Editor’s Note: The Lovefraud reader who write as “Jofary” relates her experience with a sociopath in Canadian divorce court.
I first participated on this site three years ago when I learned that my daughter, then only a toddler, was being sexually molested by her father (my ex). Up until that point, I was dealing with things in the typical way. I had caught my ex cheating on me and, when our son was only three months old, he immediately moved in with his mistress, who herself had extricated herself from her fifteen year stable marriage, believing my ex to be her “best friend and soul mate.” That was extremely distasteful in and of itself but, given my ex’s contributions (or lack thereof) emotionally, physically, and financially to our brief marriage, I was able to disengage from him within a month of his departure. Unfortunately, he became aware that I was not going to be his “back-up” plan after he was done having his fun with this woman, and became extremely vindictive towards me. Perhaps it was my demeanour towards him — he was completely irrelevant to me and I treated him as such by refusing to answer his phone calls or greet him personally at the door during the exchange of our children. In any case, it propelled me on a path to utter chaos and unsettlement.
My ex refused to negotiate on the sale of our house, all the while refusing to share payments on the mortgage or massive family debt (while I was on maternity leave, no less), claiming “it benefited him to keep his name on the deed as long as possible” and eventually confessing that he “didn’t care how much it cost to go to court, he just wanted me out of the house.” He didn’t want much access with his children and sporadically paid child support. The house was my only source of income (rental) and stability for the children and I attempted to buy him out immediately, at the time he left, and when I could afford it. When it became apparent what he was demanding far outweighed what he was legally entitled to be paid by me, and he absolutely refused to negotiate, I reluctantly agreed to sell the house and decided to take the case to court to have it settled.
Moving away
Then, the realization that he was molesting our daughter, coupled with the fact that I no longer had secure housing in one of the most expensive places to live in North America, made me realize I had no choice but to relocate. I applied to a school 300 km outside the area and was immediately slammed with a do-not-remove order by him and a demand to have the children live with him full-time. I can only conclude that being court-ordered to pay child support was weighing heavily on his mind. He was, at heart, a parasite and given that nature, it probably seemed unnatural to be giving money when he felt he should be getting it! I was successful in fighting this because my situation was precarious at best and certainly not in the best interests of the children, and I went on to school in a diploma program that complements the degree I already have in the hope that I would be financially independent in the near future.
Going to court
Near the end of my diploma program, our court dispute over division of assets came due. On the advice of my lawyer, this was an oral process (as opposed to affidavit) so, since I was the plaintiff, I was the first to sit in the witness box and make my statements. It was painfully difficult for me but I did my best, and had prepared thoroughly beforehand. He followed, with his own statements and I was stunned, floored, by the entire debacle, realizing I had seriously underestimated his ability to deceive. I was expecting some lies, but not the outrageous dishonesty he displayed. He was a flamboyant liar — claiming he was responsible for twice as many family debts as I was, that I had refused to cooperate with medical, daycare, and extracurricular costs for the children even though the exact opposite had occurred (much to my frustration and financially difficulty) — complete with an air of sincerity, tears, and victim mentality. I, on the other hand, came across as frustrated, defensive and probably vindictive (the “scorned woman” syndrome) — as I well should have been considering how financially devastated I had become as a result of his parasitic behaviour since separation. I had no defence for his accusations because “my time” in the witness box was over and I realized I was doomed.
In the end, he “won” the case and the assets were split equally, despite the fact that he had not shared a dime in the mortgage costs, repairs to the house, or insurance costs, and had driven a vehicle I was paying for over the last three years, simply because the credit was in MY name, which he didn’t have to reimburse me for. All because the entire oral debate relied mainly on the spoken word, with no opportunity for dispute based on written proofs.
Credibility of witnesses
In retrospect, it would have been much wiser for me to have demanded the trial be done by affidavits, not orally. Then I could have presented the truths coherently and plainly, through the plethora of e-mails I received from him refusing to share costs and acknowledgment he was walking away with no debts. As it were, the judge made his judgment based on the credibility of the witnesses. It was stunning and difficult to accept that even though I told the truth, apparently my ex presented himself to be a much more credible witness than I.
The important lesson that I learned, and which I wish to share with other Lovefraud readers in a similar position is this: Do NOT expect the truth will come out in court during an oral trial. If your ex has been able to bamboozle you successfully enough to establish a relationship, and has a history of deception, then the chances are very good he or she will be able to appeal to judge in the same way. Practice makes perfect, as they say. Written affidavits are far better evidence when dealing with this type of individual, and the more evidence, the better.
