An article in last week’s New York Times magazine contained the following amazing statement: “Repeating a claim, even if only to refute it, increases its apparent truthfulness.”
Although the article had nothing to do with sociopaths, the statement made me think of my ex-husband, James Montgomery. Among his many lies, Montgomery claimed to be a member of the Australian military, a decorated Vietnam War hero, and a member of the Special Forces. None of this was true, but from what I can tell, he’d been making the claims since at least 1980 (we met in 1996). They’d been repeated many times, for many years—which apparently enhanced their believability.
Like most of us here on Lovefraud, I felt like a complete fool for being so totally deceived. Why couldn’t I see the lies? But it turns out that I have plenty of company. Psychological research indicates that in general, people can distinguish truths from lies only about 53 percent of the time. That’s not much better than flipping a coin.
No signs of lying
Some people believe that there are physiological signals that someone is lying—for example, extraneous hand gestures or averting eye contact.
In one study, scientists asked more than 2,000 people from all over the world, “How can you tell when people are lying?” The number one answer was the same: “Liars avert their gaze.”
This may be true for some people, but it is not true all the time, and probably not true at all with sociopaths. Here at Lovefraud, we all have stories of the predator gazing into our eyes while he or she lied through his teeth.
Some researchers believe that liars tend to move their arms, hands and fingers less, blink less, and have more tension in their voices. Still, these behaviors are not consistent—some people who lie display them, and others don’t.
The point is, in hundreds of studies, researchers have found no reliable signal that indicates when someone is lying.
I don’t know, but I assume that the studies were done on general populations, and not populations of sociopaths. If we can’t detect lying in normal people, what chance do we have with sociopaths?
Truth About Deception
The situation gets even worse in romantic relationships. The reason, quite simply, is that we want to believe and trust our romantic partners.
“As people become more intimate and more emotionally involved they also become less accurate at detecting their partner’s deception,” states the website Truth About Deception. “People are too willing to give their romantic partners the benefit of the doubt.”
The Truth about Deception website is dedicated to explaining lies in romantic relationships, and the information presented is scary. For example, it states, “Most people think they are really good at telling when their partner is lying, but research shows that thinking you are good at detecting deception does not make it so.”
This creates, according to the website, a dangerous situation:
- As intimacy increases:
- People’s confidence at detecting deception increases
- People’s actual ability to detect deception declines
- Partners have more reason to lie
The website suggests that the only real way of determining if a romantic partner is lying is through some type of monitoring or surveillance.
Awareness, intuition, evaluation
So what’s the answer? How do we know when someone is lying?
The first step is to realize that people do, in fact, lie. That’s how honest, trustworthy people get into trouble—we don’t lie, so we don’t expect people to lie to us. This is a dangerous blind spot.
Our initial clue that someone is lying will probably come from our intuition. If we get that hit, that inkling, that the truth is not being told, we need to pay attention.
Then, we need to critically evaluate what is being said, along with evidence that proves or disproves the statements. When facts are irrefutable, we should believe the facts, and not the pleas of the liar.
Marie, seems like our situations are similar. If you want, you can email me at ciao_manhattan at yahoo. But yes, I know the feeling. The shame of this is, this man has fans who hang on his every word. Now granted, he’s lost a lot of them over time due to his flakiness, and chances are his act’s about to tank in the next year or so. There is nothing like a sociopath in the spotlight. Nothing. They are insufferable.
Amen to that girl! And it won’t improve once he’s out of the spot light for how ever many years, he’ll just keep on living those glory days like they are still happening.
Neverneverland, yes, it was a lie from the beginning to end. Why do we think they will never lie to us when we know they lie in other ways? I think it has something to do with that sheep article just posted! But as you lay awake each morning, tell yourself the movie is over. It wasn’t real, now the people have filed out and the screen is dark. You can go back to real life. Repeat as often as nessesary.
I’m still obsessing over mine, but some reading here has explained some things to me and I’m feeling a bit better and less like the stupid blonde in the horror movies who leaves a nice safe house just to run into Freddy Krueger. Hmmm, they even share the same last name!
I knew right from the start he was lying to me, but I went on with the charade. He was so confusing and I told him so but all the replied was “Don’t be confused”. I kept asking questions that remained unanswered and I just thought “oh well, maybe he will open up later and tell me what he’s all about”. But he never did. All he told me were lies, lies, lies. I met him on Perfectmatch, of all places. He told me he was self-employed, that’s a mild way to put it, don’t you think? Self-employed in scamming people is more like it. He took $20,000 from me. I will never see that money again. He promised me to love me forever. I haven’t heard from him in weeks. I found out that he was in Ghana while he was telling me he had a house in Ohio, a big house with everything a person could wish for in it, even down to the fireplace with a bear skin in front of it. He said he bought me a car, a promise ring. He promised to make me “the most happiest woman on earth”, I am now the saddest woman on earth, broke and looking for a permanent job. Broken, I should say.
