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.
Creampuff,
Your story reminds me of a couple of scenes from Devil’s Advocate, when the ‘women’ look in the mirror and monsters look back with their faces all contorted and grimacing. Evil.
Truthy,
It was a lovely spath-free weekend here. And we are sunburned. 🙂 And still not another peep from x P. I did not realize how much energy I was wasting worrying about the P texting me, because since I’ve put a block on his number, my phone is so much lighter.
op
op
Parallelogram,
lol!
we lived in a cabin in the woods. We also had a cat that was a prolific hunter. She brought in all kinds of things.
Of course, now that I know what the spath is AND know that he faked feeling anything… I can only wonder how often the bats were being brought in by him…but yes, there were bats flying around my property on most summer nights. They eat mosquitoes.
Then in July of 2010, over a year after I left him, he sent this email:
Most likely there was a kernel of truth and the rest was made up. A year later, I found a dead bat in my house. (I can’t help suspecting spath put it there) I wasn’t sure it was dead, so I asked BF to go pick it up. He did and then chased me around the woods with it.
😆
But anyway, this story is really a perfect example of how spaths think. They imagine things and then, instead of it ending there, they elaborate further. It becomes real for them. The lines between reality and lies are blurred, even for them. I’ll never know how much really happened. Maybe it all did. Spaths will sometimes tell the truth BUT their reason for telling the truth is a lie.
The story tells me that a bat did appear in his life and it reminded him of how he scared me with bats. So he decided he would do it again, with a story about bats.
op
Skylar,
As I read the last line of his email to you…”The moral of this story is keep your windows close at night.”…I felt this as a threat…and then to find a bat in your house…shivers.
Shelley
I actually panicked at the thought of the mistress being treated better too, when I first filed for divorce. I thought damn. all my hard work, all the effort and energy I invested in him, the family, the future, it’s all gone and now he’s going to go and give his “Best self” to some SL)T who sexually satisfied him behind my back for years. I gave it my all, not half assed, but 110%. But I realized the following and it all felt better….
If he can do what he did to himself, his children, (all 3 of them), to the mother of his own flesh and blood children, the lies the deceit, the betrayal, the abandonment,
then he is capable of anything negative and destructive to anyone. I am sure he told her lies to make it work in the first place and if the two of them have ANYTHING at all that is honest or real, there will always be an underlying distrust. There just has to be because they both know what they did that tore up our family, they both know how they justified their behavior and they both know they are sleezeballs. I asked him before I went NC “did the two of you EVER once even look each other in the eyes and verbalize how what you are doing is SO VERY VERY WRONG?” he said yes. But if that really happened and they can continue carrying on like barnyard animals eventually they will betray each other. So sure he might treat her better for little bits of time but it won’t last. If he was able to give up the family life he had, then nothing really matters to him. His life has no meaning.
I don’t want him any more anyway. Even if I thought he could treat me like a princess. My level of trust with him is irretrievably broken, busted, gone.
Hi everyone, new here and not sure how to post a new thread! Hope everyone is doing as ok as can be after a traumatic run in with a psychopath\narcissist.
I’m 23 and just left a four month intense relationship with a horrible person who put me through hell and made me feel as though I’ve been going crazy!
Luckily I read a blog by Claudia on psychopathyawareness and it all clicked! I realised what he was and why hed been acting so strangely. I then stopped responding to his constant texts and emails and have been feeling slightly more stable since. Every day is a struggle and I’m left feeling like the whole relationship was a lie. How will I ever trust again?!
The worst part is I literally can’t stop thinking about him, and the whole situation. It seems to be completely consuming my life. I was wondering if anyone else felt like this during the early stages of no contact?
I’ve been prescribed some anti depressants and was wondering if you all think it’s a good idea under the circumstances?!
x
Anonymouse, I’m so sorry that you had spath experiences, but glad that you found this site.
Since I’m not a physician, nor am I qualified to render any medical advice, I can’t comment on your query re antidepressants. Most people find that counseling therapy is of great help when they’re trying to emerge from sociopathic entanglements. Talking to a counselor doesn’t mean that a person is “crazy” or that there’s “something wrong” with that person. It simply means that the client is dealing with an emotional situation that they don’t know how to manage.
Brightest blessings to you
Skylar, I also had to read the email that the spath sent a couple of times. The DETAIL – must provide DETAIL about the episode! And, with what I know, today, I can read through the blah..blah..blah and see that he was still trying to manipulate where a person’s head goes.
That all of those pieces fell into place, later, with the bat in your place, really makes my hackles rise up. And, the boyfiend chased you around with the dead bat? I’m sure he’s history, too!
One thing that is consistent with all of our experiences is that the spaths maintain this constant state of anxiety. Whether it’s because they’ve had a “bad day,” “bad week,” or “bad childhood,” there’s this continued sense of drama. If the environment seems to be “dull” to them, or they aren’t getting the attention that they feel entitled to, they will GENERATE a trauma/drama to get that level of stress back up to a frenzied pitch. This is absolutely consistent with ALL of our experiences that I’ve read.
My eldest son is doing that with his younger brother. They’ve been remaining in contact, this whole time, and one thing after another seems to happen to the eldest son. A broken tooth, a sick pet, vehicle accident, something is ALWAYS happening, and it sends my younger son into a state of anxiety: he’s got a tremendous trauma-bond and shame-core that he has not yet identified (if he ever will?), and his older brother uses both of these issues to his advantage. And, what is THIS all about: the older brother now has a scar across his face from a “soldering iron accident,” according to my younger son. The older son has never had a problem with self-injury, and I believe that he deliberately caused his near-fatal accident, last year.
Skylar, with regard to anxiety/stress, how are things for you, today? I know that the spath is very, very dangerous – do you still experience heightened anxiety? I know that I do, from time to time, and I don’t even have “proof” that the exspath had my demise in the offing, though I firmly believe that he did. Do you find yourself experiencing hyper-vigilance? I ask because there was a point that every little thing that was out-of-synch was attributed to the exspath, and this would further increase my sense of anxiety.
Boy, oh boy….the damages that they inflict run far deeper than anyone that “doesn’t get it” could begin to imagine.
Brightest blessings