides occasional manic bouts of rage. Fleeting other emotions, but I can shut them out near instantly. I had a difficult childhood. I watched my sister take a lot of abuse, and I took my fair share too. I used to want to have kids, but didn't really care to have a spouse. I know I was not alone in my dream of being a single dad. I grew past that, but it took an enormous effort of my own will. Emphasis on "my own will" but we'll come back to that.

So why you want to know is how to fix it. I'll tell you how I'm doing so, and then I'll talk about your situation.

Basically, I took a 5g mushroom trip, shattered my mind into schizophrenia, and then battled with myself for my life and my sanity. Somewhere during that struggle, I realized I was going to kill myself. That's the only reason I survived it. If my "voice" wasn't so insistent that I kill myself, that I mutilate myself, or whatever other unpleasantries, I probably wouldn't have been strong enough to recover anything. It was stubborn will that saved me. And I had a little self-made help.

After that 5g shattering, I started to research psychedelics a little more. Basically, I saw that they could help, and so indulged myself. I made it worse for a while. Eventually I quit all drugs, dropped out of college, and worked in labor at a chemical plant. The exercise helped me stabilize a bit. I met some good-hearted people there. I roomed with a coworker who loved Tool, which grew on me after a bit. I saw a therapist a bit before and around this time too.

One day, the foreman sat me down and we talked about my student loan debt and he basically said "You are wasting your time and have opportunities none of the rest of us did. You are young. Gtfo and go fix your shit." I didn't listen right away, but a few days later when it rained, I decided to trip despite the possibility of drug tests. I tripped to a Tool album; Aenima. It was the medicine I had been seeking. It is what did to me what you are seeking to do to your loved one. Go read my long ass post about it. Or just go read the album lyrics with that in mind.

And then I started the long process of healing. I very soon after encountered some beautiful friends who tripped with me again and further helped me reset my behavior patterns. I continued therapy. I started sporadic meditation and yoga. I got back in touch with my on and off girlfriend from this whole period, who I had left and invited back time and time again without care. But don't be fooled; I've still left her several times since then. This is currently the longest we've been together; 4 months. We've been seeing each other for four years now.

This is the most accurate telling of these events I have ever told anyone. I still struggle immensely to trust, and I still manipulate. I am still empty for long periods at a time. I still get enraged sometimes, and my own behavior can frighten me during those times. I no longer explicitly want to be a single parent, but admittedly, the draw is still there sometimes. It's called Narcissism. I am a narcissist. Or was. I exhibited some sociopathic traits too. You should look up these terms and read up on what a relationship with one might be like. See if it seems at all familiar.

The reason I was so honest with you? You cannot do what you seek to do. One who has lost his heart in such a way may only be guided by his or herself back to it. It is behind walls impenetrable to all; the forcible removing of them will break that one's mind, as the mushrooms did to me. These walls are composed of mistrust of all, and as such none but the builder may be admitted past them. Recovering myself after mine were torn down required years of effort on my part, and no small bit of my success was due to random lucky circumstances. I built up new walls and had to conquer them again. It happens still, though I am getting better at recognizing it. It was my time to metamorphose, and that process is mine alone, and still is ongoing.

Sometimes I notice I am tricking myself, though; I think I am doing better but I am being... Like that... Again. I try to talk openly with my girlfriend about it now. It always takes at least a few hours to realize what I did. Even then it's extremely hard to apologize for it. She says I make her feel crazy sometimes; gaslighting is what I'm doing in some of those cases, and you should maybe read about that too. I am so afraid of my own fault that I twist the situation to make her responsible for something she isn't, or I invent a new version of events and adhere to it even though I know it isn't accurate. This shames me immensely sometimes. But right now I don't feel anything about it. Ongoing process, as I said.

If he is to heal, it will be by his doing and his alone. This is not something anyone could "help" me do. If someone helps with a particular step on this journey, it is because I decided on my own and without any pressure at all to do so. For example, I may eventually go to a shamanistic session with ayahuasca. However, if you told me I needed to do that, I would never go. It is just how my mind operates.

I know this is hard, and I'm sorry. I sincerely wish you the best of health for your mind and relationships, as well as the wisdom to see where that path lies.