A Lovefraud reader using the name Dawn H posted the following comment quite awhile ago. At the end of her story, she brings up important questions.
My ex and I grew up in the same small town. We were like Barbie and Ken”¦expected to marry and live happily ever after. I watched him grow from a very nice guy into a predator and a very evil person in just a few years. After our child was born he started a new wonderful job in a bank and quickly climbed the ladder to success. I put him through law school as he became distant and harsh and wouldn’t touch me. I found out he was bragging at work about secretaries’ children being his. One of his secretaries divorced her husband to sneak around with mine in sleazy motels and the whole time he was telling her that I carried a gun in my diaper bag, etc. I met and befriended her, she started fainting at work, they both got fired, and she moved away. He begged and cried and we did major counseling for a year and I dropped the divorce proceedings thinking he was well.
Over the next two or three years he was nice and took my calls at work, came home for supper, etc, but gradually grew distant and harsh again. I found out in ’04 that he had a 10-12 yr affair with another secretary from his new position as COO of a publicly traded banking company AND a woman in every port city from here to Beijing. He had been hiding his money all this time, so that when he was caught he would not have to share. He bought all his mistresses suits, jewelry, even paid for one’s house, while I had to pay utilities, my own food, my own insurance, car payment”¦everything from my teacher salary. He kept me literally broke while he was making almost half a million per yr and telling me we had no money because he was reinvesting it all in the company. If I wanted 200 for Christmas presents, he made me postdate a check for January, and he wouldn’t let go of his check until I let go of mine.
There was no intimacy for more than 15 yrs. He lied all day every day, but the strange thing was that he turned very dark. He would leave butcher knives out on the counter facing the stairs where I came down in the morning. I found out his mistress was the one who had been phone stalking me for 7 or 8 yrs, and their phone records were like 25 or 30 calls to each other every day, even though they worked side by side. At the same time he had many other young mistresses and kept them all ignorant of each other. After he was caught and we separated, he cried and became perfect all over again for a year counseling, then got caught at a sleazy motel with someone again.
I could tell that someone was breaking into my house while I was at the gym. He brought me Ultimate Woman vitamin pills with the seal broken and some missing! I found an empty Viagra box in his vanity drawer. This guy has 150 IQ. Someone was hacking into my bank records online, and I left tape recorders at the house to see what was going on there while I was out. On the phone from the house to women, he sounded like a dirty old man, talking naughty and naked and nasty. I wouldn’t have believed it was him. One day he would cry and hug the stuffing out of me apologizing, and the next day he was rude and hateful and couldn’t remember he had apologized. I knew my life was in danger and I had to change the locks etc. I had to tape record every conversation during separation and divorce proceedings, because he lied so much to attorneys, etc, that you couldn’t prove anything without recordings.
He had NO concern for our son’s feelings in any of this. The mistresses’ children grew up with him sneaking in through the fence to sleep with mommy, and the first one’s kids were calling him Daddy too. He found out this mistress aborted his child, and he doesn’t care. He told me one time during the proceedings “the girlfriend knows I do what I want and I get what I want, and she’s fine with that.” Children’s feelings are unimportant, but he is wining and dining our son now, like we’re in a contest ”¦ climbing the pyramids in Egypt ”¦ took him to the Great Wall of China ”¦ fly fishing in the Grand Canyon, etc. Bought a barge and stocks it with bongs and booze for my son’s friends, etc. No regard for the kids ”¦ it’s all about him and winning.
My interest in cases like this is, where do you draw the line? When do you bring in the attorneys and police and IRS? What about the children? If he’s been hiding money for years in other countries, are you just supposed to forget and forgive and move on? I’ve had the hardest time with that. God is so good to me, but when I start to recall all the craziness, I get shaky and lose sleep and I just can’t really go there anymore. I want to protect others from this victimization and I don’t want to be vindictive, but then again, I don’t want him hurting other young women. I would not doubt that he might be one of these trafficking guys. Did you know most of the WORLD’S trafficking is financed by middle-aged American businessmen? We need to wake up and do something quickly. This American businessman/ sociopath/ narcissist/ predator thing is getting out of hand.
