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?
Littlewhitehorse,
I am sorry that you were fooled for 22 years, and then got the big reveal. Hindsight, were there times where his “mask” slipped? Did you feel that things were not quite right?
Ox,
I am mostly out of the terrorized phase, as I’m fairly sure my ex-socio has moved on with his life and new target, a nice young, vulnerable empathic single mom – like I was when he met me 😀
I still have dreams of him every night. Sometimes he’s stalking me and my son with a gun, and soetimes I’m just watching him and reliving the pain. Regardless, I’m not so jumpy anymore.
I never, ever, ever want to forget the terror. I want to remember the truth that there are dangerous people and that I have to always protect myself. So, I can relate to what you’re saying about caution. Caution is always needed. And, I will forever need to be cautious and look over my shoulder.
Purewaters3
In hindsight loads of red flags. The marriage broke down ten years ago under the abuse and I left him an got my own home with the kids.
I went into counselling and even ventured that he could be a sociopath but was made to feel that this was dramatic. I was heartbroken at the time and I believed his lies about going to counselling and marriage guidance.
At this time he left the house every week for a counselling session. I now wonder if he did attend. We went to marriage guidance and I took him back. I did not have access to the internet in those days and I wonder if things could have been different if I did.
In the ten years that we got back together there was a major attempt on his part to change. And he was good. Some red flags but explained away and for all sakes and purposes he had turned into a great husband and father.
Or did he? I am dissecting this period now with the rose coloured glasses off.
The ‘big reveal’ shocked me to the core and nearly killed me. I did not even know this man.
So hard to put 22 years together with someone you never knew but thought you did.
Thanks for listening
littlewhitehorse
Ox drover
You give me hope that the feeling of terror will leave and be replaced by caution.
Thanks
Littlewhitehorse
Dear whitehorse,
I am still very cautious….but no longer hyper-vigilant like I was, where I jumped if I heard a noise or a car drove up in the yard.
If a stranger drives up in the drive which is about 100 ft or so from my front door, I no longer walk out to greet them, but stand on the porch and find out who they are and what they want…and though they don’t see it, I am ARMED. I lock my doors now, where for 15 years I didn’t even know where the KEY to my front door was. LOL
I feel like I am PREPARED as best I can be for whatever happens. There is no 100% guarantee in life that you will be safe from everything there is….or everyone….but you just get as prepared as you can be and accept that is the best you can do. I don’t want to live in that constant state of JUMPINESS like a wild rabbit in a cage….because just about no matter how careful you are, that poor wild rabbit will die just from stress and continual fright. I lived in a continual state of FEAR and TERROR for so long it became my way of life, it was like I was a prisoner of war. I decided I can’t live like that and I refuse to.
When you face the possibility of death, sometimes it allows you to let that fear go and realize that living in that kind of TERROR is worse than death! There is a quote (paraphrased and I can’t remember who said it in what famous poem) “the coward dies a 1000 deaths, the brave man but one.”
Being “brave” doesn’t mean you are not afraid, it simply means that you don’t let terror over come you, and though you are afraid, you still carry on. YOU CAN DO IT!!!!! (((hugs))))
Dear Ox Drover
I understand the prisoner of war feeling as this is what I felt too. He held me in captivity and stalked me for three years all in.
This has led me to suffer agorophobia on top of other symptoms. It just gets me so down as I was completely mentally healthy before he attacked me.
So much work to heal and I wasn’t expecting it at my age.
Bummer….
Thanks for the support
Littlewhitehorse
Dear Little white horse,
Sugar, ain’t none of us getting any younger! LOL 🙂
Unfortunately we don’t get to pick and choose what some one else does….only our reaction to it. I know what you mean about not wanting to leave the house….mine isn’t as severe as agorophobia thank goodness, but I actually feel better here at home and don’t enjoy going out as much as I used to. I got to the point when I first moved back to the farm that I lived in my RV parked next to my house because some how the HOUSE ITSELF didn’t feel safe, and in my little “CAVE” in the RV I felt safer. I lived in the RV next door to the house for about 6 months before I finally moved into the house itself and out of the RV. LOGICALLY the RV wasn’t any safer than the house, but somehow I FELT safer in it so I just did what FELT GOOD to me because really, what did it HURT? Not a thing actually. Hell if I wanted to live in a TENT in my front yard, whose business is it except mine?
I’ve had a life time of guilt about “you should do x, y or z instead of a, b or c” and I finally realized that I GET TO PICK WHAT I SHOULD AND SHOULD NOT DO. My kids are grown, I don’t OWE them anything…and I don’t OWE my egg donor anything….she cut off my power of attorney and I couldn’t look after her if I felt obliged to, she has taken away my legal right as a daughter—and with it the RESPONSIBILITY is gone. So I am only responsible to MYSELF.
So I get to determine what is right for me, and what I do and what I think and what I want. WOW!!! That’s kind of empowering isn’t it?
What’s the worst that can happen? My son sends someone to kill me and I get killed. I’m gonna die someday anyway, and chances are it will be quick.
But what to me is WORSE than getting shot and killed is to be afraid of my shadow. To make my decisions on what to do and how to live entirely on my FEARS…I’m made up my mind I won’t live in that terror, that is WORSE TO ME THAN DEATH, it is LIVING DEATH. I will be cautious, and prepared as much as i reasonably can, but I am NOT going to live in TERROR. I’d rather be dead.
Aussie girl made a suggestion the other day that II have taken to heart, it makes sense. I carry my car keys with me in my pocket now instead of leaving them in the house to HUNT when I want them….I have for a long time carried my cell phone just in case I fall and break a leg….and I carry a hand gun here on the farm and in my vehicle if I go somewhere but I’ve done that all my adult life—in the country where there are snakes and rabid skunks it just pays to be armed and prepared, and a woman alone if her car breaks down needs to be able to defend herself if need be, my little pistol has “saved my bacon” three times so I am right fond of her and “wouldn’t leave home without it.” But at the same time, I am NOT going to base everything in my life on someone else’s determination to hurt me. IF I do that, then they WIN and I won’t have that. I’m too much of a hard nosed old bat to let them completely WIN! LOL
Oxy –
WHO SAYS ya can’t teach old old dog new tricks?! 🙂 xxx
Well, Aussie, just thought I’d give you a laugh. During cool nights, I have sweat pants that I sleep in as “jammies” and they have pockets (so I can carry my car keys! LOL) I kept having these dreams last night and my hip hurting! Guess what! YEP! I went to bed with this big wad of car keys in one pocket and my cell phone in the other one! LOL So I really did keep them on my ALL the time, but I think I will go back to hopefully remembering to lay them next to my bed, right next to my pistol! LOL ROTFLMAO
Hells bells Oxy – I didn’t mean to get you all paranoid and silly!
(BTW, in cool weather, I also sleep in a “track suit”, as we call the whole “sweat pant/suit” thing here; so I guess that makes us EQUALLY gorgeous at night! LOL)