Editor’s note: The following email was sent by a woman whom we’ll call “Eralyn.”
I have been “lurking” (I guess it’s called) your site for quite some time. I want to thank you for your website as I am grateful to see people who know and understand the insanity of all of this.
I have decided to write to you as I read the posts of women who have very young children with a sociopath and they sound so much like me a decade ago that I cannot in good conscience keep quiet. While I don’t want to cause any more fear than they are already living with, I do want them to be warned and keep their guard up. They need to know the way things are going in the court system down the road.
Poking holes in the condom
My daughter is 13 years old and I have owned a small business for 21 years and a home for 18 years. Not so much as a traffic ticket and I have been a single mother for the entire time. I got pregnant by an out of character fling. I found out from his best friend “for some reason he’s picked you and be careful as he’s the type to poke holes in a condom.” I didn’t take heed to the warning and there I was. My spath said his best friend was a pathological liar. He was the liar. I found out much later.
During the pregnancy, I believe when he realized I wouldn’t marry him or the permanency of his actions, he made threats to cut my baby from stomach and kill us all. I found out when a SWAT team was at my home to save me. He was sent to an inpatient mental hospital and diagnosed with BPD w/anti-social traits and much, much more. Chronic Auditory Hallucinations of the devil.
I found out what I was dealing with over the next year or so and had the baby, I also thought, as your other posters say, that if I didn’t ask for child support, or if I played this a certain way, he’d leave us alone. My baby is the love of my life even at 13years old. I had 3 years orders of protection, was harassed, stalked, physical altercation and threats of harm, while attempting to raise the child on my own and remain sane. He wasn’t on the birth certificate. He would call here and there after his drug life increased and I would simply appease him until the next time he called, never asking about the child.
Father in jail
He was finally incarcerated April of 2007 on several financial felonies. (relief) He sent me a letter after being in for 2 years and no contact. Someone gave him my address. Said we’d be together wholly and completely as he had prayed for 680 days. I responded forgetting who/what I was dealing with, to please just leave us alone. (He thanked me for the scent on the letter; there was no scent.)The child doesn’t know him and he has brought nothing but drama, trauma and upset to our lives.
This started the next 3 and a half years of the destruction of our lives through family courts in Arizona. He filed from his prison cell for all rights and had a “senior pastor (of a home church) licensed professional counselor, expert witness” who had been involved in our lives when the baby was an infant, write a letter on his behalf. It took 2 years for the state to investigate this psychologist/pastor due to my complaint, and he has since lost his psychology license and is of the same caliber of person as the father, only cleaner cut.
His letter caused much damage to our case. The father’s criminal record, mental record, domestic violence against me—all of it was disregarded by the courts as “too old.” Two months prior to his release from prison, he became the “prison chaplain clerk.” He was released 8/09. He appears to have gotten so much backing nobody can believe it. He was filing 3 to 5 (many of them perjured) motions per week from his prison cell starting 4/09 and then came court.
Well-rounded child
I was terrified. This little loving 10 year old had to find out her father was a criminal who was just being released from prison and demanding to be in her life. I knew it was revenge. He called his aunt and said, “We’re going to prove her clinically insane.” It was laughable at first. I never came up for air in the first 2 years and screamed and cried for help begging, as I knew he was going to emotionally abuse this child severely.
She was a “well-rounded, pleasure to have in class” little girl who didn’t know about the evils of these types of people. She helped the handicapped children at school, was an honor roll student and a purple belt heading to her black belt in karate. Our whole world imploded. He appeared to have financial backing of “fathers’ rights attorneys,” “faith based prison reentry program,” “work reentry program making $180,000 per year” (he had never made $40k per year) federal funding?
Reunification
I was ordered to provide any and all medical records of mine to the courts from my whole life, including 8 years taxes, 8 years bank statements, business and personal, ordered to counseling and so was the child, due to her resisting reunification. I was blamed for his telling the child of his prison history, drug history, crimes and a picture he showed her on his phone at their first meeting of his butt! This was told by my daughter to his aunt and not to me, so you’d think they would’ve believed it. He told her I wanted to abort her (a threat from birth out) and she was not aborted because of him and sucked the joy and peace from both of our lives. Plus much more.
