Lovefraud has just posted a new case study on Lovefraud.com. It’s probably the most frightening article in True Lovefraud Stories:
Mark Ledden stabs his wife 11 times, then accuses her of attacking him
This is the story of a man who would probably score at the top of the PCL-R, the tool that measures psychopathic traits. He was charming, scamming and over sexed. He coldly threatened violence. Then, when he was crossed, he brutally acted on his threats.
It is also the story of a woman caught in a no-win situation. He seemed like a good guy, a responsible guy, when they became involved. Three months later they were engaged, and three months after that she was pregnant.
After the second child, Mark Ledden started threatening to kill his wife if she ever left him. By this time, Denise knew him well enough to take the threats seriously. She knew he was capable of committing that act of violence.
She also knew that if she left him, he would track her down and make good on his threats. So she stayed—until he did commit violence so atrocious that he was sent to prison. Luckily, she survived.
What do you do?
This case brings up the most difficult scenario when involved with a psychopath: What do you do when he (or she) threatens brutal violence, and you know the person means it?
What good is a restraining order? In reality, they are nothing but pieces of paper, and violence-prone psychopaths don’t care about paper.
Do you go off the grid and completely disappear? If so, how do you start over? You’ll have no identity, no background, no support network.
If Denise had called me for advice while she was still with this man, I don’t know what I would have told her. So I ask Lovefraud readers for your views. How would you advise someone who is living with a psychopathic volcano that could explode at any time?
I believe each and every one of us knew very early into our relationships with the SP that something was very wrong. But their trick is to get us so involved, married, pregnant that we stay in the relationship because they are so great at looking normal. My ex was so charming, but under his breath he would say to me the most messed up things ever. We wonder is that normal, and everyone has secrets. NOT normal. But we take the package and we pretend we are a normal couple. Yes we blame the drinking, but the drinking was not the problem, when he didnt drink the dry drunk was just as evil.
So this is what we do to survive, we start talking to ourselves in our own head. SP would say ” I love you” and my head would say to myself”F you”. We do end up very screwed up and stress will physically make us all sick.
This is my answer to your question, what I did with my SP. I knew he was crazy, and I knew he was less scary in my life close to me, because I knew what he was doing, when he was doing it .In my 16 years I never left my kids home alone with him. We all hated this man. So we kept our friends close and our enemy closer, ( but everyone knows the SP makes it very hard for you to actually have friends). He truly is the enemy. But if we hang in long enough he will take the rope and hang himself. Someone he worked with saw his charm, heard his sweet I love you’s he spoke to me and she fell for this guy hook line and sinker. Well she is not on my mind of people to worry about.I am just thanking God he is gone. I know I sound like my relationship was not that crazy, we lived with a crazy drunk dad always playing with his loaded guns. My kids never knew if he was going to kill me, or himself. Again I would like to say that just having this forum to talk in helps me heal. I tell the outside world my ex was a SP they look at me like they think I might be the crazy one. Crazy to hang in, my best advice is to get that chain of paper against him. Call the police every chance you get, when he is good and drunk and he will hang himself in front of the cops. I didnt do this because I wanted to look normal…. but I have two very messed up kids . So I really want to say to anyone in this situation, RUN… run fast and far and DONT LOOK BACK. It was not real, never was, never could be. Just a matter of time before his next victim finds this website, for she is too old to get pregnant, and her money cant last forever. Sue
Remember the flick “ENOUGH” (2002) with J-Lo….watch and learn. If you haven’t seen it, anyone in a violent relationship with a spath, it is a absolute MUST SEE! The best lesson you can take from the movie, NEVER underestimate their deviant premeditation. Just as they were able to befriend you into their schemes, they are able to do the same with friends, family, co-workers, strangers, employees, that you have done THEM wrong, (the classic pity party) and that they are actually the victim. In this particular case, he underestimated her mental acuity, her drive and her maternal instinct, which is often stronger than physical strength. In her case, she trained and developed the physical strength; an excellent choice on her part. I always enjoy watching this movie; it gives those of us who are in a hopeless situation a glimmer of hope that one day we, too, can be free of the spath.
GOT2GETFREE –
I agree that the husband in “Enough” is spath, through and through. Again, as when I watched “An Education”, the knowledge of what he was (not just a “bad character in the movie”), but SPATH and so like my ex in so many spine-tingling and barf-inducing ways…) made my blood run cold. I feel enormous discomfort watching a “dramatic play” of stuff that actually happened to me, accusations that were actually made against me and insults that were actually hurled at me. Yukky stuff all round.
Oxy –
W & G are both woolly sheep (so I have to get them shorn every year, or else they would swelter through and probably drop dead from, our extremely hot Summers here). W is a Merino X Blackfaced Suffolk and G is a Blackfaced Suffolk. Both immensely handsome fellows (not that I am at all biased…), bottle-reared from around a week old, allegedly orphans (although to be perfectly honest, I think the farmer I bought them off might have had something to do with the death of their dams….) and used to fit laying together across my knee while I fed them their bottles.
