Lovefraud recently received the following e-mail from a reader who we’ll call Carla:
Can you help me with co-parenting with a sociopath? Divorced three months ago, after a two-year fight for my rights. He is not complying as you know.
I am going crazy with the way he only shows his wonderful, smooth qualities to the children. I have three boys. I can’t stand sending them on weekends to a man who never calls them for two weeks and then lavishes them with charm and gifts. It makes me sick that I am struggling because he has not released even one of 26 accounts to me as decreed in the divorce settlement. He pays my bills and deducts them from the alimony. He follows the agreement under his own conditions and it confuses the attorneys. He won’t discuss the children with me or offer any assistance to them as a father. He is 100 percent focused on his new victim, his girlfriend, a new young, widow. Spending all the money he hid on her. But the kids have “buddy” to whisk them from one expensive activity to another while I am struggling to pay the bills.
I have greater anxiety now than when we were married. He openly emotionally abuses me. Before it was more covert and I got immune to the invalidation and blame. NOW I am discarded since I chose not to play by his rules of cheating, drugs, gambling, lying, withholding sex. He isn’t nice to me at all. Cruel. It was easier being married. He did all these things and he kept me blinded by being secretive and giving me a high-income surgeon’s wife lifestyle. I know the secrets now along with my attorney but he looks perfect in the community.
I miss the financial security and vacations. Now someone else shares those things with him and all I did was give him three beautiful children to brag about and add to his narcissism.
I say terrible things about him to the two older children, ages 6 and 13. I tell them how he is not following the agreement, lying and spending money on drugs and women.
Is so frustrating. I see what is real but no one else does. I am afraid my children are going to prefer him (and his girlfriend) because he is so charming and generous and I know he is pathological and I can’t give them the expensive gifts and ultra stimulating activities.
How do you deal with the frustration that you are the only person who knows someone is a sociopath? I had to live 15 years with him to figure it out and go through four therapists until the last one nailed him as anti-social/schizoid personality disordered. Then I validated her “diagnosis” with Lovefraud. He has all the signs with a very high IQ and status of a medical professional to hide behind. Will anyone else ever figure it out? I don’t believe that what comes around goes around when it comes to a sociopath as intellectually clever as my ex-husband. I do have a few very perspective people who picked up on it. I don’t think my kids will ever see it and I think he will destroy me even post-divorce. Why is he so relentless? He has his freedom and his money. Why not leave me alone? Is it because I get one-third of his income in alimony?
After the divorce
Probably the most shocking thing about divorcing a sociopath is that even when it’s over, it’s not over. The attorneys have argued, the court has ruled, this is how it’s going to be—and it’s not. The sociopath doesn’t comply, twists things the way he or she wants them, uses children against the other parent, and no one seems to care.
This leaves the non-sociopathic partner—like Carla—angry with the sociopath, frustrated that he’s getting away with his lies and manipulation, and upset that he won’t do what he’s supposed to do, baffled that no one else sees the truth—all while still mourning the life she thought she had. Carla wants her ex to pay her what he’s supposed to and be a dad to their children. He’s not doing either, so she wants other people to know that behind his charming, successful veneer, he’s vile.
It’s a toxic brew of emotions. But the emotions will never affect the sociopath. They will only affect Carla, and possibly her children.
It seems to me that Carla needs to be able to separate what’s going on into four categories: financial considerations, the children, dealing with the ex and her emotional recovery.
Financial considerations
First of all, Carla needs to get her financial situation straightened out. If her ex is supposed to give her 26 accounts, she needs to get that enforced—soon, before the accounts are empty. I hope her attorneys put a time limit on when these accounts are supposed to be turned over, and specified exactly how much money she is supposed to receive. If not, she is in trouble.
Carla cannot allow her ex-husband to pay her bills. By letting him do this, she is allowing him to control her. He is deducting the money from her alimony? He is probably exaggerating the amount of the bills just to pay her less. Plus, he may decide to stop paying the bills, and she would never know it—until the cable service or electric is turned off. Carla must demand that she receive the full alimony, then get her bills in her own name.
