Lovefraud recently received e-mail from a woman whose new husband was previously married to a sociopath, with whom he had two children. Two weeks before his divorce was final, the sociopath charmed him into sex and got pregnant again. Here’s what is going on now:
She uses the kids as pawns. She molested her son, he told his therapist (at 4 years old). Drew pictures of her vagina, doesn’t like hair in his mouth, wet the bed, the whole nine yards. She got out of it. We’ve been in custody hearings for a year and a half. The judge feels SORRY FOR HER!!!
My husband is a good man. She is Satan in human form. She’s a constant thorn in my side. My husband is good at dealing with her now. He knows how to work things to where she doesn’t get information.
She’s been married twice since the divorce, both marriages lasting no more than 7 weeks. We even had psychological evaluations done, which was 34 pages of “she has Borderline Personality Disorder, and she shouldn’t be alone with the kids.” The judge hasn’t seen this info yet. She keeps weaseling out of trial. She bleeds us dry in hearings that go nowhere. She signs agreements, doesn’t honor them and we go to contempt hearings where she’s reprimanded, that’s all.
She “gave” us the kids when she “attempted” suicide in July (when husband #3 left). She just did that to keep her parents happy, since she needs them to pay her bills. I’ve been caring for all three kids, on top of my three (one being 2 months old) this whole time, and she wants child support!!!
Then she demands the kids–you know, her possessions. So we go back to court for emergency custody. She whines to the judge about not having a lawyer (her parents finally stopped paying her bills), and it gets set for two weeks later. On, and on, and on. There’s so much more to the story, I can’t even explain it all. Not to mention what she’s doing to her kids emotionally. They hate me every time they come back to us. Low on sleep, whiny, etc.
I just don’t know what to do. How to deal with her. Help, please!
Document everything
As this reader has learned, sociopaths are proficient at manipulating the legal system. My basic advice is to keep careful records of everything that happens. Write the details of every incident in a calendar or diary kept just for that purpose. Document everything. Save all voice mails and e-mails. This reader may even want to videotape the child exchanges. The idea is to build a case against the woman, to eventually get her out of your lives.
But how does this family cope with the sociopath now, while she still has access to the kids?
What’s your advice?
Stories like these—and I’ve heard lots of them—tear my heart out. One of my future goals for Lovefraud is to offer educational seminars to family court judges and others involved in these cases so that they learn to recognize the games sociopathic parents play, and how damaging these predators are to children. Unfortunately, we’re not there yet.
Right now, the only resources we have to offer are the experiences of other Lovefraud readers who are, or have been, coping with similar situations. So what advice do you have? How do you deal with the sociopathic ex?
Please post your suggestions.
You folks are going to love this one, now the ex sp is trying to contact me using you tube, sending me Songs and saying things only i and her would know, nothing is safe.
Dear Taken for a Ride,
Well, they are crafty aren’t they? Just don’t get on that BUS!
OxDrover Amen.
Thank you Oxy, and bless your motherly soul. By the way, that little story you told me before about finding a different size glass.. that really spoke to me. I really do need to stop measuring my life against everyone else’s standards. I know what it costs me to live independently and deal with all the everyday crap and crises that come along.. even if nobody else knows why I’m so scared and tired out.. my life is a battle..
Kat, Sugar, as long as you are STILL STANDING, you are strong! I remember those years of utter poverty while I was going to school, with two kids to support, going to school and working, keeping house, etc. and I was always TIRED physically and mentally, but I kept putting one foot in front of another and eventually I got there.
It isn’t the person who pulls three people out of a burning building who is a hero, Kat, it is the person who does the dishes, scrubs the toilets, feeds the kids, hugs them, puts them in the corner if they need it, goes to garage sales all over town to find clothes to dress her kids so they look nice for school and don’t feel ashamed that they are “poor.”
Heck, Kat, my kids didn’t even know we were poor because we had so much fun, even in those days. My son C was talking about it the last time he was home about how he realizes now the sacrifices and the effort I put in raising them in those days after my divorce, and he said that he had great memories from those days.
Our house was always the one the neighborhood kids congregated at.
Kat, you DO have a life NOW, and as my grandmother would have said, “don’t wish your life away” (waiting for tomorrow to be happy) enjoy every day of it, make memories, ONE DAY AT A TIME. There is no promise that we will even have a tomorrow, and we can’t bring back yesterday and do it over, so LIVE TODAY. ENJOY TODAY.
Count your blessings instead of worrying about what you don’t have, or what you might lose. 99% of the things we worry about never happen anyway. So don’t waste your time worrying about tomorrow. Find something every day to be grateful for. Your health, the food you have to eat, the fact that you are not cold or hungry. That your kids can get an education. That you live in a country where you can vote. We have so many many MANY blessings. I know there was a time when all I could think about was my PROBLEMS, but I have more blessings than any one person has a right to have, and I am so grateful for those things. I don’t have one thing more today than I had when I was looking at the dark side of things, but I am just LOOKING AT THINGS DIFFERENTLY. In fact, I have less money now than I did then. I have to watch my spending more now than I did then. But my WHOLE OUTLOOK ON LIFE HAS CHANGED and now I see the GOOD things and I am not missing the bad things, the pain, the fear, the worry, the anger, the hurt, the bitterness. I don’t miss those things at all.
Kat, dear heart! You are a good woman, a strong woman, and don’t you tell yourself you aren’t. You can do or be anything you want to do or be, and you can take care of yourself and take care of your kids. (((hugs))))
Well, I am the woman who posted this.
