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.
Thank you for this posting. It helps to have people who have been through similar situations and this post about holding the psychopath accountable is quite timely for me. Living in a state where you must be separated for a year before filing for divorce has been an unanticipated blessing in many ways making sure that I keep my emotions in check and not react when the emotions of finding to my husband of seven years had used everything that was important to me to obtain his American Citizenship.
As you say all emotional distress is only relevant to your personal situation. I count the blessings that I was never physically harmed and that the financial devastation was limited. Through a year of therapy I have to hold him accountable for the fraud and manipulation that he inflicted on me. He crossed two boundaries that I simply cannot ignore – using my dying mother to manipulate me – and stealing 7 years of my life – my last potential child bearing years. I feel blessed that when I cut him off financially he could no longer control himself and once he was caught cheating I pursued all of those discrepancies that I had put aside in the name of love and trust.
Realizing that you spent 7 years with a stranger who never disclosed that he had 4 children he had abandoned .. Two ex wives he forgot to mention – and a father who he claimed to be dead – alive and well – left me feeling like I had been emotionally raped.
As I await my court date to finalize my divorce I am resolute in my commitment to turn him into immigration for fraud on the immigration paperwork he falsified to keep up his farce. Friends and family do not agree and do not understand – but then again they have not had to live in my skin and in my head – with flashbacks of this stranger in my bed. They have tried to simplify this like I am some jilted lover seeking revenge which could not be farther from the truth. What I need to recover and put this behind me is to know that I was strong and for once stood up for myself which means reporting this crime to the authorities with all of the back up documentation that I have gathered.
So I thank you for your post – with no children of my own – and limited financial impact – I will hold my head up high – gather my strength – and hold this person accountable for their actions.
Dear KatDid,
I too had married had a child with a person whom I did not know conned people out of their monies. Now I am in the middle of trying to get a divorce from my problem. Yes, he also sold shares for investments and financially took me for pre-marital funds, using my social security and all avenues to ruin my credit taking monies from every avenue. He took people through steps before duping them. He is hiding money and now had claimed bankruptcy for approx $1m. Ok, my point I am trying all I can to expose this person even though people do not want to listen and that’s ok. But my second attorney with Divorce & Criminal Law is on the right track. The attorney is exposing him as a crook this will help my case. I am extremely forth thinking and careful about my surrounds to keep safe. This will help me and also others in the near future(the investors) and victims. This case also may help me get a case number to fend-off the creditors which I never took anything from. I worked during our marriage and I don’t want others to go through what I have. I have discovered there have been others he financially ruined in his past . Since my findings which was in the last year of living with him. There was enough to write to the SEC. Their response is they will be doing something about it. That was 2 months ago. My smart lawyer has deposition him in a way to expose his deceit in extracting money from unsuspecting people. They probably still don’t know and I had tried telling one of course they think I am the bad person etc. Well, I am half way through this messing. I feel my education is not up to standards but I will try to correct this situation as much as possible. Please preserver.
Dear Sons.of.Sociopaths
You sound like a good, responsible young man. I commend you for trying to save the family still under your spaths control. Just wanted to give you a couple of heads up to consider in your plan.
Women who live under such abuse are usually not capable of working. I know it took me a long time to stop being afraid enough to even take care of myself or talk to people. In fact, they are frequently not open to rescue either, they betray those who try to help b/c they are SO afraid of the consequence to failure. They tend to go through the motions without thought, it is their survival mechanism. Talk to a domestic spousal abuse specialist about this situation.
Kids, little kids, will not control what they know. They will get angry and lash out, and tell him what’s coming.
The judge will want to know why child protective services were not called. And this is actually your best road to accomplish intervention. But the down side is they can possibly be taken from BOTH parents and lets face it, your mom being a basketcase will be a hard case to win custody.
Be sure to talk to an attorney about exposing your dad. You need to protect yourself from him filing legal recourse.
Am NOT writing to shot holes in your plan, only to give you a heads up and think how to solve these other likely scenarios before you get blindsided by them.
Dear Son,
Sigh, I am so sorry that you have had to become such a soldier at such a young age. Your plan sounds very complex, I hope you are able to pull it off. I assume that your mom is cooperating with this plan as well.
Keep us updated with your plans. God bless you.
Phoenix,
I don’t think “we all agree” that psychopaths “don’t feel” anything. I I think they don’t feel the BONDING that we do, or the empathy, sympathy or compassion, but they do FEEL–they feel rage, duping delight, glee, control, power, anger, and those are all legitimate FEELINGS.
They don’t perceive “punishment” the way we do. They don’t like it, but it just causes them RAGE but that’s okay as far as I am concerned, let them RAGE against the light!
Spencer, TOWANDA for you! Just be glad that you didn’t pass on his genes into a child that you loved that might grow up to be just like his father. There is some good that can be found in the worst events if we look hard enough, if only a lesson to be learned! (((hugs))) and God bless you. p.s. my two biological sons one is a psychopath and the other not the kind of man I care to associate with, but my adopted son is the light of my life. Giving birth isn’t the only way to have wonderful children.
Spencer,
You described how I felt at first about the little exposing I did. I know that my words and actions probably were interpreted as being a vengeful jilted woman wanting payback… but it had nothing to do with payback, but actually being able to stand up straight again.
People who have been used in so many ways end up feeling so dirty. I was used for money, for sex, to move to another country and brag back home where everybody knows what a criminal lowlife he is that he’s living the dream, and for status and reputation, for trust. Especially the latter angered me immensely. By people trusting me he slimed his way up and in with people who should not have trusted him anymore than I did. By exposing how distrustful he was, I wanted to take that back. If it didn’t open the new victim’s eyes, at least it opened the eyes of an ex of his who still thought him human and a friend, made one of the girls he cheated me with get STD tested, and some expat friends of mine who live there totally turn their back on him.
It wasn’t about making him pay, but about taking back what he never had a right to. It was mine to give and take away as well.
Phoenix and Oxy,
I agree wit Oxy here. They feel entitlement, anger, rage and envy and glee when harming or conning someone and get away with it
Oxy
My husband has said that he is not emotional, meaning that I was too emotional. As time went on, I amended his “not emotional” statement to read, “not emotionally available”.
Then I changed it further, that he was VERY VERY emotional, they were just ALL THE NEGATIVE emotions. He was VERY in contact with emotions including rage, spite, envy, vengeful, all the forms of anger including impatience, annoyed (his constant attitude, annoyed at every thing and everybody), arrogant, bitchy….
darwinsmom
you wrote:
“about taking back what he never had a right to.” It was mine to give and take away as well.
ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto ditto. and in ALL CAPS. Ditto. and ditto some more, etc. ditto.
my spath took what he had NO RIGHT TO.