I received the following email from the Lovefraud reader who posts as “Zimzoomit:”
I saw the Lifetime Network show about you and lovefraud.com. What I would like to know is how the man who came next (your true lover, after the fraud) helped you to overcome the emotional havoc your ex who frauded you caused? Is there a specific blog or link on lovefraud.com to tell us how he helped you?
Were you able to talk about things that bothered you about your ex, even ever so occasionally, when/if the haunted thoughts encroached on you ”¦ even if only occasionally but for years after the fact, and if so, what things did your new love say, to help you overcome those thoughts? Was he willing to listen, or did he occasionally treat you like a “broken record”?
Yes, after the sociopath, I now have a wonderful husband, Terry Kelly. We truly love each other, care about each other, and want each other to be happy. I should point out, however, that Terry wasn’t my first relationship after the con artist.
First post-sociopath relationship
Seven months after I left my sociopathic husband, James Montgomery, I started dating a man named John. John was younger than me, fun and entertaining. We actually met online and corresponded for more than two months before meeting in person.
At the time, I was in the midst of finding out what my ex was really all about, communicating with some of his other victims, and filing for divorce. I described some of what was going on in my emails. The story, of course, was outrageous, and I guess that John was actually intrigued.
John lived an hour and 45 minutes away from me, so we saw each other only on weekends. We did normal dating things going out to dinner, to concerts, to parties with his friends or my friends. That’s one of the biggest things John offered me—a sense of normalcy, like a safe harbor amid the insanity of my divorce. He also paid for all our entertainment, which I appreciated, because I was broke.
I did talk to him about my outrage at my ex and my frustration with the legal case. John stayed with me until the divorce was finalized, and for a few months after that. Eventually, however, the relationship ended, and he did make a comment to the effect of, “all you talk about is James.” He may have also begun to feel that my problems were just too big, and he couldn’t solve them.
Still, we had loved each other, and because I loved him, the end of the relationship was emotionally more painful than the end of my marriage. In retrospect, however, John and I were really quite different, not an ideal match. I believe that John was in my life to support me at a very difficult time and that was it. I have fond memories of him, but our relationship was not meant to be forever.
Second post-sociopath relationship
Ten months after I broke up with John, I met Terry at a nightclub. A week or so later he took me out to dinner, and we talked about our circumstances. He had been in a long-term marriage, and his wife had just asked for a divorce. I figured I might as well be honest, and told him that I was married to a con man who took a quarter million dollars from me, cheated with multiple women, etc., etc.
I didn’t know how Terry was going to react. In fact, a month passed before he called for another date—I thought I had scared him away. But when he arrived for our second date, he brought his most recent tax return to show me. He thought what I had been through was terrible, and wanted to show me that he did make his own money.
Terry and I dated for four years before we married. With him, I truly learned to give and receive love, and live in partnership. We care about and support each other. He’s my biggest cheerleader with Lovefraud. In fact, I couldn’t have created it without his support.
If you’d like to read more about how these men helped me, it’s all in the printed edition of my first book, Love Fraud. (The e-book has been abridged, and does not contain the description of my relationship with John.) The story really is romantic
Love Fraud how marriage to a sociopath fulfilled my spiritual plan.
Primer for post-sociopath relationships
Here are what I think are the take-home lessons:
1. In order to have a happy, loving relationship with someone else, we must first heal ourselves.
No one can overcome the emotional havoc for us we must do it ourselves. While I was dating both John and Terry, I was also working with my energy counselor to release all of the pain of the betrayal by my sociopathic ex. Then, I had to work with her to release the emotional pain of losing the relationship with John. By the time I met Terry, I had made a lot of progress, so I was in a much better place to build a solid relationship.
2. Sometimes we find interim relationships before we find true love.
Not every relationship is meant to be permanent. Sometimes we just travel life’s journey together for awhile, supporting each other in some way, then our journeys diverge. This was my experience with John. Although I was sad when the relationship ended, I eventually realized that it had been exactly what I needed at the time. It was perfect.
3. Real love is easy.
In a true loving relationship, there are no games, no power plays, and no exploitation. There is an honest give and take. The two people in the relationship truly care about the each other’s welfare, happiness and success. Real love is peaceful and easy.
Terry and I have been together for 12 years, and I’m still excited to see him. We still make each other laugh; we still want to snuggle. But if I hadn’t done all the internal work that I did, I’m not sure if I would have been able to experience such a wonderful love.
The relationship we experience always depends on what is going on inside of us. That’s why it’s so important to make a decision to heal, and then do what it takes to rebuild ourselves.