W would still try to sit in my lap when he was about a year old, but by then they were so big that only his front legs and his chest would drape across me, while his big fat belly, hindlegs and stump of a tail (we have to chop them off over here so that they don’t become fly-struck) would trail along the ground. It was most entertaining.
Even now that they are coming up for 5 years old, they think they are “babies”, always coming up for a scratch and a cuddle and a rub. Their paddock has 2 old fig trees in it and when I pick the figs, they jump up against me like a dog would, balancing on their back legs, trying to get to the figs before I do and damn near killing me in the process – they would each have to weigh well over 100kg, as well as being taller than I am when they stand on their rear legs!
They have been such fun to keep as pets – so much more intelligent than people generally give them credit for – real characters.
I would love your donkeys. I always wanted one of my own, but have never had the right property for it (noise polllution and all that jazz) ….maybe one day. Goats are my all-time, hands-down favourite animal because they are so clever and soooooooo naughty! I think when the first of my boys goes (they live around 10 years) I will get a goat as a companion for whoever is left.
Aussie, your pets sound absolutely adorable. Now I want one.
But, I know that Pinky-Doodle would object. He’s funny like that….wants to be the only one.
Kim –
I had 5 cats when I moved here (and they ALL thought they THEY were the only one!). I lost 3 of my old timers within 18 months of one another, and while grieving the whole spath thing as well. It was pretty grim, but the rest of my monsters kept me going.
Before W & G, I had had 2 other newborn orphaned lambs, but both had died after only a few weeks. I wailed the same way I did when I miscarried my 2 babies. I had actually gotten the first one (“Nigel”, a beautiful spotty boy) around the anniversary of my first miscarriage. It is always a tough time of year for me and I thought that having a baby to look after might help. It did – he was pride and joy. I took him to work with me (school) and the kids adored him. As I worked at a table with the children, he would lay in my lap and sleep.
I would carry him against my heart as mums do their babes; he was warm and floppy and had a beautiful new born smell about him (I kept him very clean); he weighed around the same as a human baby the same age would have done. I was inconsolable when he died from liver failure.
Some weeks later, one of the mums from school who lived on a farm, gave me a little orphaned female (“Gidget”) because she couldn’t bear to see me so distraught. Sadly, she was ill from the start and lasted only 3 weeks – but she was one mightily loved lambkin for that short time. After she died, I was obsessed with the need to “mother” another one. I got both boys because I knew the mortality rate was high and I was hedging my bets. They both made it and they have brought such joy to my life with their funny antics. They honestly think that they are dogs, not sheep.
Aussie, I am so impressed that you continued to mother these poor orphans even though you lost two and that must have hurt horribly. I probably would not have risked it after the first loss. Thank God you did, though, because your boys are probably the happiest, and luckiest boys in Oz.
Kim –
Every single farmer, butcher and meat-lover that has seen them would agree with you! I am the butt of many jokes as a consequence of keeping “meat” as pets and many a greedy lip has been licked in my back yard as my boys have been mentally weighed and dissected!
I always tell them that they will need to put me on a spit and eat me first, because it will be OVER MY DEAD BODY!
I always feel so sad for male farm animals – whatever they are, if they are not the “chosen one” (the breeder), most will inevitably get “the chop”. Females are usually considered more useful, because they lay eggs, or bear young or give milk……the poor old boys really don’t stand a chance, just by dint of being born with unfortunate chromosones. It’s just not fair, I tell you!
(I can hear Oxy sharpening her killing knives from here…)
God bless this woman and her childern to finally live a free and peaceful life.
What to do living in fear of your spouse or companion.You can only do your best for yourself and children. What is best is to plan everything out without the other knowing. You too need to play your part so they are not suspicious of you. Get some help from friends and family, have a plan to get out, save money put it away somewhere in a safe place. This may take time so patience is important, you need to swallow your pride sometimes living with these parasites, in the long run you will get away from them. Yes you will need to start over somewhere else new beginnings.Keep your focus on this at all times it is important to keep moving with your plan.Always remember the parasite you are leaving is a dangerous person and you must do this for your own good.God will give you the strength to move on in time. Unfortunately it seems this is the only way to live a peaceful life so it must be done carefully.We all know when we had enough and need to find a way out.God bless and get out of living in fear or it will destroy you……
Amen Eclipse,
but sometimes the victim forgets the plan. The parasite will charm her into going on a vacation, or buying a new tv set. He can smell her savings. She will think if they go away everything will be okay.If he gets a new TV he will be sweet for awhile. Sometimes we are our biggest culprit. The key is to get it into the victims mind that she is truly with someone she does not know. Third parties are always afraid to get into the middle of any relationship. We cant save anyone here, because if we are here it means we are already on board. Safe!The power is in knowing.