Dawn H’s story is terrible. Most people would say the story is shocking, but that’s because most people are ignorant about sociopaths. All of us here at Lovefraud know that stories like Dawn’s are much more common than the uninitiated realize.
The man Dawn H described is clearly hurting many people—Dawn, her son, the bevy of mistresses, the mistresses’ kids, even American taxpayers, since the guy is hiding his money. He may even be complicit in the sordid the sex trade.
Whether our stories are as bad as Dawn’s or not, many of us ask ourselves the same questions that she asked at the end of her email: How do we respond?
We all have to find our own answers to the question. Following are the points and issues to consider. For the sake of convenience I am referring to the sociopaths as male, but they could be female as well.
Now vs. later
When we first realize what the sociopath was actually doing, that everything he told us was a lie, that we were exploited, our emotions are at a full boil. We are traumatized, disillusioned, furious, scared. We want to strike back. We want to tell the world that he is a liar. We wonder how we are going to survive. Our emotions rage back and forth between outrage and fear, worry and determination.
At this point, we need to prioritize. We need to figure out what we MUST do now, and what can wait, in fact, what MUST wait, until later.
Survival
The most important variable in deciding how to proceed is the possibility of violence. The best predictor of future violence is past violence. If the sociopath has been violent in the past—even if it wasn’t directed towards you—you must assume that he could be violent in the future, and you may be the target.
If you (and your children) are in physical danger, you need to do whatever will protect your safety. If the sociopath has committed crimes for which he is likely to be arrested and jailed, report them. But if his offenses are such that authorities are likely to regard them as a case of “he said-she said,” or he’s likely to get out on bail and come after you—well, it may be better not to poke the hornet’s nest.
Your first priority is survival. As long as you are alive, everything else can be addressed later.
Stability
Your second priority is stability. Many of us have been financially wiped out by the sociopaths. If you’re in this position, you need to take steps to insure your economic survival. If you’re married to the sociopath, and financially entangled, you need to figure out the best way to disengage that is healthiest for you in the long run.
In considering how far to go after the sociopath legally, here are questions to ask yourself:
- Does he have any assets? Does he have a job? Does he have documented income? If there is no money, there may be nothing to gain.
- Do you have proof of his money? If not, can you get it?
- Can you afford a legal battle? If not, perhaps you should just walk away.
- Can he afford a legal battle? Does he have a history of filing lawsuits? If he does, he’s likely to relish going to court, and will drag out the proceedings, costing you money.
- Do you have children with him? If yes, one of these two scenarios is likely: Either he will abandon his responsibilities and fail to pay child support, or he will maintain contact and use the children as pawns to torment you.
Your ultimate goal should be to get rid of the sociopath and move on with your life. Any financial or legal actions you take against him should support that goal.
Emotional recovery
An experience with a sociopath leaves us feeling like we’ve been through a meat grinder. Anger, disappointment, shame, guilt, fear, outrage, even numbness—we probably cycle through all of them.
It’s exhausting.
We need to find our peace of mind. For some of us, it may be the first time that we consciously pursue peace of mind. Many of us were filled with vulnerability and turmoil, which attracted the sociopaths in the first place.
In deciding how far to go after the sociopath, therefore, we must also consider our emotional recovery. Lovefraud’s standard advice for recovery from the sociopath is No Contact—not having any interaction at all with him. No conversations. No phone calls. No email. No in-person encounters.
Going after the sociopath may entail some kind of contact. If you go to court, you’ll have to deal with him. If you want to expose him on the Internet, you may need to monitor his Facebook page. This means, as we say on Lovefraud, you are “renting him space in your head.” Thinking about the sociopath is a form of contact.
On the other hand, going after him may be important to your emotional recovery. By doing it, you are not allowing him to walk all over you. Standing up to him may benefit your self-esteem, and allow you to recover your identity.
