Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following e-mail from a reader whom we’ll call “Ethel.”
I too married a Sociopath although it took way to long for me to see through the lies ”¦
I found out he had been cheating with numerous women ”¦ One day as he kept hanging up on me, I dialed his cell repeatedly in anger. As I kept pushing the #’s, miraculously, for some reason, his voicemail started to play and a woman’s voice was saying what time he should pick her up, what restaurant reservations were made ”¦
Well, confused at who it may be, I never said anything, but continued to check the messages daily. The messages seemed a little like business but I went with my gut and went online to check the calls being made. Well, just about 15 to 20 a day to the same few numbers ”¦ When I finally called the #, the message was a woman’s name on the message, and then the other # was her business, which I was familiar with, as she was a family friend.
Another woman
I was floored ”¦ I continued listening to the voicemails each day, as I was shocked and confused, til I encountered other messages at the same time”¦
Well, he had another woman calling who apparently just found out that HE was married with two kids, all the while he was dating her, for over three years telling her they were going to get married soon ”¦
This girl apparently had a nervous breakdown and even had someone else call and leave a message that he should give her $10,000 for her pain!!
I actually called the girl’s # and it was crazy that even after I explained I was going to leave him, I just wanted her to help me in court, to say that she knew the business he had was his, because he put it under someone else’s name, as sneaky as always, for whatever monetary reason ”¦
She wouldn’t help me and she wouldn’t even admit her affair to me, even though her message to him clearly stated it ”¦I couldn’t believe the hold he had on her after betraying her…
Juggled multiple women
Well that wasn’t the end. At the same time there was also the 2 girls in his office ”¦ one he just messed around with sexually once in a while, and the other he actually had an apartment with in another area, even though she was married a older tough guy ”¦ Who after a while just moved her stuff out of his love nest, which led him to have insomnia ”¦ I believe he actually fell in love with her …
It was crazy and hard to believe he juggled all this in at least 4 years or more and it never made him twitch”¦ When I confronted him he denied everything, never apologiised ”¦
I knew I couldn’t go on with this man. In therapy he lied and never admitted to cheating ”¦ He told people I was bipolar, which was a complete lie. I have never even been to doctors except for a once in a while flu symptom.
He was verbally abusive and never spent time with our kids ”¦ His excuse was always work. Never took us on vacations ”¦ kept with excuses until the time passed ”¦ everything had a delay or and excuse.
Divorce
After months of investigating who he really was, I had to decide … do I want to be married and unhappy or happy and unmarried ”¦ Well, I chose to divorce him and waited til my kids finished the end of that school year ”¦
That day he left our apartment at his usual time. I had the server serve him the papers to start the divorce and I changed the locks and had all his bank accounts frozen ”¦ He came home that night calling me from the front door, saying his key didn’t work ”¦I told him he can’t come in; it’s over ”¦
Fast forward to after the divorce ”¦ He chose to stay with the family friend who he cheated with and was dating throughout ( she was obsessed with him). Then one day, a few months later, someone said to me, I heard your ex got married ”¦ I said that he never mentioned that to me or the kids ”¦ so I asked him ”¦
Married again
He denied it until he came clean and said he did ”¦ I couldn’t believe he never even told his kids or invited them to the wedding ”¦ only to find out she was also 5 months pregnant ”¦ Needless to say my kids have gone through a lot of pain ”¦
He now has 3 children with her under 5 and he is over 50 ”¦ He is still a pathological liar. He always had an excuse for my children that he never made a room for our kids in his home because of space even after he had one child ”¦ He still makes excuses of why he can’t take them on vacations. He sees them only a few hours a week by his choice, using work as an excuse… It is very sad ”¦
I worked very hard to keep all this from them so they could have a good relationship with him despite what I feel about him and who he is … a child needs and wants their father ”¦ They ended up finding out what happened as they grew up and it was hard for them but I always encouraged them to accept him and their extended family … He hasn’t changed… although my kids now know his methods and they speak up and call him out on his excuses ”¦
If you ask how did I not see it earlier in the 13 years that I was married? Busy with work, kids and trying to make a husband happy, you tend not to see what is right in front of you ”¦ It was hard to see he had no heart and soul because a sociopath hides it well ”¦
Throughout my divorce I kept my dignity and composure. My payback to his new wife was letting her have him because people like him don’t change ”¦
Thank you for hearing my story”¦Believe it or not there is more to this story. I tried to put it in a nutshell but it makes my head spin to even relive the story
I’m so sorry this happened to you. Please know that simply sharing your story will help many people. Thank you.
Ethel,
I’m so sorry that you even have a story like this to share.It hurts beyond words to find out that you’ve been betrayed.And when there are children involved,it is even worse!
