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Hello, thank you in advance for any help or advice you can share.
My 75 year old father is in a destructive relationship with his sociopathic second wife who is 20 years younger (her 4th marriage). Family can see what is happening but our father is sadly caught in it – is desperate to have a wife (doesn’t want to be on his own), is embarassed by the situation he finds himself in. He sometimes seems to see it but then shifts forcefully into deep denial. As family we feel quite unable to say much about it in fear it will just drive him further into her arms and away from his family. She already outted us years ago and continues to try and isolate our father from us his children.
How best do we help our dad? How can we educate him before its too late? we fear losing our dad as he is also showing some signs he might be ending towards dementia. At the moment his doctor seems to think it is stress caused by his toxic marriage – but who really knows. All we know is she continues to play games with him. They don’t currently live together but she will come on to him, he gets all excited that they might be able to patch things, then she discards him again. He’s gotten to the stage he is over the moon if she even calls him for a couple of minutes for a chat about nothing much. His expectations of her are now very low.
It would be tempting to sat how can he not see it..? But I know you all understand how easy it is to get caught like this. I know, I was in a relationship with one too, for a couple of years until I realised what was happening.
Now how do I/family help our aging dad. It really worries us to see her working him as she does 🙁
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Livvie – I am so sorry for your situation. The best thing you can do is maintain contact with your dad. Be around him as much as you can – loneliness is a key vulnerability that sociopaths exploit. The most important thing is to prevent her from isolating him from his family, which is a standard tactic employed by sociopaths.
It may not be a good idea to point out how disordered the woman is – at least not until he’s ready to hear it. This has the effect of making him defend his desire to be with her – which is probably addiction, more than love.
The following article may help you. Be sure to read the links and comments.
https://lovefraud.com/2012/03/05/does-anything-work-in-getting-a-victim-away-from-a-sociopath/
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