Carla did not mention a house and mortgage. If the sociopath’s name is on the house or mortgage, that is a disaster waiting to happen. He may stop paying the mortgage and allow the house to slip into foreclosure. He wouldn’t care, but Carla would have no place to live.
The children
Carla complained that her ex won’t discuss the children with her and won’t offer any assistance as a father. He doesn’t call them during the week and only wants to play with them on his weekends. I’d recommend that Carla use this to her advantage.
Here is the bottom line: Sociopaths are terrible parents. At best, they view children as prized possession. At worst, they actively try to corrupt the children. Therefore, the less interaction a sociopath has with his or her children, the better.
Carla should actually be grateful that her ex is staying out of their children’s lives as much as he is. She should use her time with the children to shower them with love, nurture them and provide them with healthy guidance. None of that will happen when the boys are with their father. The kids will eventually sense that there is no real bond with the father. As time goes on, they may also witness him moving from girlfriend to girlfriend, and eventually start rolling their eyes at yet another one.
Carla needs to be their rock of stability. She also needs to stop badmouthing the father—even if he deserves it. This is important for two reasons. First is the emotional health of the children—they should not feel in the middle of her issues with the ex. Second, she does not want to give her ex the ammunition to come after her with a parental alienation lawsuit, in which she could lose custody of the boys.
Her best plan of action is the stay neutral about the father. One mother’s standard response whenever her children brought home news of the ex was a noncommittal, “That’s nice.”
Kids are smart. Sooner or later, they will realize that the sociopath cares only about himself.
Dealing with the ex
Carla asks, “Why is he so relentless? Why not leave me alone?”
Divorcing a sociopath is not like divorcing a relatively healthy person that you’ve just grown away from. In a normal divorce, mommy and daddy don’t want to be together anymore, but they can cooperate for the sake of the kids. This is not going to happen with a sociopath.
Sociopaths only want three things: Power, control and sex. Carla and the surgeon have divorced, but that doesn’t mean he has given up his desire for power and control.
Carla says her ex-husband is openly abusing her. She must eliminate his opportunities to do this and go No Contact with this man as much as possible. I don’t know if she is allowing him into her home, but she shouldn’t. The child exchange should be arranged to minimize interaction. Any communications regarding the children should be conducted via e-mail. Phone conversations give him opportunities to abuse her.
The key is for Carla to be strictly business. She must recognize that the sociopath will not play nice. He will do everything possible to avoid paying her. He will continue to manipulate her through the children. She must learn not to react when he baits her. She must learn to be calm and collected, yet make him toe the line on his court-ordered obligations.
Emotional recovery
All of this is pretty raw for Carla right now—the divorce was only three months ago. She is outraged. She is frustrated. Carla misses the status, money, vacations and cozy lifestyle of a surgeon’s wife. She is justifiably angry that he cheated and hid money, and probably still reeling from being devalued and discarded.
Realizing that she’s been in a relationship with a sociopath has probably rocked Carla to the core. Nothing was real. Everything was a lie. And plenty of people in the community still believe the lie. This is a massive shock, and it takes time to come to terms with the magnitude of the deception.
Recovery is a process, and there is a lot of information here on the Lovefraud blog that may help Carla:
- She must realize that the ex is a sociopath, and this is the way he lives his life. Nothing she did or didn’t do would make any difference.
- She must realize that she was targeted, probably because of her good qualities.
- She must allow herself to feel her anger, disappointment, grief and even hatred—and then let it all go.
This will take time, and will probably come in waves—a wave of emotion, followed by a wave of calm. Eventually the emotional periods will be shorter, the calm periods will be longer.
Carla is in for many years of aggravation with this man. She needs to get to a point of equanimity, where his antics no longer affect her. When she gets there, no matter what the guy does, Carla wins.
“It’s so ingrained in you, the way you see your parents as children…”
I meant to say, “the way you see your parents when you are a child…”
Dear ANewLily,
“then to have Elizabeth “minimize” my pain and question my integrity unnerved me more than a little. MY problem as I see it, is not her unbelief, but that that I still need to do more work on myself. …
…Elizabeth, I KNOW that if someone told me this story I wouldn’t believe it! It IS a Twilight Zone story! ”
Dear ANewLily,
I am so sorry I said things that caused you to feel I “minimized your pain” or “questioned your integrity”. Further, I believe every single word of your story. When I used the word “bizarre” and the term “twilight zone”, it wasn’t because I didn’t believe you.