I am still obsessing over him too, I want to find him and make him suffer as much as he is still making me suffer. Not a day goes by where I don’t say to myself that I will find him and make him pay for all the lies he told me. But I am sure the name he gave me is not even his real name. He gave me two bogus addresses, I had a background check made on him and yet, I fell for him. All the “secrets” he was supposed to share with me, I know them all now. I don’t know who he’s sweeping off their feet now, but I pity them because they will go through the same thing I went through and for the life of me, I want this to stop! This is so not fair! I have been nothing but open and transparent with him and I believed every lie he told me. I used to wake up in the morning asking myself myself “ok, how much money will he ask me for today?” Or “how long will I go on like that, running around like a chicken with no head, going back and forth between the bank and the Western Union office?” I’m 43, for crying out loud, I should’ve known better! I am so angry at myself! I don’t think I will ever stop being angry at myself for being such a fool! And I knew he was a con artist, I just knew it! But I went along with it! Why? Because I needed the attention? The “supposed” love he was promising me? I kept saying that my problems were over, I would never have to worry about money anymore since he claimed to be a millionaire. If he’s a millionaire, it’s from taking money away from people like me!
I’m glad I found this site but it makes me so angry to read that so many of us get caught in charades that lead to a dead end and there is really no one to help us. I’ve filed reports upon reports against him and still, nothing has come up. When will this ever stop?
Dear Lykastia,
Unfortunately, the Internet is the “happy hunting ground” for the Psychopaths to find prey.
It isn’t much consolation to know that you are NOT ALONE.
Yes, I agree, life is NOT fair, it is not right for people to scam and con others by holding out the “fantasy” of DREAMS of love, etc. to other people.
Being angry at him, and being angry at yourself is a normal reaction to being conned, to being hurt, to having something you thought you had in your hand “jerked” out from under you.
The fantasy he held out to you was the same fantasy that they all held out to all of us—what WE WANTED. We all fell for it, you are not any smarter or any dumber than any of us.
I don’t know if you saw the 20/20 show on television where a man met his “future wife” on an Internet site, she was beautiful, she was rich, she could pose for playboy and this guy was mid fifties, etc. and he divorced his wife, sold his house, sent her $40,000 and she was a MAN IN GHANA.
Everyone wants love, everyone wants to be special to someone, and they prey on this normal human need, that is in all of us.
Don’t be too hard on yourself, give yourself a break, read here and learn about psychopaths and what they are. There are worse stories than yours, and there are some not so bad. It just depends on where we were when we finally caught on to the LIE, HE IS THE LIE.
Your normal wish to find him and make him pay for making you suffer is all together the feelings that we have all had. You wouldn’t be “normal” if that were not the case, the thing is unfortunately, most of us will have only closure that we make for ourselves. There is not a great deal of chance that any of us will “get back” what they took from us, in terms of money, love, caring or time, but the one thing we can do is to heal ourselves. Learn from this and move on with our lives.
They find us when we are the weakest the most vulnerable. I was a fairly recent widow when my “prince charming” latched on to me. Set me on cloud 9, I was going to be soooo happy. This from a man I had casually known for 10 years and thought I could trust. Boy, O Boy! did I have that wrong.
Other women have been married to these psychopaths for 10, 20, 30 or even more years. So I count myself lucky that I didn’t marry this man….I can only imagine the pain it would have been if I married him and THEN found out the truth.
The BEST “revenge” is a Good Life, and while right now you may not believe that–you may believe that the best revenge would be bamboo splinters under his fingernails and toe nails, and I would be willing to bet there are plenty of us here who have wanted to do just that to our Psychopaths! But then we would be just like them—and we’re not. The reason that we were targets and prey is that we ARE GOOD PEOPLE, we are CARING people—and I would rather be a VICTIM 100 X over than to be a psychopath myself, and not be able to feel love, or caring, or hope or all the wonderful emotions that we CAN feel and they can’t. Can you only imagine how EMPTY such a person is—all the money in the world won’t buy him happiness, only THINGS—and believe me you got the best end of the deal! I know that sounds trite and patronizing, but I am as sincere as I can be.
You have found a good place for your healing here, and all of us have been where you are, hurting, sad/angry ashamed of ourselves for being so gullible, and every other emotion that you are feeling from minute to minute. You will find support here, come here often, read, learn and post–you would be surprised at how much it will help. God bless.
Lykastia,
I asked myself the same questions. I lost the same amount of money you did, sum total — a lot of it was not in cash, but in gifts and things he asked me to buy for him that he’d “repay” me for. I too am way too old to know better. There were times when I had those niggling questions in the back of my mind … “Is he taking advantage of me? Nah! No way! He wouldn’t do THAT.” I was so, so very wrong. I think everyone here got promises that turned out to be false. Everyone here was lied to. Everyone here was deceived. Everyone here was or still is angry and hurt in a way most people in legitimate relationships are *not* hurt, because of the treachery involved.
