Lovefraud recently received the following email:
I was previously married to a sociopath, and we have a 4-year old son together. I have sole legal and physical custody of our son, but have been fighting to reduce the amount of visitation for quite some time. I recently read that having a forensic psychological analysis done on the entire family would reveal that my ex is a sociopath and possibly prevent him from having ANY visitation going forward. Is this true, in your experience? Do you have any advice for me as I embark on this process?
Many, many Lovefraud readers have realized to their horror that they’ve had a child or children with a sociopath. Once you realize that your former partner has a serious personality disorder, and that this person is incapable of feeling love, even for the children, your natural instinct is to want to protect the children from him or her.
Figuring out how to do it, however, is incredibly difficult. Following is a list of points to consider whenever you are contemplating legal action regarding your sociopathic partner and children.
The sociopath
1. The sociopath’s objective is to win whatever he or she regards to be winning at the time. It may mean not only winning the court battle, but winning in a way that leaves you crushed, broken and destitute.
2. The sociopath is capable of doing absolutely anything in order to win. This includes lying under oath, accusing you of doing things that you never did, convincing other people to lie (knowingly or unknowingly), falsifying documents, threatening you and the children, and more.
3. Sociopaths often love going to court. For them it’s great drama, an opportunity to be on stage, and they are terrific actors. Sociopaths can break into tears, crying about how much they love and miss the children, even though they totally ignored the kids while you all lived together, or perhaps even abused them. They can discuss your “mental problems” in a voice dripping with concern, even though the only thing wrong with you is him or her.
4. Sociopaths usually pursue child custody for one or both of these reasons: They want to maintain control over you by controlling the kids, or they don’t want to pay you child support.
5. A typical sociopathic strategy is to keep dragging you into court simply to cost you money. The idea is to bleed your finances until you can no longer afford to fight.
The law
6. Here’s information from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the fundamental liberty interest of natural parents in the care, custody, and management of their children. This protection does not disappear simply because they have not been model parents or have lost custody of a child temporarily.
Know that if you’re attempting to keep your partner away from the children, Constitutional Law is not on your side.
7. No provision in the Constitution says children are entitled to loving care, or even safety, from their parents.
Judges
8. In Family Court, judges are the kings, and you are a serf. Judges have wide discretion to decide what will happen to you, your kids and your money. Their decisions are law, and other judges are loath to change or reverse any court ruling.
9. Most judges do not understand sociopaths and how they behave (just like everyone else in the world including you before you met your partner). Many judges believe that sociopaths are hardened criminal or murderers. So if you say that your partner is a sociopath, and he or she hasn’t killed anyone, the judge will likely think that you are exaggerating and are simply being vindictive against your former partner.
10. Most judges, like most people, believe that children should have both of their parents, so they often want to keep both parents in the lives of children. Even if a sociopath has physically abused the spouse, if the children themselves haven’t been injured, and sometimes even if they have been injured, judges may not keep the kids away from the abuser.
11. Numerous scientific studies seem to “prove” that children do better when both parents are in their lives. Unfortunately, most of these studies do not consider whether a parent is disordered. On the other hand, there is very little research indicating that sociopaths make terrible parents. So you may go to all the trouble of proving your ex is a sociopath, only to have the judge say, “So? That doesn’t make him (or her) a bad parent.”
12. You can line up all your proof, evidence and psychological reports and a judge can disregard all of it, deciding your case the way he or she wants to.
13. For all of these reasons, who you get as a judge matters a lot. When you know whom your judge is, you should find out everything you can about him or her. They are supposed to be impartial, but that isn’t always the case. Some judges are biased against men. Some are biased against women. Some judges will listen to kids, some will not. This person holds your fate in his or her hands. If you know the judge you will be dealing with, take that into consideration before deciding how to proceed in any matter.
Lawyers
14. Be very, very careful about choosing a lawyer. Some lawyers are dedicated to serving their clients. But some lawyers are only interested in making money. You should shop around and get referrals preferably from someone with a case like yours. If you feel at all uncomfortable with a lawyer, or if you feel that the person does not believe or respect you, do not retain that lawyer.
15. In dealing with a sociopath, lawyers must be up for the challenge. They must understand that the sociopath will stall, delay, fail to produce documents and ignore court orders. Lawyers should never assume that sociopaths are going to do what they’re supposed to do. Sociopaths believe that the rules do not apply to them.