My future ex- husband and I were renting the house I now own when the owner of the house offered to sell it to us. We took over there mortgage for a year with a promise to get our own mortgage at the end of the year. Insted of a down payment we agred to put money into the house by relacing all of the windows in the house, 22 for about 10,000 dollars. Four years later and I can’t afford the mortgage partly because my ex is $5000 behind in child support. My divorce will be final at the end of May and I want to sell the house then, but it doesn’t look good. I know I can do a short sale, but I have worked so hard to clean up my credit and my debt I don’t want to lose it! After ending a very complicated marriage with a P I just want to move on and continue to improve my life. When I look back on what I did wrong with the house I’m not sure where I went wrong, maybe like many things in my life latley it is just bad luck?
Jim in Indiana USA said:
It is harmful to conflate bisexuality with depravity and chaos. Bisexual people are not any more likely to behave in harmful ways than people of other sexual orientations.
“It is harmful to conflate bisexuality with depravity and chaos. Bisexual people are not any more likely to behave in harmful ways than people of other sexual orientations.”
passingthrough
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Well, we all pick out our “issues”….the whole picture, not just the sexuality, was chaos. The “need” to “flaunt”, in the way it was presented, also was an issue for me…whatever…hope you find what you need here. I’ll try not to offend your sensibilities. All are welcome. Carry on.
Jofary, your letter couldn’t have come at a better time.
I have just returned from court, for a jury trial that my sp-daughter requested, after she was charged with assaulting me, malicious destruction of property, and trespassing. These occurrences were actually the first within 2 days of a similiar occurrence. (Basically, she came in my home within 2 days of each other and assaulted me, without warning)She took the deal in the other case and received probation and was ordered to domestic counseling. This case, she was adamant to fight, rejecting a wonderful deal up to the very end. I had received word of a slanderous blog she had posted about me. I then received an email from her. It was very apparent that her goal was to smear me in court, to no end.
I have been faced with her slanderous assaults on my personality before. I had faced the same assaults from her father, so it was no surprise where these words were coming from. What I fail to grasp, is the “shock” when I am initially slammed with these attacks. They are so wild and crazy…and straight up…Lies. They can be so believeable to an outside audience and leave people actually questioning whether or not they are true! But the initial shock at these unbelieveable lies, catches me off-guard and leaves me speechless as I am trying to comprehend these verbal assaults and lies.
Before court today, I tried to prepare myself for the unbelievable. She had already alluded through an email as to what she intended on doing to me, in court. Mind you, she is the one that came to my home unannounced and attacked me. I am tired of being made to feel like I am the guilty one.
Through my years of dealing with ex-relationships and family and other personal relationships….normal people do not hold grudges and do, get on with their life. Some, even with an emotional break-up, would not offer to slander me or hold a grudge…to this day. So I take these past relationships and maintain, that I am not a bad person. If I was, I am certain that people would have plenty to say.
In conclusion, my daughter took the deal after 3 attempts from her attorney and the prosecutor, just before we walked into court. I am certain she is not finished with me, as she alluded in her email. So I am healing emotionally and still being being watchful…trying to prepare for the next bomb to be dropped. Definitely not the way to LIVE.
passingthrough – “bisexual people are not any more likely to behave in harmful ways than people of other sexual orientations.” Think we all agree there is no increased link to violence in that regard!
And I didnt interpret Jims comment that way. I interpreted his comments about his ex-tox’s partner and the partners 23 year old son as unfortunately having access to “spend time” with his 13 year old daughter possibly exposing this child to influences he might not voluntarily choose to subject his daughter to (i.e. drug/alcohol rehab, open bi-sexuality, hand guns, adultery, etc.) suggesting that the atmosphere has a chaotic element – that his 13 year old daughter should be able to call her father if ever uncomfortable over there.
Trla – Nothing like driving you crazy til the very last minute! Im glad you escaped a trial. And I hope you are keeping copies of her emails and anything else you are made aware of (ie. slanderous blogs)..
perhaps a restraining order would be beneficial at this point and the obvious NC…NC…NC!
Glad you are healing. Hope LF helps you get through this as it continues to help me heal too!
Dear Tria,
I am so sorry that this is all happening to you from your daughter. I have a P son, and Rune, another blogger here has one, and I am sure there must be others here who have children that are psychopaths.’
I a glad you are here at LF because this has been such a healing place for me. I know I am NOT alone in this. It has been so difficult for me to let go of the MALIGNANT HOPE that my son, even after murdering a girl, would “repent” and live a descent life. (what on earth was I thinking?)
I too have to keep a vigilant eye out for another attack from my P son, he tried to have me murdered not quite two years ago. I tooo know that he has not given up, and will mount another attack if he is able to. The man he sent to kill me (an ex-coonvict, sex offender, robber, etc. and former cell mate of his) is now out on parole, so I have to keep an eye out for him as well. I actually doubt that he will be the one that my son sends next time, because that man knows both my sons and I are armed and vigilent, but the next man may be a complete stranger.