At one point I had to defend against emergency psych exam for me and put child at risk of foster care until I could be evaluated. At least my attorney told his attorney that she was bordering on misconduct, although it seemed like the border was gone. This attorney had something to do with the home church.
My daughter became suicidal and self-harming and her grades dropped. She quit karate. She stopped helping kids at school. This nightmare is unbelievable to anyone who hasn’t dealt with this type of monster and the way the family courts facilitate this abuse on to unsuspecting honorable citizens. The reunification therapist “was right with her God” and wrote 8 letters against the child and myself as she bought into the father’s early arrivals so “he could pray” before meeting with his daughter.
Terminate the rights
Ok, so needless to say, I am getting upset telling my story. I want you to tell your readers and mothers whose babies have been the light of their life with a sociopathic father that ANY loophole or opportunity to terminate the spaths right’s should be taken. All the healing they have done is at risk if their guard goes down prior to their children’s 18th birthday. This can happen to them.
We are mere shells of the people we once were. I have basically lost my business and I am trying to save our home. The courts won’t help if spath comes back with a better story years from now. They have rights and God forbid they learn more criminal behavior and get the benefits of being a criminal who has done just enough time to get all the backing of the system.
My daughter finally recorded one of the abusive reunification sessions where they spent an hour arguing and bashing me, and I was sanctioned by the judge, accused of “wiring my child” and being the most reprehensible mother his attorney had ever had contact with in family courts????? I had nothing to do with the recording, but it stopped this particular therapist and I agreed to a sanction so the child would never go back to that therapist again.
Child is traumatized
The new one sees the truth and has told the courts how traumatized the child is from “whatever happened in the prior sessions,” and we are waiting on the judge’s recommendation for the child. The father would still like to see her after he quit the meetings in May when he realized this therapist saw through him. (It disgusts me that I am used to referring to her as “the child,” now since every word you speak is subject to scrutiny in this terroristic court system.)
We have 5 more years it appears, and there is so much more to this story. I am grateful I could come to Lovefraud and at least know others see these cruel creatures for what they are.
Thank you, Donna. I am giving you this info so you can decide if or how you may warn or help the mothers who are fighting to protect their young children. I thought I was safely in the clear and had done everything right and recovered for the most part from the trauma of the beginning with this man. It just didn’t matter. There is very little help for us.
Eralyn, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the horror of parenting with a sociopath never ends….! My husband ‘s ex wife(she has been diagnosed as a sociopath with BPD and narcistic behavior)have 2 children together, and even though one in now 21 and the other is 16, she continues to be a major influence in their lives and warped, negative attitudes toward my husband…they are scared for life and there is Nothing legally the courts will do about it , especially since they do Not recognize mothers as sociopaths.The only advantage you have which isn’t much is that the courts do tend to listen to the claims that a “father” may be a sociopath. My advice to you make sure you do not complicate things by parenting out of guilt because you divorced him and you feel guilty as far as your children are concerned, they will use this throughout their lives and see right thru it. My stepchildren are very entitled and spoiled because this is what my husband has done.. he parented out of guilt…now, when they don’t get exactly what they want from him they don’t speak to him for months or years. Their “mother” has screwed up their heads through out the years so badly that they choose to continue to treat their dad bad and with continual disrespect because this is all they know and because they can. She has lied to a church they joined years ago, and defrauded 24K from the members by claiming they were broke and living on the street.(even though we were paying for them to live in a 200k home for 3 years with $4400.0 worth of her bills monthly). The kids lied right along with her, this is how they get thru life and get what they want form people to this day! She has lied about our relationship, she has lied about her dying to her entire family including the kids, has had an affair while she was married to my husband, you name it, she has done it, yet the kids idolize her and despise him. He has always been in their lives and has never not paid child support 1 day late…none of this matters, nothing he does is good enough…ever. We are taught as good parents never to give up on our kids, but what does one do when they refuse to see you and give up on you. At 16 and 21 , they cannot be forced to visit. You, being their mother have another advantage, you have them the majority of the time…just remember, no matter how horrible their dad is, whatever negative comments you say will come back to haunt you. My husband and I have never spoke bad about his ex, and his kids still despise us. You will never be capable of thinking like him so don’t be surprised when he pulls his sociopathic stunts, just try to stay a step ahead of him to save yourself and your kids, and so you know what is coming next…good luck and God Bless Beth
Eralyn ~
Thank you for “lurking” around LF and seeing the need to tell your painful story. I understand how upsetting it is to talk about some of the horrors you have encountered.