16. Somehow, many sociopaths manage to find sociopathic lawyers. This means not only will the sociopath do anything in order to win, but so will the lawyer.
The court industry
17. The court sometimes isn’t just the court it’s an entire network of psychologists, experts, guardians ad litem, parenting coordinators and others. In some cases, all these people just keep each other in business at your expense. (Read yesterday’s article: Connecticut parents say court-ordered expenses bankrupt them.)
18. Research shows that whoever pays for a report gets the report that they want.
Psychologists and other experts
19. Many psychologists do not understand sociopaths. They do not understand the experience of being targeted by a sociopath. They do not understand how sociopaths affect children. If you are going to retain a psychologist, make sure they get it.
20. Sociopaths are quite capable of manipulating psychologists. Sociopaths can play the victim, talk about loving their children, paint you as the person with problems and some psychologists will swallow it all, hook, line and sinker.
Justice may not prevail
For all of these reasons, you need to have your eyes wide open before making any decision about embarking on a court action. You cannot assume that your experience in court will be about doing what is right, discovering the truth or protecting the children.
Going to court is always a crapshoot. It may cost you thousands and thousands of dollars, and you may end up with nothing.
Therefore, pick your court battles carefully.
This makes incredible reading and boy do I wish I knew then what I know now! Our divorce took over two years to complete (two very acrimonious years) and probably around £28k on my part even though we didn’t actually have a final hearing. It never made sense to any of us why he would continue to battle on. What I was suggesting was totally fair and resonable. In the end we settled outside of the final hearing. The settlement he agreed to was EXACTLY what the mediator had proposed in Jan 2012 and yet it had taken vast amounts of money and another year and a half to agree to the same.
I couldn’t bellieve it when after that he came to clear some belongings from the house and I overheard him boasting to his friend about the outcome. “you had a right result there then didn’t you?” his friend said, and he was full of himself. But truth is, he ended up with less because he himself had a 17k legal bill.
He had lied non stop throughout, forcified papers, ignored court orders, even had friends produce letters about loans which were not true. Throughout the whole two years (and still) he ignored the children, even though living under the same roof for most of the time and yet in his narrative he harped on about how he needed a 3 bedroom house, the same as me, to house them.
It beggars belief but it is all true.
Hi – i have just read your email and am so shocked at how close your story is to mine !!
I am now years past our divorce – but like you it cost a small fortune and we ended up with what the judge would have decided in the first place.
We went to magistrates court over domestic violence – he had been violent to one of my children too ( he had a caution for that) and this was taken into account.
The court case took 2 days and he just stole the show ! I was so bruised afterward – more so that the beating I had got. I had records from the doctor, the police and photographs – but he still got acquitted.
When eventually I asked him how he could have lied at court on oath he said and this is just poetic
“IT WAS FOR THE GREATER GOOD”
I used to think he was aspergers and to some extent still wonder if that was his problem rather than a sociopath, and I still try and read up to work out which one he was. I am not sure why I am so interested, perhaps its just my mind needing to make sense of it all.
He bought himself a ‘people carrier’ in the belief that he would be taking all three of our children and his girlfriends child out.
Sad man now is still motoring around in it – empty of people ! poetry again
I have learned a lot and am so happy to be apart from him – I just wish he was not the father of my children and that I had been more discerning
Kim
All of this reminds me of my soon to be ex wife. There were no children between us thank God. But, She LIED her Rear end off at every turn. She told me that she was divorcing me because I was sick and wouldn’t get any help. Hell, I am going thru a cancer scare, and she has no sympathy at all. She told the cops she had an order of protection against me when I went to get my things. I would have walked away empty handed if the police didnt know me personally. They spent the good part of 30 minutes screaming at her. LOL
Sociopaths will do ANYTHING they deem necessary to get what they want. They will even hurt themselves just to say that you did it. If you are in a relationship with one, cut your losses and run, hard and fast. I wish I had.
phillip, that all sounds familiar.
Mine put a protection order on me years ago, I came back a week later (before knowing she had one on me hadn’t been served) brought two cops and she refused to let me get the rest of my stuff even with the cops pleading with her to just let me get them.