The wonderful little boy my son was before he hit puberty is the “son” I remember, but that wonderful child is GONE, not to return. The MAN who is trying to kill me is NOT my son, that sweet little boy. It is like, I think, that my “son” died and his organs were given to this man, but this man who hates me is NOT that little boy. The little boy is dead and gone.
I actually had a “private memorial” service for my young son and “buried” him—-I can relate to these people whose kids are kidnapped and they never find a body, etc. the only way I got closure was to BURY and consider my son DEAD. The fact there is some stranger, some adult man who hates me, is a fact I can’t get around, but this MAN is no more to me than any stranger that hated me would be.
I don’t know this man, this evil Charlie-Manson-wanna-be, so there is no emotional attachment to a “son” now. I don’t know if this makes any sense to you at all, or if you feel the same way, but I do know that it worked for me. And, really, I DO NOT know this “man” in prison for murder, I cna’t fathom how his evil mind works. I know he hates me for whatever “injuries” he thinks I have done to him, but he isn’t my “son.”
God bless you, Tria, and welcome to LF…hang around and read articles in the archives and blog with us. This is a great, accepting, understanding and caring group of people here. If ever there was a “community” of people, this is it. (((hugs))))
Oxy! And I thought I was the ONLY one who wanted a “private memorial” for my ex-tox. It actually crossed my mind, when I was struggling and in a bad place…I told my gf that if I held a private memorial literally walked over to cemetary and layed a flower down on empty space..that it might help me transition to “acceptance” and have closure – it was just that hard for me, never anything like it before. I never did it because in my situation he isnt incarcerated – so along with the chance of running into the “living dead” – I really wanted to work on/work thru my own personal issues of not being able to move on from this person. Bascially I concluded I wanted to make the choice to let him go and live on…so I could focus on becoming a healthy person who makes good choices of balancing self-worth, self-trust and self-love with that of others who earn my friendship and love the natural healthy way.
The journey is sooooooooo long and hard. But the healing and break throughs come in small but timely increments!!! Its good, and if I stay on track it can only get better.
Having a S/P child is an untold journey that thankfully you bravely share with sensitivity and much needed reality.But I could relate to your need for closure and I know I would have had a private memorial service too, if it were my situation. Im glad you were able to do that for yourself.
((hugs))
DEar learned,
AFter my P son was arrested for murder, I went into a downward spiral of depression and grief so deep thqt I look back now and realize I should have been hospitalized. I lost 35 pounds, didn’t sleep AT ALL for 7 days, and didn’t eat for 14. I locked myself in my house and did not see anyone outside my family for 3 months. My friends thought I had dropped off the face of the earth.
Yes, the journey is difficult, but IT IS WORTH IT.
At the time I was in the blue funk, I literally wished he was dead and theh girl arrested for his murder. The community of people will give empathy and sympathy and comfort to the parents of a murdered child but NO ONE GIVES EMPATHY, SYMPATHY AND SUPPORT TO THE FAMILY OF THE MURDERER.
I literally thought about if he had been killed, that people would be filling my house to support me, as it was I was holed up like an animal hiding in its hole. ASHAMED of my son, and taking that shame on to myself. I didn’t feel that I was responsible for his actions or blame myself, but I felt SHAME none the less.
I thought how comforting it would be to close the coffiin lid and know my son was not suffering. Instead, I knew he was in a tough jail situation, a small and young white boy in the minority among pretty tough Mexicans and blacks. He did receive many physical wounds too, broken wrists (x 2) shoulder so dislocated that his arm was essentially useless. 20 years later they finally operated on it. From moment to moment I didn’t know how he was. I felt like a mother whose child had been kidnapped and they didn’t know what was happening to the child. I expected see his face on a milk carton with the question, “Have you seen this child?”
He would call and cry and say “Mom, I didn’t do it!” And I wanted to believe him. Tried to believe him, yet in my heart I knew he did it. It was only a year and a half later, after his conviction at trial, that I spoke to his attorney (public defender) and the attorney, without violating any attorney-client priviledge, told me the EVIDENCE presented in court, that PROVED WITHOUT A DOUBT THAT MY SON DID IT. NO question he did it. Still my son lied and claimed innocence.