Like everyone here, I’ve got my own bizarre story and twilight zone experience to relate. I know what it’s like to deal with a narcissist, a sociopath or a psychopath.
I apologize sincerely for hurting your feelings. I will work hard to choose my words more carefully in the future. I’m afraid I had no idea that you would interpret what I wrote in that way. I guess that makes me very insensitive. I’m sorry for that.
Again, I believe your story. Further, I recognize that you’re suffering a great deal of very real pain. I hope things improve for you soon.
Blessings,
Elizabeth
ANewLily,
Yes I do have custody of my children, but that’s not what they call it in my state. They call it “parenting time”.
I am dealing with covert aggressive ex. She is very angry that she lost HER custody motion, and I believe even more so that her child support obligation more than tripled as a result. These people do not want to financially contribute to their children’s lives. It is not my fault she doesn’t have the mother gene. She should have had her ovaries removed as a child.
We have a portion of our decree referencing minor children’s extraordinary expenses (school, sports, camps, equipment), uninsured medical expenses and medical/dental premiums. I continually have racked up expense for which she is supposed to share. She would drag her feet for months and month on disputed finances, try to deduct it from child, or even withhold child support until other items were reconciled. When the judge ordered the new child support amount, she interepreted that as all other expenses where not hers to share anymore. She’d fly into town to visit the children for the weekend, go shopping with them for a bunch of close that she’d send home with them, and bill me for half. We already have more than enough clothing for the children. I guess its her way to show them she is still mom, even though it is disneyland mom.
My children are with my ex in another state for the entire summer. My youngest, who has become very close with my new wife, only gets intermittent attention from mom, and they old child rules the roost in her home. This causes big problems in our home when they return. Now all three of my children have cell phones. We are having a great deal of difficulty contacting them at mom’s home. However, when they spend the school year with me and my wife, mom has them believing she is a victim, they feel sorry for her, and call her multiple times a day. She has them call her at 5:00 am her time to wake her up. She tells them she doesn’t have an alarm clock. She makes promises she doesn’t keep to them. She continually dangles the carrots to keep them engaged with her. It is so frustrating having to deal with their disappointment, but she somehow has the ability to talk them out of their disappointment.
AKA Bob – I have the same situation going on except my ex lives only 30 minutes away.
He told my son to never let me take his cell phone as a punishment…that he was to call him immediately if I took it.
He is refusing to take my son to baseball practice (All-Stars) because I won’t change the visitation time and let him come get him 4 hours earlier. He’s telling me that he’s going to fight for sole custody because that’s what the kids want and I’m unfit.
So, how did you win your custody motion?
Liz
” She has them call her at 5:00 am her time to wake her up. She tells them she doesn’t have an alarm clock.” ???
AKA Bob…wouldn’t it be “just special” if each of the kids got her an alarm clock for her next birthday or Christmas? And if SHE has a cell phone, maybe they could acqaint her with it’s “alarm” feature?
Sorry…that one brought back some hilarious “oversleeping” memories for me…thanks! Free at Last!
Kathy, a couple of questions for you. You wrote, “I was tired of being forced to collaborate with their denial just to have any contact with them at all. So I waited it our.”
1) Did you go No Contact while you waited?
You also wrote, “My son refused to talk to me for a couple of years, and it was awful. I thought …. Nothing like what I was imagining. And I kicked myself for “giving him space” for so long.”
2) What would you have done differently?
Even though our situations were different your post was meaningful for me. Thank you.
Betty, thank you so much for your affirming post.
I particularly agree with you that I think my children’s major problem was/is as you said,”… . It’s so ingrained in you, the way you see your parents [when you were a child} powerful and in control, that you’re still tempted to hold them to a much higher standard, and then condemn them rather harshly when they don’t maintain it.”
I am so sorry you grew up with an alcoholic father and particularly sorry that your mom had to endure it for her lifetime. She showed her own strength to accomplish that!
