Lovefraud recently received the following email from a reader:
I always knew there was something wrong with my ex-husband, and friends and family did as well. There were lies, gambling, cheating, drug use, rehab 3 times, head games. He would drive erratically with our son and I in the car (even when our son was very little). He would speed up if there was a cat or other animal in the road. I would always completely freak out so he never ran one over when I was in the car, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did when I wasn’t. (I could tell his counselor in rehab #3 knew there was more to his problems than just drug addiction.) He was clean for a long time and that’s when I realized it wasn’t the drugs. He has always been able to get his way and talk people into things. I always made excuses and actually made myself believe he would grow out of it as he got older. But I did not pinpoint what “it” was until discovering Lovefraud.
I’ve been divorced for over 2 years now and my ex-husband is remarried to someone with 2 young teenage children. I sometimes get obsessed thinking about whether or not they are happy. I often wonder if he’s better to her than he was to me. I know our 22-year-old son feels somewhat replaced and like his father just moved right on with no problem (which I know is typical of a sociopath). I guess I need some reassurance about sociopaths in second marriages from experts to put my mind at rest. My ex has a history of lying, cheating drug use (actually got more sociopathic after he got clean and sober for over 8 years). About 6 months before I filed for divorce, he told me he gets a rush out of getting away with things and it’s gone on since he was a kid and he doesn’t know why. I just want to know that his new marriage is not all candy and roses. Can you address sociopaths in new marriages on your site? While I know I sound a little pathetic, I think it may help many.
Put your mind at ease: Your ex-husband does not love his new wife. He will never love his new wife. The reason is quite simple: Sociopaths are incapable of love.
Acting the part
Now, they are quite capable of acting like they are in love. They can give a command performance of heartfelt sentiments and promises of endless fidelity. But it is an act, and when the partner no longer serves a purpose for the sociopath, the act will end.
The new wife, of course, does not know this. So while your ex-husband is acting like he is in love, the new wife may legitimately be in love. She may be happy. She may be thrilled. She may believe that she’s found the person she’s been waiting for all her life, and all her dreams have come true.
Your ex-husband will nurture her dreams, at least while she still has something that he wants, which could be money, a place to live, or a facade of normalcy should he start using drugs again. After all, he gets a rush out of getting away with things like deceiving the new wife.
Truth revealed
Eventually he will revert to his true, miserable self. But even as the wife starts to see the same lies, gambling, cheating and drug use that you saw, for a time she will overlook the behavior, or support her man as he goes for a fourth round of rehab. For a time she will continue to believe the act.
Sooner or later, however, your ex-husband’s mask will slip again, or he will completely remove it. When she sees the truth, she will experience the same pain, devastation and betrayal that you experienced.
He is what he is
You need to get to the point where you thoroughly understand that he is what he is, and he will always be what he is. A snake is always a snake. He will not be a snake with you and a teddy bear with her.
Your ex-husband is a sociopath. Sociopaths are fundamentally different from the loving and empathetic people who make up the rest of the human race, and there is nothing you or anyone else can do about it. If you think of them as aliens, you aren’t far off.
Once you viscerally understand this, your obsession should come to an end.
Truthy,
What an interesting story. He was skeerd of you.
I can add that after the P’s mask fell with me,(and I still went back), we were supposed to meet some friends of mine that P had never met, and P asked me in a little boy voice ‘what do they know about me?’
Truth,
we all bring our own experience to the interpretation of your story. My experience was with a spath who has NO ability to feel anything. He has no startle response but he is diligent about faking it.
I can’t tell you how many times he would act freaked out about a bat. He made a big production about telling me that peach fuzz gives him the shivers. There were lots of situations where he made an award winning emotional performance. So how do I know they were fake? Because of the over all pattern. The few times he dropped the mask, the pattern became inconsistent, therefore I know he was faking the majority of the time.
Considering your story, I noticed you said that you’ve worn that makeup many years previously and he didn’t react that way. I believe that your spath was just trying to put his own mask on more firmly in your mind. By acting scared, he made you think that he had emotions. He doesn’t.
Shakespeare described the 180 rule perfectly when he said, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” When you see someone over-reacting, that means that the opposite is true.
He might have seen you as mirroring him. Or, perhaps he saw you as his Jungian shadow. That part of him that he tries to keep hidden, but emerges in the likes of someone else. What is even more ironic is that you wore a mask and the mask was scarey. In the spaths case the mask is safe and sane and normal…it’s the true nature underneith that’s scarey. Again, it’s opposites day.
It’s creepy whatever it is! Funny, too!
Thank you for all of the insight – each point is valid! Kim, I like the Jungian shadow consideration – his mask had been ripped off a few weeks earlier, and he was well aware that the shit was going to hit the proverbial fan, but he just wasn’t able to manage the timing.
OxD…..it was probably the ONLY time during that marriage when I felt that I actually had any control over any given situation. LOLOLOL
A pox on that rat bastid! LOLOLOL
thats why they wear mask – they dont have a true identity – when we see through the mask they find someone new and wear a new mask – rinse and repeat – each new mask is nothing like the last – they are chamilions – changing colors to fit each victim – when they dont have a victim or a mask they are terrified of the truth – so they seek out fresh humanity to devour. thats what they do – thats how they survive – wearing mask.
op
I thought ‘projection’. He knows what he is capable of, and he saw it in you.
I read Danger Has a Face today and there was a line about psychopaths being helium balloons, they have to protect their empty inner selves else they can’t float amongst us. It also mentioned fighting with a spath like being in riptide, if you fight, you never win, but if you surrender (and preserve yourself), you will bob back up to the surface safely.
Parallelogram………..how skeevy that must have been?! He could probably FEEL the vibes, and I DO believe that spaths experience fear of exposure. Wow…..I take courage in your experience – I’ll be seeing the exspath for one final time in Court, and I don’t even want to hear the sound of that conniving, spath voice, much less lay eyes on him.
Karma, that sounds reasonable. I would almost have agreed that he might have been acting, but he had never taken on that roll, before, EVEN when there might have been good reason to express fear. I believe it must have been the mirror – he looked like a 2-year-old that just met Mickey Mouse at Disney World……
And, I’m not even ashamed that I got a kick out of his reaction. (snort)
Wow….that story about the make up is so cool…..wonder what was going on in that head of his? I will never forget the time my spath step daughter made sure myself and her mother in law were NOT invited to a recital her daughter was having. So we conspired behind her back (the spath hates us both) to go anyway…it was one of those priceless moments !!! We walk in together, spath is sitting right there and we both just turn around smiling and wave at her…..YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN A FACE CONTORT LIKE THAT…..to this day it was the strangest thing I have EVER seen….her whole face turned into what I can only describe as a demon…..it was fierce….almost like smoke coming out of her eyes…they turned into these beady little dark slits and her lips got so tight….! It reminded me of a human GPS screaming…..”recalculating, recalculating”…We walk calmly by and find a seat….in about 1 minute she gets up, comes over to us and her face has totally changed into the fake, happy face….she’s like….”Oh, I’m so glad you all made it” and she proceeded to sit next to us like she was our best friend….that was truly a glimpse into the mask falling …but they are swift about putting it back on…they don’t like to be blindsided…..but to watch a sociopath get caught so off guard…well, it was something I will never forget….! Just for a split second in time we had the upper hand….probably the same feeling you had when he was spooked and hugging the wall…..love it …..