I can’t believe it. Almost five years ago, in August 2005, I blew my sociopathic ex-husband, who was impersonating a war hero, out of the water in Australia. Recently, he tried to go swimming again in the same water.
For those of you who don’t know the story, I launched Lovefraud because my ex-husband, James Montgomery, took a quarter-million dollars from me, cheated with at least six women during our two-and-a-half year marriage, had a child with one of the women, and then, ten days after I left him, married the mother of the child. It was the second time he committed bigamy.
One way that Montgomery was able to gain my confidence was by pretending to be a war hero. He told me that he’d served in Vietnam as part of the Australian military. He’d won the Victoria Cross—the Australian equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor. In fact, he was still in the military when we married, going on clandestine operations with the Special Forces.
Yeah, right.
All lies
The man I married, I found out far too late, was a sociopath. Before my devastating experience, I didn’t know anything about sociopaths. Once I learned that there was a clinical explanation for his reckless, abusive and unconscionable behavior, I knew it was a story that needed to be told.
So I built Lovefraud. At the same time, I contacted Australian and New Zealand Military Impostors, an organization that outed military frauds. I sent them the documents Montgomery had given me to prove his service and heroism. They were all forged. The military guys posted the truth on their website, www.anzmi.net, at the same time that I launched Lovefraud.
The media picked it up. On August 3, 2005, the Daily Telegraph, a Sydney tabloid, ran the story:
Meet Major Fraud
Life was pretty straight for advertising executive James Alwyn Montgomery—so he turned himself into Major Montgomery, secret agent and Vietnam war hero.
He forged identification cards to support an elaborate story that he was a member of Australia’s elite Special Air Service Regiment and the U.S. Army’s top-secret Delta Force.
For more than 20 years he has claimed he served in Vietnam for both Australia and the US. And was even awarded our highest military honour, the Victoria Cross.
But now a Vietnam veterans group has exposed him as an impostor whose only military experience was drawn from movies.
James Alwyn Montgomery was busted. He was sacked from his job as a student radio station manager at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, Australia. Then I forced him into bankruptcy.
James continues to troll for new victims on the Internet. Since Lovefraud went public, six women have contacted me from Australia. They met him; he tried to hook up with them; they Googled him; they found Lovefraud; they dumped him.
While I was married to the man, he insisted on being called “James Montgomery.” Well, now he calls himself “Jim Montgomery.” I’m sure it’s an attempt to keep people from finding him linked to Lovefraud.
Back in the news
Two weeks ago, I heard from a contact in Bathurst, Australia. James Montgomery was in the news again. He had the audacity to move to a new town—Katoomba, Australia—start telling people his fabricated military tales.
Here’s the story in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Alleged military fraud reappears in NSW
James Montgomery has reappeared in the NSW Blue Mountains five years after his military background was exposed as fraudulent.
Montgomery has been peddling his story of working for the CIA, SAS, ASIO and British military forces along with winning the Victoria Cross around Katoomba in recent months.
It is an offence to claim military service and not have done it.
Senior Vice-President of the Katoomba RSL Owen Wood told AAP Montgomery had tried to join the club in March.
“He won’t be bloody joining,” Mr Wood said.
According to anzmi.net, Montgomery was telling his tales in singles groups. A man who had actually served in Vietnam noticed that there were problems with his stories. So the man checked him out, found him listed on the fraud-busters site, and blew the whistle.
I have to admit that, even after all the stories I’ve heard about sociopaths since Lovefraud launched, I was amazed. Montgomery was totally, convincingly, exposed as a military fraud, yet he started spinning the same BS again.
It’s further evidence that sociopaths don’t change. And apparently, they can’t come up with new ideas either.
Hi Everyone!
Panther back in the house 🙂
I agree with everyone here. I want to doubly thank Donna. This site snapped me out of it in dealing with my ex. I truly believe it saved my life.
I just wanted to put my two cents in, which is that more and more I am starting to really think that spaths are voids (translation: morons). I think they are painfully lazy, so making up a new story is too much work. This guy might even half believe his crap. Etc etc etc. So many things come to mind.
However, I’ve been contemplating something lately. Do you suppose that spaths assume we are all full of bs too? Here’s how I figure: they don’t know what it’s like to be in our shoes, to have identities that actually correspond with reality and accomplishments that we’ve actually worked for. They have little or zero concept of this. Therefore it’s impossible for them to respect anything we are or anything we have accomplished. Do you suppose maybe they just assume that everyone around them is making everything up too? Do you wonder if they don’t ask us questions because in their mind, we’re just like them, our whole identity is bs, so it’s just a matter of who can get what from others. They fear that our only motive is self-gratification, because that is their only motive. It’s a game of who can fool who better, and the gloves are off. They might think they are living in a jungle.
My ex certainly expressed this view in many ways. He seemed to think that the whole world was full of selfish, evil people who breathed only to exploit each other. This is why he said that I was stupid for being so honest with people, so caring, etc. He said I clearly couldn’t see reality for what it really was. Perhaps that is why they have no problem exploiting others. They assume everyone is doing the same thing they are.
On another note, everyone keeps using this word: TOWANDA
What the heck does that mean?
Panther, you could be right about their attitudes.
“TOWANDA” is the “battle cry” made by Kathy Bates in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes….someone some time here (can’t remember who) started using that and we picked it up as the unofficial “battle cry” for LoveFraud bloggers!
Glad you are getting better and having more ah ha moments. That’s what happens when we are NO CONTACT, we can start to see them for who they really are. The FOG (Fear, Obligation and Guilt) lifts and we can see clearly again!
Panther,
I think you are mostly right. They project their own mindset onto everyone else.