I almost think one of my confusing states while I (and our children) were living it was that there was no alcohol or drugs interferring — just the unknown elements of a Cluster B and one or two co-morbities personality. And for me, the physical abuse, always behind closed doors, that the children never saw.
I also hope that some of the posts about my situation are helpful in some way to Carla, who started this thread for advice about how to co-parent with her N/S/P.
I am grateful that I didn’t to face custody battles and a need to “co-parent” minor children. BUT, I am not sure I made the right decision to stay so long (well, I did think I might be killed if I didn’t) because I suspect that at least two of our children have adopted his faulty way of thinking — as if it is normal. They have no way of knowing it was abnormal because I didn’t know so I couldn’t tell them — until “too late.”
ANewLily,
Yes, I didn’t call it no contact. But once I got their initial reactions, which were denial-based, I told them it wasn’t good enough and that any further contact between us was going to have to start with their acknowledgement that I could not have been responsible for the incest and that it was unconscionable abuse of by a parent of a child.
That clarity with them was useful for all of us. It gave them a clear boundary to consider, which was quite different that me saying “I wish” something. And for me, it helped me to get clear that I was prepared to live without them, if there was no room in the relationship for my reality.
I always understood why my father lied, and why my mother accepted it. And in her case, I had some sympathy. It was why I had dealt with her denial for almost 20 years. I loved my mother and was grateful to her for how she struggled against incredible hardship to give us the best upbringing she could. The fact that she failed me in this matter didn’t cancel all that out. So I dealt with the his lies and her denial for all that time. But it had to end eventually, and my first therapeutic work with a childhood abuse specialist convinced me that I needed to sort this out, rather than continue to be victimized.
On your second question, I would have not left him alone in the silence, because I realized belatedly that I had made it about me. By that I mean, I interpreted the silence as his being mad at me, which fed into my typical “less than” feelings. So I sent e-mails and left phone messages, none of which were returned, and just waited and wrung my hands about what I had done wrong.
If I had to it all over now, I would interpret it as something wrong between us that I had a right to understand more about. And I would have jumped into the car and driven to the next state where he was living, and found out what the heck was going on.
I think my fundamental problem was being too respectful toward him and not respectful enough toward myself. He has a right to his own life and choices. But I have a right to care about my relationship with him and find out what’s going wrong between us.
This follows one of my new rules about confusing information from anyone. If I don’t understand what I’m hearing or what’s going on, I keep pressing until I do. Or in other circumstances — ones in which I am not permanently committed to care, as I am with my son — I am prepared to walk away from anything I don’t understand or to create hard boundaries about what I will and won’t participate in.
If he had given me any good reason for not speaking with me, including what I feared the most, that he had realized how much growing up with me had messed up his life and he didn’t want to talk to me until he sorted it out, I would have respected it. He has a right to make these decisions, and I would have supported anything that was clearly an effort to take care of himself.
But in not knowing, I did the wrong thing about making it about what was wrong with me, rather than him. And I made the mistake of not finding out that he was in trouble. I could have saved us both a lot of suffering, if I’d gotten over my fear, and just demanded to know why he wasn’t speaking to me.
I hope this is what you wanted to know.
Kathy
Carla
Must be hell when you have had a ‘charmed’ material life to be in the position that you are now but it was just an illusion. I don’t say this lightly – I know – I have been there. The overriding feeling I got from your original post is ‘fear’. Fear paralyses. S personalities are masters at instilling emotional and mental fear in their victims – I call it ‘mental handcuffs’. The key to all of this is overcoming your fear. Forget your perception of what ‘everyone’ thinks of his public persona – you KNOW the real him and this is your strength. Work on getting stronger. Take off the mental handcuffs that this sick S has had you in all these years.