I am so sorry about how the unjust court system has effected your dear daughter. I understand, my 11 year old grandson has been effected in same way.
Absolutely, 100% – the word needs to get out to all that are just beginning this journey – use any “loophole”, any window of opportunity, any means to terminate their parental rights. READ the laws in your state regarding parental rights, READ any and all court cases (especially State Supreme Court Cases) that pertain to this subject. EDUCATE yourself.
Again 100% on – family courts/ JV courts are only interested in what happened in the past 2 to 3 months. If the spath screws up, ACT right then, because months or years later won’t even be considered.
Don’t ever fall for “best interest of the child” – “perjury” – “credibility” – they may be thrown around on court TV programs, but they don’t exist in the real world.
This may be an unpopular belief, but I don’t believe there is anything we can do to “change” this pitiful family court system. It basically comes down to a “game” similar to politics. I think we must carefully study how and why spaths make out so well in this system and STEAL THEIR GAMEPLAN, because ours sure ain’t working!
I wish strenth for you and your daughter Eralyn. Again, thank you for sharing.
Bethv, Thank you for your comment regarding 18 not being the magic number. I am hopeful she is free at that point from the sickening fear of forced reunification in our state. She never knew him and he promised me she would hate me by the time she was 12. Well he gave it his best effort in her first year of “deprogramming” reunification by trashing me and anyone she loved but because I had never spoken badly of his family or him, it made her hate him. He told her she was someone she wasn’t because she expressed dislike of him. The system blames this on the mother or father who the child is bonded with when in fact she was 11 and fearful and then disliked who she saw him to be. In our state they actually send these kids to deprogramming camps which is a forced facility of putting your feelings in the past and or ignoring them all together.
It sounds like your husbands ex had the opportunity to twist up the kids by having a relationship with them to begin with. It’s really a no win deal for all. Although they are determined to win in their own minds. I won’t guilt parent. I am struggling parenting at all at this point. But I hold my daughter accountable so hopefully that will prevail.
Milo,
I believe the courts must change this crazy immunity afforded to these overrated, overpaid court facilitators who have harmed these kids and these camps should be shut down. It is such child abuse kids have died and one has even been shut down due to the mother having enough evidence of the incompetence and the terrible abuse her children suffered that she won a lawsuit but they of course went bankrupt leaving nothing to help with the ongoing psychological help these kids end up needing.
Also, I have done tons of research on how this bizarre court case could go this way and have learned much about the federal funds in the billions of dollars are being pumped into prisons under the guise of getting single mothers off of welfare and fathers into their kids lives but unfortunately the psychopaths/sociopaths etc are utilizing all they learn in prison for their revenge. That money must stop in the way it’s being funded. They are getting attorneys fees paid while the parent out here who was single income has to find a way to fight to protect the child/ren and many are just losing these children to men who took classes in prison and weild their bible along with a 12 step book and they’re good to go up against a law abiding successful parent and the destruction begins. I am disenheartened by the years of efforts made for change and screams for accountability to no avail. I was even invited on the Dr. Phil in the beginning of my case and he appears to have dropped the ball on the people who were brave enough to tell their story. Fathers Rights were all over his show complaining for equal time and Dr Phil appeared to go the other way yet again.
I hope we all get through this and beating them at their own game is unfortunately the only option or waiting for our sentence to end……
Good luck to all, Eralyn
Eralyn ~
Don’t get me wrong, I also believe the courts MUST change, however I have all but given up on the hope that they will. My parents were foster parents and heavily involved in custody cases 50+ years ago, they had the same complaints and noticed the same injustice and abuse by the system back then.