Only you know what you need.
Making the sociopath accountable
Personally, I think it’s important to do what you can to make the sociopath accountable for his destructive actions. BUT you may want to think carefully about WHEN and HOW you take action.
If you have evidence that the sociopath committed a crime, report him to the authorities. Maybe the crime you report isn’t prosecuted, but it could help establish his pattern of behavior if another person reports a crime.
If, like many Lovefraud readers, you don’t want the sociopath to do to someone else what he did to you, you may want to warn the next victim, or expose the sociopath. I’ve written previously on both of these topics:
Letters to Lovefraud: Should I warn the next victim?
Perhaps you can’t take action against the sociopath right away because you need to attend to your own safety, stability and recovery. But maybe, when you are stronger, you can do something to stop the exploitative behavior.
Sociopaths get away with their immoral, unethical and sometimes criminal behavior because people do not stand up to them. So I think that when we can do so safely, we should speak up and take action. Sociopaths will continue their destructive behavior until they are stopped.
Donna, in ONE article you have given the crux of ALL the advice here on LF….ONE article tells it all.
GET OUT, but be safe above all else.
I spoke tonight with a woman who has recently gotten divorced after 25 years and 7 children from a man I firmly believe is a psychopath, but she still has 4 young children at home–I gave her my copies of “Women who love Psychopaths” and “Just Like His father,” and “Snakes in Suits.” This woman is recovering, but she has endured so much and because she is “co-parenting” with this monster she can’t go “no contact” only minimize it.
EVERY story here is just “as bad as” every other story, I think, at least in the emotional context. “You” (that’s the universal “you”) may have lost more money than I did, but he beat me unconscious and broke my bones, or he kidnapped our children, etc….Dr. Viktor Frankl’s description of pain as behaving as a gas so that it completely fills the vessel that contains it regardless of whether the pain is caused by a “big or small” injury helped me to realize that no one’s pain is greater or less than any one else’s.
Thank you for this very concise and precise article.
I have never written my story here because I have read so many stories others have written that were my story word for word. This is a very healing place for me.
Last night I was talking to my older brother about my ex. He just mentioned that he thinks sociopaths do such extreme things because they know they feel nothing, and they are trying to feel something. I thought he was brilliant. But we are sure this is not a new idea. But for me it made so much sense.
SueK,
I think your brother may be on to something….Many Ps are sexually deviant or “addicted” to multiple partners, and I have thought for a while that they some how “sense” that WE get something out of sex that they don’t get (connectedness and bonding through the release of Oxytocin, the bonding hormone) and they do NOT get this, and they keep searching for this Elusive “it” that they aren’t sure what is but they WANT it.
It is amazing just how many of the Stories are the “same”— a few details different, but the activities of the psychopaths seem to be right out of the “psychopaths’ play book.” Some are more low-level con artists and thugs, and others are more “high functioning” and get into the governor’s offices and the corner offices of corporations (“Snakes in Suits” as Bob Hare calls them in his book) but underneath the cover, the BOOKS ARE ALL THE SAME STORY.
Donna- boy did you nail it with this one! Since there are no ‘set rules’ of spath behavior and each of our stories is different than the next, we need to find our own way out in this mess we have come to know as My life. My own spath does things either ‘right on track’ if there were a handbook and guidelines, or the exact polar opposite.
Oxy- You got that right. Pain knows no boundaries, it just fills up the space allowed. Each of us may experience different things, but our perceptions are different as well. What one person looks at with horror and shock, the next may think nothing of it because they have seen far worse.
Ox!!!
OMG. I have just googled oxytocin after reading what you said, “addicted to multiple partners…….searching for the elusive it”
Another piece of the jigsaw of ‘my life with the spath’ has just clunked into place.
Excellent article and superb advice.