Jov 77
OxDrover and the others are very wise, you would be smart in following their advice.
Seems to me that you feel strongly for this friend- understand that this friend can never repay your kindness or concern. This friend is a sexual predator and you are like a spectator watching from the side lines. I hope this doesn’t come across as too harsh, but having been the target of one spaths attempt at murder- I have to hope that you will take the right road with NO CONTACT. There is no future for you with this “person” as there was none with any of his previous victims.
Blossom4th, Ox Dover, Truthspeak and Discovering I welcome your comments and contribution. I appreciate the frankness and the reality check. It had been a rough journey.
Blossom4th:
Thanks for helping me to understand that spaths do go into hiding or is in-active at times. I kinda suspected but was not too sure. I agree with you that he does not feel empathy or remorse. He told me himself that his conscience is asleep. He mentioned also the evil thoughts that flood his mind at times but he controls them. I concur with you that he uses religion as a façade. Nobody at his church or in his community knows that he is a wolf clothe like sheep. The only reason why he did not bed the daughter of the new pastor is because he was not attracted to her according to him. He attempted at seducing her and saw where seduction would have worked if he was interested. (Just to dash this in. He said that at church one Sabbath he was walking in the passage-way to the restroom. In the passage was a young church sister with wet hands. He asked her if he could dry them for her. In an innocent, harmless, jovial way she gave spath her hand. He then used his hands to dry hers. Suddenly she caught upon herself about to get aroused. She flashed her hand from his and ran off. In drying her hand using his hands the spath was doing it in a sensual seductive manner while talking to her ordinarily with a charming smile and tone of voice.)
I hope that his history of not marrying these women will be in Na’s. favour without any emotional damage. My prayer is that things will end before he seduces her into giving up her virginity to him.
I do believe that those ladies need a friend. You see, he has never introduced them to me. With the exception on Li who I am a little acquainted with on a professional level. Someone did warn her that spath is a womanizer but she was already hooked. I have never met any of the other females. He just told me the stories about the females to entertain himself I guess. When I use the term “friend” I use it loosely now because this fellow is clueless about true friendship . It has come into my consciousness now that he can never be a real friend. It was an illusion on my part. He had mirrored my personality and then wiggled his way into my life in the name of friendship. Oh boy! Was he the ideal friend ”“ couldn’t ask for better then. Told me his many secrets as a strategy get a hold on me. I did not know about the subtle manipulation then but I do know now.
OX Dover:
Thanks for the enlightenment that they are not bad 100% of the time or 24/7. I guess that we all wish that they were able to maintain positive changes when they do make them. Through the help of meditation I am realizing that he was never a friend and is incapable of measuring up to the level and quality friendship that I delivered. I am at place in my life where his spirit makes mine feel sick because he gave back nothing at the spiritual level.
I hear your suggestion to confront him with witnesses. What he has shared with me are things done in the past before I met him. Also I have no hard evidence. He mostly reveal things to me when he is bored and wants some entertainment of sort. Secondly we don’t live in the same community and we are of different denominations. Thirdly we live in a small country so one has to be careful how they oust a spath. He has a dangerous side to him which is dormant but can be ruthless if awaken. I had to talk some sense into him one day. He was raging mad with 15 yr old female. He claimed that she had his name in a mix-up. He told me that if she did not stop he was going to hurt her. I told him he could not hurt her because he was guilty of the accusation. Long story short. The spath seduced his neighbor’s 14yrs old and the girl-child got infatuated with him. The 15 yr old and 14 yr old (cousins) had a dispute and the 15 yr old told the secret of the 14 yr old. She told that the 14 yr old and the spath had a relationship going. This happened shortly after the spath ended the relationship with the woman he was to marry. I did not know these girls as I live in different community. The spath did tell me of a female he was playing around with but he presented her as an adult. I remembered telling him that I didn’t support him toying with the emotions of the female and he should stop it. When he almost got busted he came to me with the full story. I cussed him out. I found out that point it was a child he was sexually molesting (a 14 yr old) and not an adult female. He told me sometime before that one night as he was about to have sex with a female somebody knocked on the door so the sex never happened. I had no idea that it was a 14 yr old child. He told me what he would have done to the 15 yr old if word got out. It was not nice at all.
Now the reason why I said that NO CONTACT would be difficult is because the spath is a co-worker. We are a very small team at work so I have to be in daily contact. What I have managed to do is minimize things to a professional level. It took me a good while because each time I cut off communication he would find some way to reconnect with me.