But the spaths are able to hold 2 contradicting ideas in their heads at the same time, without a problem. So they can lie, know they are lying, and believe the lie at the same time. They do this by knowing that they are lying, but they tell themselves that they believe the lie, so therefore it must be true. That’s spathalogical.
So, based on that, the spath can believe that we are just like them, but at the same time, know that we are not. They hate us for having goodness and trust and they believe that we deserve to be duped for it. At the same time, they can’t imagine what it must be like to be us, so they believe we are just like them.
After I figured out what a spath was, I was having an argument with my mother about my spath brother and spath sister’s behaviors. I can’t remember the exact topic, but suddenly she says, “So you expect me to believe that you’re the only one who —” She stopped suddenly, because she realized she was about to let her mask slip. She really had no idea until then, of who I was. She thought that my persona was a mask, like hers.
Holy shinanigans Skylar! That part about your mother! Wow! YEAH lady, she’s the ONLY one who….
Not to say anything bad about your mom. I know how hard it is to have an spath parent. I both love my father and will never speak to him again for the rest of my life. Your story of your mom reminds me of a similar run-in I had with my father. It was groundbreaking for my relationship with him, but unfortunately it didn’t prepare me for other spaths.
We were arguing about who knows what. I cannot remember. Then he started glaring at me and doing his typical melodramatic semi-growl as he said, “No one, absolutely no one, ever does anything for free.” For years, he had me completely convinced that if I ever disagreed with him about ANYTHING he would beat me to a pulp. At that moment, during that argument, I was SO SICK of hearing about how he was gonna beat me to a bloody pulp (his exact words) that I wanted him to actually just DO IT and get it OVER WITH so we could move on. I basically lost my fear of physical harm and got to a point where I would have preferred getting my ass kicked to submitting to his mental bullshit anymore. So, I finally spoke up. I said, “That’s not true. Some people do things for free. Some people do things because they care.” He about lost it at that moment. He said, “Tell me, with you at age 14 in all your INFINITE wisdom, how is it possible that YOU can know something that I don’t? Look at YOUR track record!” Then, I looked right at the beast, and I said to him, “Because I do. I do things for free, without expecting something in return, because I care.”
Silence. I waited for him to hit me, but it was like I had somehow caused him to malfunction. He didn’t even respond to me. He just stopped talking completely. I left the house that day and have never since lived with him another day in my life.
I agree that they hold two conflicting truths at the exact same time, yet I have no idea how they manage this. It seems like a major logical flaw, and one totally obvious at that.
Do they hate us for our goodness, or do they think it’s OUR “superficial charm” as well? Your mom’s slip is very interesting. Makes me just want to hang a billboard on all the highways reading something like:
ATTENTION SOCIOPATHS!
YES, YOU, THE LIAR WITH THE FAKE IDENTITY AND FACADE.
YOU ARE THE MINORITY. MOST OF THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SOMETHING CALLED EMOTIONS AND ARE ACTUALLY TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT WHO THEY SAY THEY ARE.
DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS CONSPIRACY?
TOWANDA TO YOU BUDDY!
Ox, it’s as reliable as the sun rising. Anything that comes from his direction towards me throws me into la la land. A couple times I thought that no contact was established and he popped up on the radar again through a door I forgot to lock. It doesn’t even matter if I respond to it, so long as it breaches the barrier.
Now it’s been 2 days of total silence and already the pain is flooding in again, but I know that means I am closer to reality. I can see clearer, and most of the time I am wishing I didn’t….but also know that I must.
Panther, the “truth will set you free, but first it will pith you off”—truth is painful sometimes, but it is the only thing that WILL set us free from the bonds to the liars. Hang on to the truth!
Panther,
As far as who is the minority, spaths or us, the jury is still out for me. Every day, it seems, I discover a new mask, or I remember another person who was tortured or killed by a spath. I’m trying to think of who I might know that is normal, but I can only think of a couple. The spaths I’ve met, far outnumber the normals.
The only reason I’m not totally panicked is because I don’t really know very many people, since I’ve been living in the woods most of my life. And I also think that I attract spaths, so that might explain the numbers.
Hi Skylar,
I understand what you mean, but I think that you might be overgeneralizing some people. Then again, I don’t know the people you are referring to. It may be exactly as you say. But I also think there are people with masks who are not spaths, people who might do spathy things that are not spaths, pathological liars who are not spaths, bipolar people who are not spaths, and then of course autistic people who could display some spathy traits without being an spath. Crazy does not equal sociopath. My grandfather is the sweetest, most genuine guy. But he thinks there is gold buried under the airport, that he can sell his beat up old van for $14 million, and is angry with the color green. He also chased his own sister around the house with an ax because he thought she was the big bad wolf. He once shredded a bible, claiming that he was Jesus. He’s assaulted cops, broken into my mother’s home and then called the cops on himself, and run through the neighborhood naked (he says that then the deer are not afraid of him). There are so many different kinds of abnormal that I’d be hesitant to call anyone an actual sociopath until I was really sure.
I’d like to think that the people who get the sociopath card are the ones who are permanently wired that way and have absolutely no empathy or concept of it whatsoever. It seems like a loaded condition and the people that I know who really fit it are rare. Maybe I got lucky and “your neck of the woods” is full of them. I dunno. Just my experience is that they aren’t so common, but common enough to scare the crap outa me.
Yeah…maybe you attract them. Remember that study which found that spaths could better spot someone who had been victimized just by the way they walk!?!?! That study made me pay attention to how I walk!!! Haha.
Oh, can you see me walking around thinking this while looking at my feet, “Oh, crap. Am I doing it? Am I doing the walk? Are there any around here? Do they know?!?!?”
Then I laugh at myself. How the freaking heck do they know?