The concept of pain acting like a gas is from Dr. Viktor Frankl’s book “man’s search for meaning.” This man wrote this after 4 years in a nazi prison camp in which he noticed the ways people dealt with the pain of the ULTIMATE PSYCHOPATH ATTACKS. This concept was so LIBERATING FOR ME, so that I did not compare my “woes” with anyone else’s—as I had read his story I got the feeling that even as bad as my woes were, they were NOTHING COMPARED TO HIS, I actually started to feel guilty for being in such pain, UNTIL I READ HIS STORY ABOUT PAIN BEING LIKE A GAS. I realized then that each person’s pain is TOTAL. A baby that drops his passie is TOTALLY in pain as he cries for what he has lost. Of course WE know that his pain is momentary but HE DOESN’T, right that moment it is TOTAL LOSS for the child.
So our pain is TOTAL regardless of how much or how little injury we have had done to us or in what ways. Our hearts are totally broken by the encounter with the psychopath.
.
Oxy- Thank you for sharing that. It makes sense. I used to read a LOT! That was back when I had time to do it and a mind to comprehend the information on the subject matter. I am looking forward to the day when I ditch the spath and have the freedom to have book laying around the house again. For now they are either on a shelf or in a box. I may get a Kindle so I can keep up, here, there or anywhere, also without spath seeing the titles and snooping around. Certainly can’t have that!
@SueK
Welcome to LF! I did the same thing, I read the stories here for months before I ever posted a comment. I encourage you to join the conversation, your voice and your experiences are important too. Many heads (and hearts) really are better than one! And I agree with what you discovered about spaths, I think they do realize that there is something “it” that they do not experience. I actually told my ex spath (the topic was sex) about reciprocal aspect of sex and the difference between “having sex” and “making love” and he said “I don’t know what you are talking about”, and he got very very angry with me. It took me awhile to figure out that he really didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, it was Greek to him! It became painfully obvious to me that he was not capable of real love and real attachment, as if he was missing the “DNA” necessary for those most essential human characteristics. It was bizarre!!
@Oxy
“Pain knows no boundaries, it just fills up the space allowed.” Very true! Also it is so true that it is essential for all of us not to compare our “woes” with other’s “woes
“So our pain is TOTAL regardless of how much or how little injury we have had done to us or in what ways. Our hearts are totally broken by the encounter with the psychopath.”
Good stuff Oxy!
Regarding the spath’s elusive “it”…the “thing” that they know they don’t have…
In my experience, I became aware that my ex spath was and is frantically seeking “it” or the “thing” that he had never experienced in his life. “It” or the “thing” was something good that he could see that other people had experienced and he had not. I would define the “it” or “thing” that he was seeking was the true beauty of life, real love and real relationships. Allow me if I may to use a quote from one of my favorite sermons that illustrates this point very well, “…The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited…” From “The Weight of Glory” by C.S. Lewis. Obviously the sermon is referring to the Glory of God, but I think the words work so very well to illustrate the awareness the spath may have for the elusive “thing” that others have that they do not have.
My ex spath is a very intelligent man with a genius IQ, but emotionally and relationally his IQ doesn’t even register, and I think to some degree he is aware. He mimics other people’s behaviors to appear more normal. Real love and relationship elude him, I don’t think he has ever experienced real love and I don’t think is capable of it. That is why he talks about it so much, he thinks maybe he can get it by intellectualizing it, by defining it, by purchasing it! He seeks the one “thing” he does not possess, he seeks it in books, he seeks it in poetry, he seeks it in photography, he seeks it in sex, he seeks it in music, he seeks it in art, he seeks it in Theology. Although there can be very good and beautiful things in all of these things they are just symbols of some “thing” real. The really tragic thing is that he will use, violence, manipulations, cons, abuse, betray, lie, cheat, and steal in his quest for real life. He is completely amoral and has not even a speck of real compassion for anyone else. And when he keeps seeking and he can’t find real life he medicates with porn, sex, drugs and alcohol, and the cycle goes on and on and on… and every once in a while he pulls some poor naive person into the vortex with him and sucks the life out of them for a season until they are able to escape.