I was unaware of the funding to prison inmates and how it is being misused. How utterly outrageous.
We had paperwork disappear that ultimately vacated a custody order that we had for over 5 years. Turns out our attorney, at the time, exposed some of the JV Judges for some unethical practices. They sought revenge and we were forced to live the nightmare all over again. Second time around we got a GAL that decided my grandson should be removed from our home, placed in a foster home so that he could be “made” to reunify with his abusive, druggie, prostitute spath mother. Like your daughter, he was resisting and we were blamed. The magistrate we got was one who had been removed from our first case because we proved she was prejudiced against us.
The quote of the day had to come from a court investigator who made the statement about my three (3) year old grandchild – “why are you worried about him, he is almost four (4), by then he can take care of himself”
As I write this, my grandson is 11 years old and is struggling emotionally because after the reunification process was complete mommie dearest decided she wasn’t interested in him anymore. She also abandoned a three year old little girl. She has been arrested 3 times in the past few months for prostitution and drugs (crack). She is awaiting sentencing. Oh, the GAL from Hell just represented a man in a custody hearing who ended up killing the mother of his child.
I hope your sentence ends soon – respectfully – MiLo
Eralyn
I’m so sorry what you’ve gone through. You are a brave woman!
You are right about the funding. It’s as if being bad and criminal gets you rewards, and good, honest and integrity gets you punished. Something similar happens to education (sorry off topic) where all the teaching programs and grading is mediocred for the children who do not wish to learn at all and prefer to run havoc in class, while the children with an appeitite for learning end up being forgotten and ignored.
It’s ok for society to want to make society a better place, but not at the cost of those who are already actually putting in their weight to at least make their home and family a better place.
Thank you for writing this article. It made me cry as I have always tried to hold on to the belief that somehow, some way we can get out from under the family court orders and insanity that they allow. I can’t allow things to feel hopeless, although they do.
Yesterday I saw my therapist. Had never done therapy before but am realizing that it is needed. She specializes in helping people who have been traumatized.
I poured out my feelings of desperation, the need to escape and helpless feeling as I am court ordered to turn my young son, who is terrified of his father, over to spath. I asked her what the he** do I do?? How can I make this stop? I just want to run away I (almost) give up and am at a point where I am not sure how much longer I can do this. It has been seven long years and I don’t even know the person I used to be.
The therapist paused for a minute and then she said to me, what do you think things would be like for your son if you gave up now, if you stopped doing all of the things you are to help him get through this? What does that look like for him? That is all she needed to say. Of course I can’t give up or give in.
As far as the family courts go, if everyone on the planet ‘woke up’ to the atrocities that are happening every single day, it would still likely take 10-20 years to see any kind of changes. For us, right now, we need to be aware of the reality of things.
I remember talking to a gal a couple of months ago who was complaining about what a dead beat father her children had. I told her to count her lucky stars that he is not pursuing the children. She looked at me bewildered. Not even sure how to begin to explain the nightmare of the family court system to someone who hasn’t been through it.
It has been thoroughly proven that past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior. Although this is true, the courts really only want to hear about the ‘here and now.’ He hasn’t beat you lately, so that doesn’t factor in. Although one might argue that, ‘hey the restraining order is working!’ When spath was charged with child abuse the family court magistrate ordered that visitation continue and that my then five year old had completely unsupervised visits with spath. Are they surprised when children are then killed by these monsters.
Looking for any loopholes to get out is good advice.
Being entangled with an spath with children is like being in prison. If you can escape, run, run, run!
Dear BethV,
In your post I hear the pain of both you and your husband about his children. There is, unfortunately, a BIG GENETIC component of psychopathy, as well as being raised in a dysfunctional family, so his children have had the “double whammy” and there is NOTHING that your husband can do to change that.
You talk about people telling you to “never give up on your children” but sometimes that is just what we MUST DO. I have a psychopathic son, Patrick, who is in prison for murder, and in the summer of 2007 he sent a man to kill me and probably the rest of our family, so that he (Patrick) could inherit the totality of our estates. Fortunately, it didn’t work, and the man was found out, but he (PaTRICK) Still continues to be a danger to us and will as long as he lives, even though he is currently still in prison.