You mention in one of your blogs that life seems SO dull. I went through this phase too – this too is part of the illusion. You bought into it because you were supposed to. Someone said to me when I was still in a terrible state of shock (once I had found out about all the other women, lies, cheating, manipulation etc) ‘honey, it’s not about you – YOU WEREN’T IN IT’. This was possibly the most painful thing for me to contemplate – how could that be? It took me a long while to grasp the concept that you could spend all those years of your life loving and caring for someone and ‘YOU WEREN’T IN IT’……… it made me very angry with the person (someone who really cared about me) who said this. But over time, I have come to realise that there are three ways that a sociopath quantifies another person: 1) they are useful 2) they are irrelevant 3) they are IN THE WAY. If you are USEFUL, they will say and do whatever is necessary to keep you around. If you are IRRELEVANT, they will ignore you. If you are IN THE WAY – you will be disposed of and they will resort to any manipulation/action to MOVE YOU OUT OF THE WAY. You have no value to this man – you are only relevant in the sense that, to keep up his public persona, he has to BE SEEN TO TREAT YOU DECENTLY because you are the mother of his children. He needs to keep up the illusion of his persona – this is YOUR strength also. You can use this in your favour once you are stronger. But you won’t be able to work on this until you BECOME STRONGER. You self-esteem /ego / status – all have been destroyed – this takes some time to come to terms with but it is NOT insurmountable – please believe me –
You sound like a very bright woman. One who has had her own sense of self ‘obliterated’ – the wearing down process that anyone who has been a victim of a S is all too familiar with. Concentrate on your own ‘truth’ not his lies Carla. Start by telling yourself that you cannot legislate for the deceit and tyranny of other people. All you can do is to make yourself so strong that it insulates against the onslaught of this horror of a human being. Forget all the toys, forget all the vacations and trinkets etc. You can go and get these for yourself – you may find, as I have, that all that glitters isn’t gold – coming out the other side of my nightmare, I have a much simpler life but my true treasures are the ‘genuine’ people around me, the peace of mind that I am getting mentally and emotionally healthier everyday and the comfort of having my self-worth and self-respect returning.
Children are very perceptive. The biggest gift you can give any child is a calm and loving home, where they feel safe and loved – even if that home is not luxurious or their lifestyle sprinkled with the flashy vacations and treats they may enjoy with their father – his mask will slip and they will start to realise, even if they don’t consciously know, that all he offers his superficial parenting – the true love, the unconditional kind is born of selflessness -you are bruised and battered – it won’t always be this way. Stick with the good guys Carla – the ones who tell you the truth – even when the truth is ‘YOU WEREN’T IN IT’. In time, you may come to feel, as I have, THANK GOD – If I wasn’t in it I am, therefore, not tainted by his evil – and manipulation of others is the true evil in our world – not things that go bump in the night!
HOW DO YOU GET STRONG? BELIVE IN YOUR OWN TRUTH NOT HIS LIES. REPEAT IT AS A MANTRA – your truth is what will make you strong. You children will NOT prefer him/his girlfriend (especially as she will not be the only one and they will see this too) because children DO have a knack of connecting and buying into the truth – get strong, stand firm, have faith.
All good wishes to you Carla – I will be tuned in to hear of your progress.
All love Escapee.
Samantha,
I want to confirm something you said. I think, when the kids are old enough to KNOW they should. It may mean that you need to love them “For two” or care “for two”, but I have to say this: My parents were divorced when I was four. I recall that my Mother put me in the middle whole lot and I felt that My dearest Daddy was innocent. yet, at FOUR I told him that if he truly loved me, he would have never left. My Dad took this as a sign that my Mom put me up to this and he stopped seeing me til I was old enough – 17. Well, let me say this: at 17 I met him and DID NOT like him. All throughout these years I met him fairly regularly, loved his family and really disliked him. Only now do I realize that he is a full blown narcissist, that my mother did me a favor by explaining things I needed to hear and that I did not lose anything by having no contact with the man. I told him two years ago that IF he wants to be in the lives of his grandchildren I won’t stop him, but he is way too late for me and I have no interest in that relationship. He decided this was too much and we have had no contact since then. Who knows, maybe, it is through trying to “find a daddy” who cheated on my mother and hit her that I found the P to fit the shoe. I will tell my children if I feel that something their father is doing is wrong. and my kids WILL confront him. If he chooses to change, that’s great. (and my older kids’ father) has had to take a painful look at himself and had made changes, but then again – my older kids’ father isn’t a P. We just grew apart many years ago…