Editor’s Note: This SPATH Tale was submitted by the Lovefraud reader whom we’ll call “SanityOK.”
He was the president of a youth football league and VP at a company that I discovered he had been stealing from for 30 years. His boss completely trusted him, as well as everyone that knew him or thought they did.
My children, his step children, thought that he walked on water.
He was subtly controlling in the beginning and played mind games. He would tell me things like, “we already talked about that.” I couldn’t remember if we did or didn’t and began to question my sanity.
I became severely depressed after six years and was hospitalized. I thought I should be happy, because everyone else thought he was a great man.
I finally found a male therapist who sees through his crazy making.
Through therapy I become stronger. He gets some therapy. We get some. And then I start digging and that’s when I open a can of worms that come crawling out with rattlesnakes.
After I filed for divorce, I still had to live in the same home with him for the most horrific five months of my life. I then realized that I had lived with a true pathological liar who was methodical, deceptive, calculating, without a conscience, an adulterer, scandalous and a chameleon.
He tormented me for five months up until the morning I left.
I had to lock up all my paperwork, keep some at my son’s, keep changing passwords on my phone and laptop. Have them and my purse next to me when I slept.
I finally got a lockbox. One night after I left, I recorded him trying to pry open the lock box.
I had to take my phone into the bathroom with me when I took a bath.
He had everything locked up at his job and had for years.
I lived this way every single day for five months.
He did much more, and I think I was close to breaking. I went from 117 pounds to 102 pounds. I developed tremors.
As I read about the sociopathic traits, I can look back and see so many.
I am still going through the divorce. He is fighting me about money.
We just completed interrogatories and he has put ”˜NO’ on every question concerning dating or infidelity, despite my knowing he was having an affair with one of his young recruiters. He has told her to lie, I’m sure.
He acts so smug and sure of his not being caught, it’s disgusting.
We discovered he makes more than what he originally put down. And he failed to list a financial institution on his interrogatories. I guess he assumed I forgot.
So, even the very best con men do mess up.
My family and adult children had a very hard time believing it initially. I don’t think they could bear to.
I have finally processed it, but know that trust will always be a big issue.
A friend heard my story and said it would make a great Lifetime TV movie. I used to watch similar stories on TV, but never to this degree, and I would think, wow, how horrible. I’m so glad I have a good husband.
And then, it was me.
SanityOK – thank you for sharing your story. It is amazing how they can keep up the act for so long – and how so many people never see through it at all.
Dear Sanity OK – thank you for sharing your story. Your experience of having to “shelter in place” for 5 months really touched a nerve with me. I am doing the same thing right now and have also developed tremors. I researched that symptom and it is related to generalized anxiety. You probably already know that. I suppose it makes sense that our bodies literally react to the stress of being under the same roof as our adversary. I changed my computer passwords and took all legal materials to my workplace, which is a secure facility. And I keep a low profile at home. It helps, but my body is storing a lot of stress.
I’m struggling over the financial issues too. He cashes many of his checks and uses them for his “activities” and balks at being asked to pay his part of household expenses. Draining finances and staying out a lot of the time.
So I have been right where you have been and I appreciate your sharing your story. It helps me to know I am not alone and not isolated even though we know it feels that way at times. I wish you strength as you go through this next phase of getting completely away from him. Take care.
What were the grounds for divorce? I am trying to help a client who’s husband has been bilking her. Trying to characterize this as constructive desertion. Is this the proper grounds for bilking?