Each time he comes up for parole I have to fight to keep him there and even then it is likely he will be out in the next 5-10 years….in which case bothh of my other sons and I will most likely go back into hiding again.
No matter how good a man your husband is or how much he tried to be a “good father” there is NOTHING else he could have done to change what his kids became.
I suggest that you and he get some counseling and learn to be at peace and to realize that the kids are3 “adults” and that they make their own decisions, and frankly, I think that them “not having anything to do with him” is a blessing, not a curse. God bless you both.
Dear Earlyn,
Thank you for writing this article. Milo has also been “used and abused” by the courts as well as AnnieO, and both are still fighting the courts and the psychopaths and their attorneys, so you are NOT alone. I was fortunate not to have to fight a P “co-parent” but I AM still fighting my egg donor who is giving money etc to my psychopathic son Patrick to try to get him out on parole, I am fighting his parole release so I do have some idea of your frustrations in dealin with “the system.”
God bless you and your daughter and good luck!
Ox Drover and Eralyn, Yes, Ox Drover, I know in my heart of hearts that letting them go because they are adults and almost adults may be the answer, and yes, sometimes circumstances like the genetic transfer of psychopathic tendencies prevails in the children of sociopaths and they turn out like their “sick” parent showing no empathy or regard for truth or love of anyone. I too am caught in the middle, I feel for my husband but I realize also, that he is much more able to accept this fate. I am a mother of a whole, wonderful, mentally healthy 27 yr old daughter, which makes it even more difficult to imagine the entire scenario. He is mor3e accepting of their disregard for truth or their father than I am. He has somehow developed a protective trait that heals him and makes it semi ok, I am still working on this myself. To all of us that fall in love with a person who has been devoured by a sociopath in a previous relationship, know that it takes tremendous strength, trust, patience and love. The fact that my husband and I are two very different personalities does give us strength, we draw from each other. I have studied sociopaths as a sort of armor to protect my husband and I and to make sure I am always prepared for what she is yet to throw our way once again. In a sick kinda way, I have had to get into her mind to understand how she thinks to protect us…this in turn has kept her at bay after many years of her constant badgering us and trying to tear us apart…it has backfired and made us stronger as a couple. As far as his 2 kids, 21and 16….they have a long teaching road ahead of them, society will not accept their lies and continuing attempt to use society for all they can get, they are both pros at this, they learned from the best. I am so sorry to hear about your son Patrick, this is proof the legacy never ends…hopefully he won’t have any children, and this will stop the cycle here. Pain is something that is constant when we are a part of this evil…it tears at all of us involved…and yes, all we can do is learn to heal ourselves day by day and let it effect us less…..God Bless both you and Eralyn…Beth V
Dear BEthV, I’m glad that you and your husband have each other, that is so important to have someone to validate your truth. The psychopaths are so good at twisting the truth (“gaslighting”) so that others may not see it, but instead see their twisted lies as “reality.”
So far Patrick has no kids, and my other biological son has decided never to have children, so maybe it will stop with this generation in my family. I do, however, have some half sibs (2 of 3 normal) who have children as well as my own half brother that I think is just like my P father. Unfortunately I have Ps on both the maternal and paternal DNA lines. My bio sons also have Paternal liine psychopaths as well. Both grandfathers are full fledged Psychopaths.
I’m also glad that you have a healthy daughter/friend. I am also fortunate to have an adopted son who is the light of my life. My husband died in an accident 8 years ago though, so I no longer have his support, and my “egg donor” (formerly thought of as my mother) is totally supportive of my son Patrick, though. She is Not, I don’t think, a psychopath herself but she is a HARD CORE ENABLER without which psychopaths could not operate as well as they do. Skylor also talks about the “fence sitters” who sit by and do nothing when a psychopath is operative, but the ACTIVE ENABLERS are even worse in my opinion. I am NC with her even though we both live (in separate houses) on the same family farm.