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.
Reading Blogs. Can someone please tell me whata is cog dis? I, too, was married to a spath for 17 years, divorced for 3, but still will not let me alone.
I agree with all of you. NO CONTACT is the only way to begin healing.
Here is my question, and need help? Spath continues to violate court orders, cannot get spath to comply. Any ideas are welcome.
I have had attorney’s and they cannot even get him to comply.
PLEASE HELP.
I live in a town that is nationally known for corruption in the legal system. Enough said.
The last time I was in court, I had to represent myself. Spath has the very best lawyers. They talked their way out of everything, and I mean everything. I even had the Judge telling the spath, while I was questioning him, “do not answer her questions”. Go figure. Consequently, he got nothing. All of the other times, not contempt, his attorney’s talked their way out of the situation. They are very good and expensive.
Here we go again. Yet 2 more times, spath fails to comply. I now have a lawyer who hopefully knows what they are doing.
Contempt, in essense, does nothing. A fine… maybe. More than likely a slap on the hands. Money is not paid. Been there, done that. No consequences either. Just want to be finished.
Not looking for venegence. It is not mine. Just peace and cuttng all ties forever.
Any other ideas.
P.S. Thank you for the cog dis. I will look it up.
SuvivorAgain,
Dissonance is when we make choices and act in a way that is not according to beliefs, expectations and the facts we see. It occurs when we are inconsistent with ourselves. To alleviate this we rationalize our choices and actions, so that we can live without ourselves. All what we do while being involved with a spath, while it goes against our morals, our intuition, etc… is try to alleviate the disonnance.
However, once we accept the spath is a spath and we were duped, how bad he or she truly was to us and others… we will experience the dissonance very severely. We have stopped rationalising the spath’s actions away and become very conscoius that we behaved inapropiately. Because the reality of the bad choice and its consequences are so pervasive, this dissonance cannot be resolved anymore. We can only make peace with it when we accept that we were wrong and made a big mistake, when we can forgive ourselves for it.
Here is a good link on Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is a condition of conflict or even anxiety resulting from holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions.[1] Dissonance is also reduced by justifying, blaming, and denying. The phrase was coined by Leon Festinger in his 1956 book When Prophecy Fails, which chronicled the followers of a UFO cult as reality clashed with their fervent beliefs.[2][3] It is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology. A closely related term, cognitive disequilibrium, was coined by Jean Piaget to refer to the experience of a discrepancy between something new and something already known or believed.
Experience can clash with expectations as, for example, with buyer’s remorse following the purchase of an expensive item. In a state of dissonance, people may feel surprise,[1] dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment. People are biased to think of their choices as correct, despite any contrary evidence. This bias gives dissonance theory its predictive power, shedding light on otherwise puzzling irrational and destructive behavior.
Darwin’smom, I think the “FORGIVING OURSELVES” for this is a VERY important part of resolving this too. Thanks for pointing this important part out!
You can never undo making the wrong choice. Rationalising it does not make it any less of a wrong choice… whether it’s a cell phone, smoking or choosing a spath for a partner. The first example goes without much consequences, except for not using the options you were duped into buying it for. The latter two can be deadly. So we MUST accept the reality if we wish to survive physically, mentally, emotionally and fnancially. And then it becomes a harsh lesson in our humanity, of our weaknesses and needs (buttons) that were used to believe what was too good to be true.
Yes, Oxy, I don’t believe we can truly get past the dissonance until we accept how human we were and forgive ourselves. Another part in resolving it is rebuilding confidence and self-trust in that we can make better, more self-honest choices in the future.
I think I have already forgiven myself, but I do not trust my choices in men. And I expect I will take a long time in finding that self-trust
Darwin’s mom,
I am learning to trust myself again, but even NOW after all this time and All this “experience” I get fooled once in a while by someone, BUT…I acknowledge it sooner, I do not continue to let them use and abuse me, I go NC with them quickly, and I try to learn from the experience.
I haven’t had to worry about trusting men, there aren’t any guys standing in line at my front door wanting a date, but if there were, I can tell you I would be VERY cautious, even though I am NOT NEEDY like I was when I got hooked by the Spathy BF after my husband died. I am quite content “alone” without a romantic relationship, so if a guy came along that I was interested in, I would be pretty doggone PICKY about him and CAREFUL that I didn’t commit to someone who did not deserve my attention.
