Every week, a chapter of my book, “Husband, Liar, Sociopath: How He Lied, Why I Fell For It & The Painful Lessons Learned” (available via Amazon.com, just click on the title or book cover) will be published here on Lovefraud. To read prior chapters, please see the links at the bottom of the post.
Chapter 51D: The Earthquake Strikes
Daniel was crushed by his father’s choices—his betrayal of our family, his instant girlfriend, the disrespectful way Daniel had learned that Linda even existed and was moving in, the kidnapping of Ella, the mounting lies, and his father’s attempt to keep him from participating in karate. Although I needed every bit of money I had, I promised Daniel that he could attend karate and that I would support his karate as long as he kept working hard in school. It was clear to me that Paul was not only trying to hurt Daniel for not buying into the “Paul as saint” view of the world but also to avoid the expense of paying for Daniel’s karate training and pricy tournament travel—something we had supported for years. Paul was also hurting Daniel to weaken and distract me, because there is no better way to hurt a mother than by harming her child.
Jessica was unfazed by her father’s behavior and choices. Over the summer, Paul had given her a credit card with no spending limit. Without my knowledge, he had even rented a condo for her and her friends to use as she wished—no questions asked. When I found out, I put my foot down, forbidding her to use it. I had to get my lawyer involved. The horror stories of what teenagers across the country had gotten into when left without supervision were all too common. For establishing normal parental limits, Jessica painted me as a controlling witch. Dad was the good guy. Even though Paul asserted in court documents that his income was approaching zero for the year, he always had plenty of money to spend on himself, his new house, his girlfriend, and Jessica. And, unlike me, Paul “trusted” Jessica and let her do whatever she wanted, including buying over $2,000 in jewelry in just two months. She still wanted more, surfing the Internet for hours to plan her next purchase. The manipulation horrified me.
Even worse, as the jewelry purchases mounted, I worried that Jessica was developing a dangerous shopping addiction, linking buying expensive jewelry with affection from her father. I expressed my concern to Paul, but he would not stop the purchases. I involved my lawyer. When she got the purchases to stop, Jessica had already spent $3,000 in four months. I could not compete. I would not compete. Paul offered confidence, a huge house, money, status, and no behavioral limits. I was shattered by recent events, my eyes red from lack of sleep. I needed to sell the house, move, and downsize radically, and who knew if I would even have any income? I had applied for several jobs, but no offers were forthcoming. My spent appearance, red eyes, lack of recent work experience, and age were not strong selling points.
I stood by what I thought were reasonable limits for a teenager, knowing it might jeopardize my relationship with Jessica if Paul did not do the same. The fact that Jessica and Paul had never been close left her hungry for a relationship with her father and vulnerable to his love being used as bait. He offered her a relationship now. All she had to do to get unbridled independence, status, money, and her father’s long-desired love was to embrace being his daughter and reject me. Pretty easy decision.
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Notes
Identifying names, places, events, characteristics, etc. that I discuss here and in my book have been altered to protect the identity of everyone involved.
My sociopathic husband and mind control manipulation
O.N. Ward,
I appreciate that you have taken your experience and knowledge about sociopathy and wrote a book about it. That’s really something.
I’ve often thought your story is my story. For example, the targeting of Daniel and his beloved karate classes contrast with Jessica and the condo, credit card…, is the dynamic in my family as well. My son (who remained with me in my care )received a prestigious scholarship to study for one year in Europe (what well meaning parent wouldn’t jump at that-ostensibly). Contrast with my daughter who lives with the spath who has credit cards, has turned the house along with her sleezy friends into a pot den. The spath tried to block my son’s scholarship and gives my daughter free reign to become a juvenile delinquent. Like you I had to petition the court to save the scholarship. In other words, what I paid in court costs was tantamount to paying tuition. While my daughter is given unfettered access to money to engage in less than savory behavior, my son had to be pulled out of his private school, we have to weigh every purchase (yesterday I bought him two pairs of pants and really had to think about the purchase as I don’t have employment yet). Really really despicable. But I have learned that spaths can only corrupt the corruptible. Daniel is not of that ilk. You can spend all your efforts trying to save everyone from themselves or you can take what you have and try to save the savable. The problem is when you have one corruptible child that child will jeopardize the good kid, because the corruptible child is willing to lie. One bad apple does spoil the barrel. It’s a tightrope walk to be sure.
Wow O.N Ward, what a nightmare you lived!
Sociopath always want to create chaos, drama & have control over everyone. This is a perfect example of all three. Even though Paul moved out, he was wreaking havoc in your house hold. Sadly he enjoyed every minute of his chaos, drama & drama he caused you & your children.
Paul is a very sick man, like all sociopath.
Narcissist & sociopath narcissist typically have a “golden child” and a “scape goat child”.
The golden child can do no wrong. The scape goat child can do no good. This tactic is used to control everyone & to triangulate everyone in the house against each other to have control & so no one sees what is really going on = dealing with a sociopath. I believe also he was buying your daughter jewelry & renting her a home so that your self esteem would plummet even more while mentally exhausting you so that you could not think clear during the divorce process.
Paul was using your daughter to triangulate her against you & versa. And her against your son. And your poor dog being separated & put in a horrible situation. 🙁
These are the games my ex played.
Sorry that you & your children endured this nightmare of a man. I hope things have settled down in your home & that you have a wonderful relationship with your children. Thank you for sharing your book with all of us. So many things that your ex did that were just like what my ex h did = both pure pure evil.
Oops, I see that the ‘scapegoat and golden child’ has already been alluded to in the discussion. I did not read this far…apologies.
I agree 100%, Jan7.
No worries Bev!
Could there not perhaps the ‘golden child’ syndrome going on as well. Spaths often dote on one child, while making another the scapegoat. Creating chaos, mistrust, and triangulation is what spaths do.
What becomingstrong said is so right. It all ties together. Only the corruptible can be corrupted.
PDs can be inherited and sometimes (not always) a child’s willingness to go along with the spath parent, is very telling. We may not want to see or acknowledge that.
My ex spath kept the manipulation and control going with 2 children and 2 step children, and switched tactics constantly. It seemed ‘creating chaos, mistrust and triangulation’ were the goals – really a good description. He would present a different picture to different groups of people in his life – different branches of family, church society, targets, etc. – presenting one child as scapegoat and another as golden to one group, but switching the roles to another group; and changing the roles when he thought it would accomplish more chaos, mistrust triangulation and general misery. Incredibly confusing now; at the time it was incredibly painful to me as my goal in life was happiness and spiritual growth for everyone.