She waited almost 15 mins the night they were called before proceeding to tell them I broke her ribs, when they checked her out I could tell by the look on their faces they knew she was lying, so one of them cornered me and talked me into leaving for a couple days to let things calm down (I think he knew she may do something nutty and get me locked up)
This last bout we had a month ago,,she came after me 3 times before I got out of the house (no hitting, just grabbing, scratching/pushing, and a kick) then emailed me saying I left bruises up and down her arms and the only reason she scratched me was cause she was trying to get me off of her, all I did was push her off me once, and the other two times I just held her still so she couldn’t do anything until she calmed down.
Now im getting the silent treatment as she expects me to “fess up” and apologize and come crawling back begging to come home (I stupidly did this a few times in the past) it only empowers her to escalate the behavior as she knows I wont leave.
After spending four years with a sociopath,I am torn between testifying against her. While she was with me, she tried to poison her then husband three times, first, she tried to load him up with caffeine to give him a heart attack, that didn’t work, then she bought 200 oxycontin 80mg off of the internet, and crushed them up and loaded his food up with them. She turned him into a drug addict and divorced him because he was a drug addict. She got 3000 a month in support and made him go to rehab. She was telling me this on the phone and I felt like I was in a nightmare. She would say ‘ I hope it was enough this time to make him od”.I asked her ‘what are you going to do if he dies?” her response..’I will have him cremated and flush his ashes down the toilet’. WOW, this is a good guy who gave her 22 years and 4 children, and a dream life. I always wondered when she would do it to me..well, it took 4 years until I was him.
Donna,
Your response to this woman’s question was excellent. Over and over, I have seen children taken from their loving mothers and given to fathers who are on the record pedophiles and abusers. Why? Money. Our courts are now corrupt and justice doesn’t exist.
The good old boy network is alive and well, too, where police and officials love to “put a woman in her place.” Then there are the women who want to gain favor with men by hurting a woman, too.
There is an organization in Minnesota working to take family issues out of the courts. It’s called Family Innocence. You can find it on the web.
This really is incredible reading and good advice. I got my divorce almost 6 years ago and can only say that when it comes to lawyers, be very careful. The soon-to-be-ex will likely seek out a shady attorney, a pit-bull, someone similar to his/her personality.
Divorce and custody issues are much worse in today’s court systems. You’ll probably benefit from researching for your own attorney and seeking out several recommendations, then consulting for some time with the attorney before you commit to one. I believe many lack a grip on what sociopathy is unless they had to live with one, too. Same applies to many healthcare providers such as psychologists. Keep looking until you find someone who fights for you as divorce is a horrible process to encounter in court these days.
Yes – be sure to find an attorney who (if s/he doesn’t understand what a sociopath is) is empathic to you, patient, detail oriented, and aggressive. I’ve worked with my attorney for twelve years so far, in the aftermath of my divorce. There were no custody issues because my ex quickly abandoned our children after he had done the same to me. (I was lucky in that way!) I’ve been working all these years with my attorney to collect child support and school tuition payment which my ex had agreed to in our divorce settlement. Yes, it has been costly, but the alternative – not to fight for my kids, would have dogged me all my life. At least I know that I’ve fought the best way I can.
My attorney and I work as a tag team. I have learned to keep precise records, I have learned to keep my cool, I have learned how to wait, I have learned to not let my ex’s sociopathic attorney bully or intimidate me, which she does through threatening letters. She’s also threatened my attorney with “sanctions”. It’s a perpetual game of seeing who will blink first. I have learned to stay cheerful despite their nonsense. I have learned that I have to release feelings of anger and fear and not live in the past. It’s been character building. I have to frame it positively. Mostly, I’m hugely grateful that my ex and his toxic wife are not in our everyday lives.
Advice to anybody going through the legal process: Stay positive. Try to glean the benefits from any part of the odious process. Being positive is the best revenge.
Good luck and stay with it! And at night, jot a list of the character assets that you are developing. That way you’ll “win” no matter what any court or dysfunctional system produces or doesn’t produce.
Firebird – very, very sound advice.
I have learned so much during the last 3.5 years. Firstly I slowly and painfully discovered the truth about my ex – it was an horrendous experience and Kim, I to, wished many times that I could have been more discerning and even then, blamed myself (well old habits die hard!) but I no longer think its about being discerning. Its about being hood-winked. I was with my ex over 25 years, married for 23 and yet for most of that he had totally fooled me. It was only really in the last 10 years that I started to see real cracks but the truth didn’t really reveal itself until the last three.