It’s hard to look back and see the past two years of my life as a sham. But that’s what they were. I expended every spare minute and dime on my ex. I have nothing for myself now. I’m all used up. I’m broke, I’m living with a roommate, and I’m barely making ends meet. Two years ago, I was flush, living in a big house, and planning vacations. It’ll be a long time before I recover from this …
As usual, OxD is eloquent when she says it all.
I just wanted to add that those Nigerian scam artists are REALLY good at what they do. They even managed to suck in the xs!!! He thought he was corresponding with this super hot chick, professing his love, talking about her to his family, trying to steal enough money to send to her- who really turned out to be a Nigerian GUY! hahahahahaha. That was an awesome spectacle to behold when the con man realized he had been conned. The fury. The outrage. The absolute hilarity- wait, that was MY emotion…ahahahahahaha! (The best part? He doesn’t even know I know about it!)
OxD, you said we need to laugh, which I wholeheartedly agree with… I laugh about the above every time I see him. (I have to see him because of the children- otherwise I’d be NC. I think the LEAST I deserve is to never hear his voice again.)
So, Lykastia, try not to be too hard on yourself. You know now what you were dealing with. Be sad, get mad (I found alot of healing power in mad for awhile) and then decide what you really want and need- take steps to get it. Sounds simple, doesn’t? LOL It’s alot easier than beating yourself up over and over again.
Thank you for your support, everyone. I do come here often and read about psychopaths, but strangely, it makes me even angrier. And sad. What hurts me even more is the lack of compassion of some so-called “friends” and family members. I wish I could talk to a psychologist but I don’t even have the means to do that at the moment. I feel so alone. It’s funny, because I used to feel good when I was by myself before, but now, I feel devastated when I go to sleep at night and wake up alone in the morning. I don’t know how to fix that. I wonder how long it will take me to become the happy go lucky person I was before that happened to me. I am just not myself anymore. I hate being in that situation.
Marie
“He had big ideas for ’his’ band too, all the time, plans, plans and more plans. He loved to feel in charge of everything even though someone else actually managed the band. He muscled in wanting to be the centre of it all.”
Wow, does that chord resonate – no pun intended. When I first started figuring things out, something similar was a huge tip-off. You know how when you’re being conned it’s really hard to see, right? So I only first spotted his lack of ethics when it came to the band he was in.
Here he joined this band that had been around for a long time. Lousy band…too many ‘musicians’ most of them fairly talentless, this old singer chick who was known for being a floozie and the leader, an old keyboard player.
Within scant months he was talking of leaving the band and taking many of them with him, away from the guy who created the band! And guess what? He DID it, eventually, after I left.
When he first started talking about it, I asked point-blank: “Do you always do such unethical things?”
He back-pedaled, but it sounded false. Was easy to see the ethics of the situation never crossed his mind. He was ruthless enough to just do whatever he wanted, everyone else be damned.
And I realized that “everyone else” easily included me. Sure it already did, in fact.
Now, maybe in business, people always act so self-serving and unethical. Really didn’t know. But I knew that being with someone who would do that was the wrong choice for me, and anyone who would do that kind of thing to someone else would do it to me.
Dear Lykastia,
I can “feel” the pain in your posts, and I wish I could put my arms around you and give you a real (((hug)))) instead of a cyber hug.
Even if you can’t see a psychologist at the moment, do come here and read and POST. I just read an interesting chapter of a book (posted link on this site) from the “Does WRiting help” and the writing, the “confessing” of what we feel to another apparently DOES significantly help us recover—I can testify that this and several other sites have made a big difference for me. It doesn’t matter if I am posting asking for support, or if I am posting offering support, the posting, the exchanging with others HELPS ME.
If I ask for support or questions others offer me a different way of looking at things, etc. If I offer support to others, I have to THINK about it and come to a conclusion in my own mind.
I found when I was in college I actually tutored other students in my class on the class we were taking together and it HELPED ME AS MUCH AS IT DID THEM. (Or more!)
Knowing that someone understands what you are going through is also a very healing thing. Your friends DON’T undertand, and neither did our friends and family. It seems to be one of those things that you almolst have to experience to understand it. It is NOT like a normal “break up” with a boyfriend or a business partner or whoever the Psychopath happens to be—WE HAVE BEEN DEFRAUDED, WE HAVE BEEN MISTREATED—AND THAT IS NOT THE SAME.
Our “wounds” are not “visible” like a broken leg, or a cut, they are INVISIBLE, they are INTERNAL and most other people can’t relate because they have only experienced “normal” break ups, and they think our “break up” is the same as theirs and IT IS NOT.
You aren’t crazy, or stupid, you are WOUNDED and you need to heal, and the “salve” you need to heal is to know that you aren’t alone, and that someone does understand and support you. Learn about psychopaths, and come here for whatever you need in the way of support or answers–and like my husband used to say, “ALL answers are free, and correct answers are too” or “we’ll always answer your questions and sometimes we might be right” (laugh)
Seriously though, there have been people here for us and we are glad to return the favor–because even helping others is healing for us as well. ((((hugs))))
It’s hard to sort the truth from the lies after a while.
Their stories seem so believable.