Truthspeak:
The response to your question is no. I have no control over what he does or to whom. I hear about things after the fact most times. The female he is dating (future wife ) came to the office a few times and he never thought of introducing us ”“ probably for controlling reasons. I just asked about her out of curiosity.
It is enlightening to learn that the worst thing I could have done was to tell the spath that he is a spath. And you are right as I have observed that hardly anything offends him. Even when I would be upset with him and expressing myself he would just look at me with a half smile and said nothing at all. He never apologized unless it is demanded. After a time I realized that I was wasting my time and breath being angry at the spath. My upset was nothing to him. Bastard!!
Like the man you married this spath used scriptures to manipulate people and justify his wrongs. At a function one time he almost fatally hurt a man. The man was speared due to the quick action of others. When I spoke to him about his stupid and dumb action the quoted a scripture that Jesus spoke to justify his behaviour. He even justified the no mercy act done to women during intercourse.
Your second to last paragraph I found interesting. Had not idea that scriptures or such does nothing for them. In a sense I guess that I saw that religion did very little for the spath but it did not fully dawned on me although it was before my eyes. I used friend in a casual way. I will admit that it took a while for me to break ”“away because of how deep he hooked me. I did not quite know what the spath wanted from me but I knew that I served some purpose of sort.
Thanks for your concern, thoughts and insight and I appreciated your frankness.
Discovering:
I duly note your contribution and you are correct in your thinking. The spath had planned to leave the job and do his own business. He said that he would be leaving end of month Feb 2013. This was good news to me.. Then I remembered. In 2012 he said that he would be leaving by August or December the latest. In November he told me that his departure has changed to Feb 2013. He is still here. The thing is that he had a plan but in my view it was not solid enough for him to start his own thing. For now I don’t communicate with him unless it is company related.
Like many others I am a work in progress. Thank you all once again for your support and contribution. Much appreciated.
Bless
Jov77,
Thanks for a better understanding!And best wishes on keeping contact limited to professional only!Although you don’t have the evidence to present,someday someone will.
Jov, if you even THINK this man has seduced multiple underage females,you MUST for conscience sake report this…with whatever names and dates and information. Read the articles here about the sexual cover ups in the Catholic church and Penn state.
It is in my opinion your duty to report this to the police. Doing nothing allows him to continue. It is up to the police to get the evidence and prosecute him before he hurts more little girls.
Jov77, I am SO relieved to read more clarification of your experiences. Absolutely, this man is not anyone’s “friend” and his exploits could be exaggerated, but even if they are, he has intent to damage and has, no doubt, managed to leave a wake of harm that hasn’t even been noticed.
You see, when a victim falls prey to a spath in a religious/spiritual setting, there are a couple of dynamics that are going on. First, and most exciting for spaths, is the dismantling of the victim target’s beliefs. “God made you for me. You are God’s gift to me,” and other such statements put the victim target up onto a very, very high pedestal. If God made the Universe, then the greatest flattery would be that He made two people specifically FOR one another. Next, the seduction USING spiritual doctrines and context push the edge of that sinful envelope – i.e., if GOD made you for me, then it isn’t a SIN for you to offer up your virginity because it is RIGHT in His eyes…..see where this goes? And, you can bet your next three paychecks that this guy is eyeballing the current victim target’s virginity (NOT her, but her virginity) as a vile trophy. Once he’s relieved her of that, he’ll destroy her, completely. And, regardless of whether this ever happens, or not, there will be emotional damage – he is seducing her, setting out the baited lures, and he’s trying to reel her in. If she’s bought into one sentence of his verbal bullshit, there will be emotional damage.
I’m in agreement with OxD, that this man needs to be reported to the elders and the pastor – that he would actually talk about seducing the pastor’s daughter is simply disgusting. I mean, ponder this for a bit: what kind of person would even JOKE about seducing the offspring of their Church’s Pastor?! This man is a danger not only to female members, but to the integrity of the Church’s doctrines. He will bring this institution down, lock, stock, and barrel.
The best way to deal with this guy would be to visualize him as a cardboard cutout – he is devoid of conscience, remorse, and a soul. He MIMICS human behavior, but he’s inhuman. And, yeah…..spaths make the BEST friends, in the beginning – they lovebomb and flatter platonic targets and, oh-yes-they-do throw in some sexual tension, as well. They do this because sex is just a part of the equation, albeit a very powerful component.