Luckily for me there was never a question of custody as my children as they were 15 and 16 when this started. He had assualted my son – not seriously enough for the police to do anything it seems but none the less the kids were old enough to make their own decisions and since my daughter witnessed it, neither would chose to live with him. He knew that and never even tried. He had pretty much washed his hands of them anyway when he started having an affair, it was the first glimpse of something wrong.
However, even though he knew that and wasn’t speaking to them (literally), when it came to court he would claim our living needs were the same as they would be staying with him. In fact, he went one better and claimed that he needed a larger percentage of the pot to enable him to buy a 3 bedroom house outright with no mortgage because he had no ability to get a mortgage and I could get an 80k mortgage which would enable me to buy a 3 bedroom house! He later also tried to suggest that he may have to claim maintenance off of me because he had to give up his career as a builder due to injury. (This of course was rubbish. He was and still is earning money as a builder and also a personal trainer and teacher of martial arts!) Lies, lies and more lies.
It shocked me again and again, this man that I had thought – if nothing else to me anymore – had been an honest man. As far as I know, he’d never been in trouble with the law and had decent morals!
How wrong.
From my own experience and everything I have read on this site so far I would absolutely reiterate what Donna has said above regarding sociopaths and court!
I remember one of my worst moments was a few days before our final hearing was due and I had a conference call with my solicitor and barrister who was basically saying he didn’t think we had much chance of getting what I felt was fair because of my exes ‘financial situation’ – and I said “but he’s lying, we all know he’s lying, surely any judge will see that.” and he said “I have no doubt that I can show he’s a liar within 10 minutes of being in the court room but it doesn’t change anything.” I was stunned! It was like I’d been hit by a truck and dragged down the road. I felt finished in that moment, totally broken.
Thankfully, I got over that hump like I have all the others. You learn, you get stronger.
I totally agree with what firebird has said. Moving on, moving forward, remaining strong and positive is absolutely the only way you can ‘win’ and if its what you’re after, I don’t think there could be a worse revenge!
Unfortunately there are too many armchair psychologists out there, even those with degrees! If you’re emotional in court or stressed out and your lawyer doesn’t “get it”, he or she may think you are the one with the problem. My experience has been that the healthier person will submit to psychological testing and the one who will not submit has something to hide. This however is not necessarily a good thing as even if you are diagnosed with depression and anxiety which are common for someone whose been under duress, those test results can be used against you in court.
Also, even if you order a custody evaluation psychological testing may not be done! How the hell can you determine if someone is mentally fit to parent without extensive, objective testing? Knowing that psychology is a soft science, a psychologist has to use all tools available to do their job competently and it really takes time to talk to and evaluate people as we can be very complicated.
Thank you all for sharing your experiences! It is beneficial to all Lovefraud readers who are in similar situations.
whoops sry, i pushed on wrong button and accidentally reported ur comment, donna!
anyway i am looking for help in how to proceed in social security for the kids. their spath-dad is going to be getting SSI or SSD or something soon and they can get money too. he pays me nothing so it wud be awesome to get this. HOWEVER he wants their SS#s. There is no way he can have that info. He was dumb enough to leave without trying to get it–cud have looked in the file cabinet but that wud have required forethot and effort, neither of which he is good at. His loss. If he gets the SS#s, he will sell their identities, use it himself to get utlities on, etc. Is there somehow Soc Sec can keep it from him? Does anyone have any experience with this?
Thanx
Hélène
Thank you all for your comments, I am in a situation where I now know what I am dealing with before potentially going to court. It honestly scares the crap out of me because I have seen the incredible acting acting job, the crocodile tears, the obvious (and continuing lies) she has foisted on me. I am trying to figure the best way to get out of this relatively unscathed. If anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate them. We are in the midst of a divorce, it is amicable so far – she said it was due to religious reasons, but I know the truth is far different (immigration fraud)
It is a good idea for everyone to save or print this article and read it if you ever find yourself contemplating filing a lawsuit, or if someone threatens you with litigation. Donna’s descriptions are very accurate and her advice valuable. Trust me, I’ve lived it.
I have read reports from a forensic psychiatrist that was duped by a sociopath. It was horrible. I’m not sure how you can ‘vet’ them before hand but it may be worthwhile. I noted that he seemed to feel the need to find something of what the creep said to be credible and have seen that before. The psychopath then kept the doctor on that path, the doctor even took him as a client for counselling – horrible conflict of interest.
In Canada if you make a settlement offer that is more than what was awarded by a judge there are penalties, I believe it was double the costs. Not sure if that included lawyers fees.