LETTER TO LOVEFRAUD: I’m setting boundaries and he HATES it

Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following e-mail from a reader whom we’ll call Wendy.

I have read your blog so much over the last 3 years that it has become a very valuable tool in the fight against my sociopath ex. Forgive me for how I say this, but it is my weapon of mass destruction against him in my fight for my son’s mental and emotional well-being. (Baby is 2& 1/2.)

My story started early 2009 when I met my sociopath. It was a whirlwind courtship and of course he said all the right things to a single Mom whose husband had died 6 years before. I became pregnant later that year and that’s when my oldest child’s and my world flipped upside down. He began by accusing me of cheating, monitoring my Internet use, made sure my car was repossessed hence giving me no way out. (Or so he thought.) Luckily we hadn’t been together long enough for him to cut my friends and family from my life. But the night he told my oldest that she would have to find a place to live when the baby was born because there was no room for her, I ran!

Every dirty tactic

Since that night he has tried every cold, dirty tactic he can. He threatened to take custody of our unborn child before he was even born. It took 5 attorneys in the same office to convince me that being unmarried, he couldn’t do a thing until he proved he was the father. My pregnancy was still horrifying and I only gained 10 lbs the entire time because of him.

He would call at all hours, use facebook, email, text and spend hours and hours accusing, threatening and telling me how he was going to take our son and I’d never see the baby again. The more I cried and begged for him to leave me alone, the more he laughed and the more he said. I was a complete disaster.

Bigger nightmare

I found your blog long before my son was born, but I never really took it to heart. I did keep documentation, but only half heartedly, because I never really believed this sort of person could actually exist in the “real world.” Boy was I wrong!!!

Anyway, the state nailed him for child support within 3 months of my son being born. Then my bigger nightmare began. I kept telling my family that he couldn’t get any worse because he’s already destroyed me inside and my oldest. Once again, I was very wrong! He filed for full custody, requesting my rights as a parent be denied due to I was abusive, had no money and was a psychopath with PTSD.

I did have PTSD from watching my husband die, but I never thought an attorney would actually use that. His attorney did. After seeing what little evidence I had, his attorney at the time convinced him to settle and our agreement came out to joint legal custody, but I had primary physical placement. Of course I used the child support amount to get what I wanted, and dropped it by $300. Our order ended up vague and he has played that to the extreme.

Over the last 2 years he has accused me of crimes and told me I was under investigation. He has taken tag numbers of cars in my driveway, run my credit report, threatened to call my Postmaster (I work for the USPS), gotten our child kicked from 3 different daycares, the most recent is considering it. He’s been fired by 2 attorneys, 7 women have becaome my son’s “Mommy” and the list goes on and on and on!!! But I’ll tell the most recent.

Games at daycare

It is a law here that child care centers are supposed to have daily logs. Suddenly the ex decided he wasn’t signing it anymore, so they began signing his name and initialing with the teacher’s name. He went in one day and began attacking one of the teachers, saying that she was committing fraud and forgery and he would have her thrown in jail. Cussing and creating a big scene.

The entire time he was holding my son, in the class room in front of 11 other 2 year olds and a parent! The director got him calmed down and he apologized and left. Everyone wrongly thought it was over. 3 weeks later he still wasn’t signing the sheet and they were putting down “dad picked up/dad dropped off.” So he proceeds to go through the book scribbling through each section for my son. Jerked my son up and left without his asthma medicine since he was in such a huff.

The following Monday they tried to get the pastor to convince him to follow the rules and he balked at him. The conversation came down to being asked for my son to be removed and my ex’s response was “that’s her problem not mine.” Of course it is!

I found an attorney, once experienced in dealing with personality disordered people— she is even fighting one of her own family members with the same problem. And the next battle has begun. Since I filed and he can not go to the daycare, he has shown up 3 hours late 3 times and been a no call no show twice, again I had to call off work.

The last time he showed up late, I had already taken my son to daycare and the daycare and I both stood our ground and said NO! I told him it had gotten old and I was not going to be punished for his behavior anymore! I was losing money and looking at being suspended. I told him he would face the consequences since he wanted to continue being an ass.

He went storming into his attorney’s office yelling and throwing a fit. She became scared of him, but had already filed that morning to withdraw as his attorney. (God only knows what happened the night before.)

He told me I was out to ruin him and lose him his job and make him look like the bad guy and crazy. My response: “you’re doing a good job on your own, I don’t need to interfere.” I have gotten tired of him being late and using law enforcement to force me to do what he wants. Needless to say I, found out that standing my ground and trusting I was right worked. Law enforcement told him to show up on time and he wouldn’t have this issue!

Documentation

When we go to court this time, I have 2 years of documented emails where I used readnotify.com or Rpost to ensure my emails stay as they are typed. Even if he forwards them and changes the contents I have a proven certified copy of what I actually sent.

I have thousands of text messages, locked and on the original device, to prove what I actually wrote and every single personal conversation is recorded and left on the original recording device so it can’t be accused of being doctored. All the way down to the “nanananananananana blah blah blah blah, tongue spitting 2 year old sounds that the man makes every time I try to speak. Down to the “Fn B****, you’ll do this, that’s not how it goes” conversations where he changes the rules every 2 minutes. I even have his down right refusals to give my son his asthma and allergy meds on voice recording!

Setting boundaries

Why is he suddenly being so open and blatant about his crazy making behavior? Here’s what I think. He forced all conversations by phone because I was always able to call him in his lies and rule changing with his own written words. He thinks I can’t prove anything over the phone. So I finally made very little contact and when he acted like a child, screamed and cussed, I would hang up, when he called back I would listen long enough to hear “you’re recording this I know it,” I would say, “yes I am, I always do!” and he would hang up. I wouldn’t call back.

When he pulled his stuff at daycare I stood up and said enough! I filed for modification requesting a psych eval, all communications go through Our Family Wizard, co-parenting and forfeiture of visits for being 30 minutes or more late. In short, I’m setting boundries that are enforceable and he HATES it! Hating something for a sociopath is like a 2 year old temper tantrum. They want what they want and they don’t think about or care who sees them.

So at least with my sociopath, I have learned that the more I set rules and boundaries and stick with them, the more he doesn’t care who sees his true self. He takes a breather in between temper tantrums and tries to convince people it’s me, but more and more, they are becoming less convinced that it’s me.