So, give the option of alerting the elders and pastor about this guy some very deep consideration. Like I typed, this guy isn’t only destroying the victim targets, he’s going to take down the institution, as well. Those victims are going to NEED some validation that they were targeted, hooked, and slammed by a predatory human being. Refer the elders to this site, if it would help. But, the main thing is that this guy is POISON.
Brightest blessings
Jov77, shocking to read of the psychopath you know. Please reconsider how such an individual can be a ‘friend’ to you? . This individual is a serial predatory rapist. You write : When she starts to literally cry and beg him to stop because the pain is too great; he would get more sexually turned on by their anguish and agony as this is highly pleasurable for him. What the females got from the sexual encounter was a very battered vagina. Every one of the females bled probably from tear and were cramped for days. One got a damaged womb and is now unable to conceive. The spath would just laugh and said it was fun. ” This man is a text book sadist. He is personality disordered and he presents a very extreme danger to women and girls. Please consider reporting him to the police and asking them to investigate. God bless you for your concern for his victims and please be vigilant yourself.
those are a lot of details for the spath to share.
Jov77, the term, “sadist” is attributed to the Marquis de Sade who was most noted for his penchant for causing extreme pain in relation to sexual gratification – of course, he wasn’t the first to do this, but he was most noted for this on an extreme level.
This “friend,” parasite, illusionist, whatever you want to name him finds gratification in harming women, physically, emotionally, sexually, spiritually, and probably financially. He is POISON to you, to the institution, to women, and to all human beings he comes into contact with.
So, having read more about sociopathy, sexual predators, religious predators, and others, you clearly have choices before you.
* Remain affiliated with the institution and speak to the elders about this man’s behaviors
* Remain affiliated with the institution and speak to local authorities about this man’s sexual assaults on underaged women
* Remain affiliated with the institution and hope this man will disappear
* Leave the institution and align yourself with another one
None of these choices are pleasant. In your response, you listed a number of “reasons” that you couldn’t report this man, and I encourage you to consider altering these beliefs. This man is a predator and a dangerous one that perpetrates deliberate, intentional, and gleefully malicious harm upon women, in particular, but (in your own words) he also targets men using sexual tension. This man is using the cloak of religious respectability to hide his crimes and sins behind, and it’s heinous on EVERY level.
If you do nothing, you are enabling him. If you do something, there may be consequences, or not – but, taking action will relieve you of being an enabler.
And, I agree with Discovering – the spath has shared a WHOLE lot of details with you and I have to wonder if he’s set you up to maintain his secrets by using your beliefs to cause you to “share” details of your own life with him that he could use against you. I’m not accusing or judging – I’m putting forth a fact: spaths (especially, these types of sexual predators) DO NOT disclose on a cost-free basis. There is ALWAYS an agenda and ALWAYS a price to pay.
Brightest blessings
EDIT ADD: I just re-read your response where you stated that you listened to audio-recordings of this “friend” raping his victims. If this is true, I cannot process this information, right now, in relation to your religious affiliation. I simply can’t.
EDIT ADD ADD: Jov77, I will strongly urge you to EDIT your response and remove the graphic description of the audio-recording of the woman’s rape. The details are unnecessary and will be VERY triggering for those of us who have experienced similar events.
EDIT ADD ADD ADD: Okay, I find this description of the sexual exploits to be unnecessarily graphic and very triggering. I cannot use the “Report abusive comment” option, for whatever reason. I do not know what your agenda is, Jov77, but I’m respectfully asking you to use the “Click To Edit” feature and delete the detailed descriptions. This isn’t the place to post “Forum” stories, thank you. And, if my “Online Tone” seems unpleasant, too bad. I am disturbed and triggered by the lack of consideration in posting details that you apparently have listened to, REPEATEDLY.
Jov 77, I’ve just realised, you are male. I couldn’t figure out why this man was sharing the details of his abuse with you , I thought at first you were female. OK. Horrendous, criminal, behaviour. Please consider Truthy’s advice very carefully, you come across as a very well meaning and good natured person, let your conscience be your guide as you go forward, as I think what Truthy says should be heeded – please remove the details of this man’s victims’ responses to his violence from your post , one of them may visit this site seeking advice. Additionally there are people who post here who have been raped and sexually abused and they will not want to read this material. God bless x
P.S. Perhaps I shouldnt guess but I have a strong feeling you are writing from SA? I have some SA colleagues.
TeaLight, what I find even more difficult to “figure out” is why someone would disdain what someone is doing, yet participate in the sexual assaults by actually claiming to listen to audio-recordings of the crimes.
Something smells, here, and it isn’t halibut.