I have filed for divorce.We’re not going to make it to our 29th anniversary.Actually I left him Sept 27,2012.I did enjoy a 5 yr separation from ’03-’08.He managed to worm his way back in when I was vulnerable due to panic attacks;proclaiming he had “changed”.:(
I now know that it’s not happening!I nearly died before I made it out!I know EXACTLY what you mean when you say that you were “so busy with work,kids and trying to make a husband happy that you couldn’t see what was right in front of you”!So many people comment on why don’t we leave before we do.I like Elizabeth Smart’s comment…”that is offensive”!
Wow this story is another reminder of what I went through. Everything was right in front of my eyes and I “too” was busy with family and work and making him “happy”. I did not even know that he exchanged the nude pictures with a very young coworker for months. Him being a sheriffs deputy it is something that would have never crossed my mind. And how he lied in counseling, that it was “only” bikini pictures while I saved all the nasty pictures on a memory stick. I am sure there were many other women that I did not know of. But now since I filed for divorce and he is out of my life I am still thankful for these other women. They all contributed to my peace, my happiness, my sanity, my freedom. 8 months ago I hated them all for “destroying” my 20 year marriage. Now, I feel sorry for them. They will be discarded eventually when they no longer meet his “standards”. On the other hand I have my life back and I have my son who totally supports my decisions and also the no contact. You cannot hurt people that you supposedly love and treat them like trash. The consequences will catch up. Good luck to everyone.
I can relate to your comment of being ‘too busy’ to see reality. I think the sociopath actually relies on our being consumed with the daily business of child rearing, working, bringing home the bacon AND cooking it, washing the dishes and somehow getting bathed at night in order to collapse for a little sleep!
While I slept, my husband engaged in all night computer viewing of pornographic images, then he would gamble online.
I have learned that many of them stay awake all night and pursue their outside interests. When I logged onto our checking account, I discovered he had taken out a 25,000 loan with my name attached, of course. “Small matter”, he said.
As for the porn, he told me our son and his pal must have downloaded those images.
I did not believe him for a minute but I was too darned tired most of the time to deal with the mountain of issues he began to create. If I took the time to do damage control, I would have lost my job and ignored my kids due to the amount of energy needed to patrol this toddler-man.
Oh, what a living nightmare it was. Not fully appreciated until one has permanent space from them and freedom to sleep without fear of the next storm arising out of them. Until that moment arrives, we come to expect the constant drain on our energies which depletes us from any meaningful life.
Good luck, everyone.. save your persistence for the one who counts, yourself and any children.
I wonder if that was in fact just “loyalty” on her part—or whether she was afraid he might retaliate somehow if she betrayed him. I gather from what you said that he could be very nasty. Maybe she’d seen that side of him too.
With his multiple faults, you were well rid of him. Among other things, I take that to mean he cheated on his new wife as well.
Ethel,
I felt the same about those ‘other women’. Initially I was angry at them for prying us apart. But it wasn’t too too long after I gave him the boot, that I felt pity for them. I knew they would get the same treatment I had, and suffer all the same consequences.
You are right. These types don’t change. When I ‘got’ that these sorts are basically on automatic pilot, I let go of a lot of the emotional burden. I didn’t feel responsible for not being good enough. I could turn away from trying to understand ‘what went wrong’, and start focusing on where my weak spots were, where they came from, and how to heal them.
At the end of your story the people I feel most sad for are those little kids. I wish we could sterilize these creeps!!!!
“My payback to his new wife was letting her have him because people like him don’t change ””
This is exactly right. You can rest assured that she will suffer the same fate you did.
My spath was married and lying to me about it. He told me he was in the process of getting a divorce when I met him. And then he told me the divorce had been finalized. It was all a lie. The truth, which I found out from his army platoon sergeant, was that he was married but his wife divorced him for pathological lying. Then she remarried him. The army presumed it was so she can partake of his lifelong medical pension for her and their young daughter. However, the medical pension was based on fraud. He was faking a disability. They suspected it but they couldn’t prove it…….that is, until I came along. When he messed with me, he messed with the WRONG person. My friends and I all gave sworn statements of his physical health and prowess as we had all witnessed it. He was eventually charged with fraud AND adultery. I doubt he ever got his medical pension, though I have no idea how/if he was punished.
The reason I tell this story is because it became very clear to me that he and his wife deserved each other. They are probably still married. He probably still cheats, and she is probably miserable. And now they have to work for a living instead of living off the army. Poor them.
The sociopath I married embodied all of the negative aspects of a spath. But, because I had grown up without my father, and at that point had not healed from that, I had a furiously strong urge to have my daughter know her father. I now believe that she would have been better off not knowing him because he visited all of his sociopathy on her. Your boys might be better off with limited or no contact from him, or supervised contact.