Now, 18 years later, he not only admits doing it but is PROUD OF THE HORROR OF IT, and he says “It was much worse than the cops even knew”—when he said that, that was when I KNEW that I HAD to NC him, forever, and deal with my grief. Not only the grief of his being what he is, but the grief of the loss of my own time, efforts, love etc. in trying to “believe” him against what I knew to be the TRUTH. The man who replaced my wonderful little boy was a MONSTER. A dangerous monster. Some how, some way, I had to make my own closure….as we all do….with our psychopaths. I had to work through the grief, the denial, and my own anger at myself for having been in that denial for so long. I had to accept the truth, as painful as it is/was, before I could heal.
I actually had that “memorial” service as a way to come to that closure with a familiar “ritual” of mourning. Though I didn’t have a “body” to bury (like a parent whose child was kidnapped) I buried that “young son” and disengaged myself from the MAN he has become. Just as the memorial service for my late husband commemorated his life, and our loss, it gave me closure, that I will never see him again in this lifetime, but now that I have worked through the grieving of the loss, I can again remember the good times and smile, and even the tough times we had when we were together. He is and will always remain a big part of my life. Even if I remarry, he will still have been part of my life, part of who I am. Finding another man to love (if I ever do) will not take away from the relationship I had with my husband, nor will my relationship with my husband be compared to my “new love” either.
My adopted son D is, I think, God’s way of replacing the son I lost, the son I buried, and he is a joy and a comfort to both me and my other biological son C.
While I realize that my “dead” son’s organs are still functioning inside the body of a “stranger” it is more like after his death his “organs were donated” to someone else. That person would not be my son just because he had my son’s kidney, and heart, and so on.
Even if the PERSON we “lose” is still “the living dead” the RELATIONSHIP is dead, and deserves some kind of symbolic CLOSURE. To me, the “memorial service” just for myself was that closure. I put away all the photographs of my P-son after about age 12, and I still have some favorite photos of him as a little boy around my house. Formerly being a professional photographer I have lots of photographs, but those of the days when my P-son was making my life hell, are not what I want to remember and think about…but I can think about the sweet little boy that was my living son, but lives no more. Is gone, just like my husband is gone. I can think good thoughts about both of them, and smile and laugh about things that happened in our lives. But they are GONE. Both of them.
The symbology of the “funeral” or the “memorial service” I think is important to the survivors of any kind of “loss” of a signifiant relationship.
The fantasy relationship I have had with my egg donor has become apparent in the last couple of years as well, I am in the process of grieving over that too, and have worked on my feelings of anger in that stage of the grieving. I recently (this past week) had a “break through” in this anger stage and I think I am rapidly approaching the final acceptence stage on my relationship with her as well. I no longer even think about her as my “mother” but rather as a biological conduit, the way I think about my P-sperm donor, who was NEVER a father to me. I NC’d him physically 40+ years ago, but only in the last couple of years have I EMOTIONALLY NC’d him, come to accept that he was what he was, and that was simply the toxic man who donated his sperm to give me life, but was never a parent to me, never loved me, nurtured me, etc, but instead abused me like any other narcissistic and toxic psychopath would do, like he did to everyone in his path. I wasn’t even “special,” just another one of his MANY victims, but was fortunate enough that he didn’t kill me (I know personally of two people he killed and I suspect he killed more).
I am getting to the point now, I think, that I can have a “private memorial service” and bury the mother I only imagined I had. Neither of my sons call her “grandma” any more, but both started to refer to her by her given name. I’m starting to think of her that way too. I didn’t plan it that way, or suggest it to them, or they to me, it just seemed to sort of happen. I no longer look upon her with pity at her being “alone” without any family (I am her only child) or care what the “neighbors think” about me having NC with her, and I have NO doubt that she has smeared me to high heaven with her friends and neighbors, and refusing to associate with your “poor elderly sick mother” is a capitol crime in this community, no matter what kind of psychopathic behavior the parent has engaged in. Yet, these same people know for a fact that I took care of my step father and my egg donor 24/7 for 18 months during his illness and her illness and his death, even.
Coming to peace and acceptance with the past, the things you cannot change, is the only way to get on with life. It is a long journey, but the closer to healing you get, the easier it is. Hang on, and don’t get discouraged. (((hugs))))
Dear Oxy,
Life itself is quite the journey isnt it. Im glad you are in mine, through LF. You have shown all of us what “hanging on ” is all about and that if we each choose to find peace and acceptance with the past, and THE THINGS WE CANNOT CHANGE , we can get on with life.
I cannot thank you enough for simply sharing with me, with us, sharing the love, the pain, your life journey, and the choices you made to survive and heal and carry on with your life by loving and taking care of yourself, your children, your friends, and those who earn your respect and love — as well as those that you witness wanting to change their lives for the better.
You are special, dear Oxy. You deserve to be told this and feel it and be ok with knowing and accepting that truth too!
Thank you. (((((((((((((((((((HUGS)))))))))))))))))))))))