My life is full and fun and I am content and peaceful, so that said, romance is not at the top of my Christmas list.
I just chatter with a friend of mine, who was an ex of my spath and also Belgian. She’s also one of the women he cheated another ex of his with during that 7 year relationship. We stayed some weekends at her place. She was married to another Nicaraguan (she moved on to someone else when my spath wasn’t in Nicaragua when she came to visit him during her relationship with him), and has a kid with that guy. They recently broke up, and her ex is high in spath traits too: cheating, physically abusive, drinking, … Her mom had a brain hemorrage because of the stress of this friend’s ex husband (they lived in separate dwellings, but on a mutual farm). She bought him a ticket back to Nicaragua the day her mother got dismissed from the hospital. Anyway, she has become a friend during and after the relationship.
I stopped her in time from telling me what my ex-spath is up to now. I said I guessed he married or was going to marry the new victim, that I knew he was in Nicaragua shortly but supposedly back in London. The more vague this info is, the better for me. SHe mentioned he chatted with her last week, and was in Nica then still and gave her an earful (I didn’t ask why, and she did not clarify when I stopped her from telling me any details). And then she said that she knows from others in his village that he’s been cheating the new victim.
It didn’t do much to me… I smiled and said, a tiger doesn’t change his stripes. I never even needed to know he was sleeping around in Nicaragua and cheating the new victim now to feel confirmed, because it was what I expected him to do. The info did not hurt me either.
What I did not mind talking about were her stories. When I mentioned a couple of things of the past, she started to talk abotu some weird stuff with him ‘finding’ a guy in her room while she was sleeoing. I told her it was very likely he probably lured the guy into her room in teh first place.
Accountability.
there is none in my work enviro. it has been decaying; i have been watching the crap storm approaching since the beginning of october….and it’s here.
i decided 2 weeks ago that i would work to the end of my next event and do my best to use my public profile to find a new job. (this decision came from some some BS around my contract (damaged my loyalty) and the hiring a new director (who both of the employees know and have articulated to the management that this person didn’t have the skills for the position (wth were they thinking??? ). I have also been directly lied to by the person i most trusted to be straight with me…
and then the crap storm got worse. i met with my defacto boss today and finally the truth is coming out (i get mental when people scheme and withhold – goes right into the PTSD well.) After that meeting I met with a counselor and tried to figure how i could possibly last the next 11 weeks of the new contract.
and i figured it out: i have to treat them like they are spaths.
they are acting spathy; they are not spaths.
they are not being accountable, they are gaslighting; changing the story, changing the targets, lying, scheming and being vague and controlling.
i am very fortunate that i had a chance to talk to the counselor and my business adviser right after this.
i have to interact with the people at work, so it’s going to be way harder than the spath or the creature married to my mom (and theat is making my head spin and making me hurl green puke).
i will try to use every day to learn more about how to deal with the situation.
Thank you again for everything. I am having a very very difficult time forgiving myself. I cannot believe for all of those years I believed and trusted the spath. I need to realize I still have a lot of years ahead of me.
I understand the cog dis now. Yes, I experienced this all the time. I second guessed myself, my decisions and everything about my choices. Slowly my self-esteem and self-respect eroded away. As my therapist told me, they do not do all of this at once, because we would see it. It is always a little bit at a time, like chizzelling away at a wood stick, until there is nothing left but a walking skeleton. That is what I had become — a maid, chef, gardener, housekeeper, sex slave, etc.
My spath was on-line all day at work, checking to see what I purachased at the grocery. He would call me and ask what I bought for $13.27 at the grocery 15 minutes after I purchased it. STALKER, CONTROL are some of elements.
Thank you also for sharing about the fact that spaths cannot accept or give love. They are all about control and sex. The light went off about sex. There was no love-making it was just pure animal sex with the spath. SICK Even a high school boy could have probably done better.
I worked with a ton of spathy and narcissistic people and also…NO ACCOUNTABILITY. Being highly paid for doing nothing most of the time.