I appreciate all the responses– believe me. There are a few things I probably need to clear up. Mainly about my relationship with my husband. He is not the type of guy one may see him as by his action he took with his soon-to-be-exwife. Although I fully know he is to blame for his action, he was with her for 6 years. She had him completely spell-bound. And it was difficult for him to untangle himself from her. He is a man who believes once you’re married to someone, you’re married for life. But she cheated on him over 30 times (that she could remember) and didn’t tell him until she was caught. It all came out at once. She made his life hell. She would keep him up at all hours, obsessing about something until he said what she wanted to hear. But that wasn’t enough. He’d have to say it over and over again. She told a friend of hers that she enjoyed making him cry by telling him about guys she’d kissed while they were dating(because it meant that he cared). She’s a hideous human. I have no doubt that he loved me at the time he had sex with her and loves me to this day. I wouldn’t be with him if I felt otherwise. She is extremely manipulative. It’s obvious by all the people she can fool. And all the guys she sleeps with. He keeps his contact with her to the bare minimum. And he’s never alone with her. He’s taken precautions. Not that he’ll cheat again, in fact he despises her, but that she won’t make up stories.
As far as my stepson’s allegations. I have no doubt that they’re true. However, after he disclosed to his therapist, the state investigator interviewed him, and he did not disclose any name. He didn’t know the interviewer like he knew his therapist, and the investigator had to go through a list of questions and not deviate. He was 4. Of course he didn’t tell. After that, there was nothing we could do.
We had an emergency hearing for custody last week. She lied about everything on the stand. The judge felt as though custody should stay the same for now until trial, which happens in about 3 weeks. I have no idea where we’ll come up with the money.
I have many things documented. Too many to list. But we go back and forth about deciding if it’s important getting evidence to get the kids, and doing it so much that we wrap our lives around “what she’s doing now.” She thrives off of my husband caring about what she’s doing. He doesn’t care about her. He just wants to make sure she’s not doing it around the kids, but that’s not her perception of it. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll post more. There’s so much…
Thank you all!
As far as the kids:
I honestly try my hardest with them. She’s been messing them up. Really bad. They are now 5 1/2 yrs, 3 1/2 yrs, and one year old. Awfully young… The psychologist said that it will take a lot of work to keep the son from continuing to act out sexually (which is how we found out he was being molested in the first place). Since we set up our safety plan, he has acted out twice while with her, but not with us.
You want to know the really crazy part? She is blaming my son for her son’s acting out!!! My son is also 5 years old, and he never even knew what those parts were before meeting my stepson. My stepson has also acted out with many other children, while my son has not. Now, none of this is my stepson’s fault. However, I take extremely seriously the safety plan, because I don’t want any acting out to be done with any children on my time. I have to protect my children too. They never play in a bedroom. The play area is out in the open, and if they’re outside, they are constantly checked on. The funny thing is, when my stepson is with us, he just plays. He will always have problems with relationships and with sex, like the psychologist said, you can’t unring a bell. But it can be controlled to where he has a semi-normal childhood. Sad, huh? My mother in law was giving my step-daughter a bath a few weeks ago, and she got spread-eagle in the tub, with her knees up by her ears, and said, “This is how my mommy has me do it. You wash my nina then you wash my booty.” Ugh…
I can’t imagine how drained my husband feels, with his ex having her claws in those kids. After every hearing, he is so exhausted. We are doing everything in our power to get those kids. It would be so much easier for us to remain in a joint custody situation. The ONLY reason we are going for full custody is because she is the worst thing in the world for those kids… She really is.
You know, I really had no clue what I was getting into when I married my husband. If I had it to do over again, I’d marry him again. Just because I fall in love with somebody doesn’t mean I have to give him up because he has baggage. He deserves to be happy and so do I. If we live our lives around a sociopath, they win. That doesn’t mean they get away with everything without a peep from us. Heck yeah, I’m complaining! Nobody should be allowed to live their lives as a parasite, a drain on society, and a spreader of hate, STD’s, and drama. Nobody should view their child’s body as their own or their possession. Nobody should treat a man the way she treats mine. She messed him up. He’s still messed up. And, yes, we plan to go to counseling.
I can’t talk about this with his family or mine. They “kinda” understand, but they don’t live it. They don’t deal with it day-to-day. It’s very cut and dry with them, but they don’t deal with her.
That having been said, I’m trying to come to terms with the situation so that I can feel free to move on, even though she will always be there. I’m a deeply religious person. I know that no matter how many people she corrupts and convinces in this lifetime, she can’t shield herself from God’s eyes or wrath. And the 70 or 80 years we are blessed with on earth are very short in comparison to eternity. She is making decisions now that will cause her to not be remembered in God’s book of life. I don’t delight in it, but I’m not making her decisions for her. I just have to be sure that I do what I can to be remembered by God in the end. All this is temporary. I once read that bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. I can’t drink any more poison. I can’t let her change me anymore. Even though she already has. I’m wiser. In a way, I lost my innocence. Because she acted like my best friend. She caused my first husband to cheat on me. And she caused my second one to do the same. But you know what? Neither one wanted her back. They both wanted me. But all that is behind me. I’m just glad that there are people who understand, even though I don’t wish this experience on anyone.
Haha! I gotta say about all the posts about p/s peeping in… My s doesn’t even know she is one, so she wouldn’t even know to come here. But on top of that, if she did come here, she’d probably just see who she could con or sleep with next.
One other thing I must clear up. My now-husband and I became close through telephone calls during our divorces, because only we understood what the other was going through. However, our congregation elders told us to discontinue contact until the divorces were finalized because it was improper while we were yet married. By that point, however, we knew that we found a kindred spirit in eachother and wanted to be together. During the no-contact was when the incident happened with his ex-wife. So we were together, but we weren’t. It was a difficult situation. But I swear to you that we did not divorce our exes to be together. That was already in the works when we “found” eachother.