Recently, a reporter was inquiring about people who live double lives. Why do they do it? Can they maintain double lives for a long time? What are the dangers?
Like most of us at Lovefraud, I have some experience with this. My ex-husband, James Montgomery, cheated with at least six different women during our 2.5-year marriage. He had a child with one of the women. Ten days after I left him, he married the mother of the child, which was the second time he committed bigamy. And of course, he took a quarter-million dollars from me—spending much of the money entertaining these other women.
Not everyone who lives a double life is a sociopath. Some people, like spies and undercover cops, are doing their jobs. But for all those people who don’t have a legitimate reason for creating an alternate existence—why do they do it?
Exploitation
Sociopaths are social predators who live their lives by exploiting others. When sociopaths live double lives, the prime reason is probably because it enables them to exploit multiple people simultaneously.
This is especially true of the parasites that sponge off of their romantic partners. I’ve heard of many, many cases in which sociopaths, both male and female, are involved with two, three or even more romantic relationships at once, and taking from all of their partners—money, sex, cars, entertainment, whatever. Essentially the sociopaths are looking for supply, and the more sources of supply they have, the better.
Promiscuity
Another reason for double lives is the promiscuity of sociopaths. Most sociopaths have a high appetite for sex, amazing stamina, and get bored easily. Consequently, what they really want in their sex lives is variety. So they hook up with a variety of people, in a variety of places, and engage in a variety of sex acts.
Often, however, the sociopaths’ sexual partners do not share these wide-ranging proclivities. But the sociopaths don’t bother to tell the truth about what they’re doing. The sociopaths simply pursue their sexual agendas with multiple people, but keep everyone separate. Sometimes this involves elaborate ruses and manipulation.
Thrill of the game
This leads to another point—many sociopaths simply love the game. They love getting over on people—one expert called this “duping delight.”
For example, one night shortly after we were engaged, my ex-husband came to visit me. He was driving a strange car. When I asked him whose car it was, he told me an elaborate story about it belonging to a military buddy. The truth was that he had another woman staying with him for a week, and he drove her car to my house. I don’t know what reason he gave her for taking her car, but whatever it was, it was unnecessary. He could have driven his own car. I believe Montgomery just wanted to take her car to visit me for the thrill of getting over on both of us.
I’ve heard of other cases like this. A woman brought one man that she was dating to a trade association dinner in which another man she was dating was being presented with an award. Why? For the fun of seeing one guy squirm, and the other guy clueless.
Mask of normalcy
Finally, some sociopaths hold a job, have a family, maintain a house and go to church to provide cover for their true pursuits—sex, drugs, crime and perhaps even murder. This is how some famous serial killers operated, such as Dennis Lynn Rader, the BTK killer. He worked, was a church deacon, and killed 10 people. His wife of 34 years never knew of his desire to “bind, torture and kill.”
Even when they aren’t killers, many sociopaths establish “normal” lives to make it easier to pursue their exploitative interests. Some sociopaths are also extremely concerned about their image. They want to keep their places in society, and having a spouse, family, job and a hot car all contribute to their status.
In answer to one of the questions at the beginning of this article, many sociopaths can, indeed, maintain the double lives for many, many years. I’ve heard from plenty of women who were married 10, 20, 25 years—and then were shocked to discover what their husbands were doing throughout their entire marriage.
Dangers of the double lives
Yes, I suppose some sociopaths face danger because of their double lives—but honestly, I’m not overly concerned about them.
But the dangers to unknowing partners are serious. Sociopaths bleed their partners of money to fund their extracurricular activities. As I reported in my new book, Red Flags of Love Fraud—10 signs you’re dating a sociopath, 20 percent of Lovefraud survey respondents said that their sociopathic partners infected them with sexually transmitted diseases. In this blog, I’ve reported at least two cases of men who were convicted of knowingly transmitting HIV to unknowing sex partners.
But even when partners aren’t physically harmed by the double lives of sociopaths, the psychological damage of betrayal is profound. Discovery of the truth leads to two kinds of shock: The shock at the callous actions of the sociopath, and the personal shock that the partner was totally in the dark.
Recovery, for the targets, can be long and difficult. In the meantime, the sociopaths simply move on to another life.
Again, another article spot-on regarding my x-spath, who is a flight attendant, the perfect profession for a gay male wanting to leave a double life.
Exploitation: “This is especially true of the parasites that sponge off of their romantic partners…”
It’s nice to have a guy in New York City with a nice apartment, who took you to nice restaurant and bars at his expense isn’t it?
Chilling fact — he lives in London, but in an online profile, in answer to about what you are mostly likely downing on a Friday night, his answer was “passed out on a sofa in Manhattan.”
Promiscuity: To what extent I will never know, thankfully. I do know he has a liking for “bareback” sex porn.
Thrill of the game: Mine like to pretend he is innocent and naive. A profile name of his is “clueless lad.” At 38, he is hardly either.
Mask of normalcy: At first meeting, he is quite, polite and charming, the “next door” type guy. Looking at him, you would never think, for example, that he has a penchant for unsafe sex. However, if you get to know him a bit, the darker side comes out: quirky, controlling, manipulative, evasive. But online, on the phone or in emails, his mask is rock solid. Thus, each time I saw a red flag, it was easily dismissed when I was not communicating with him in person.
Dangers of the double lives: “20 percent of Lovefraud survey respondents said that their sociopathic partners infected them with sexually transmitted diseases…”
This is the most chilling aspect of my x-spath. I am 99.99% sure, on very strong evidence, he is HIV+. Although he did not tell me. Think of the damage an HIV+ flight attendant can do.
Dear MiLo,
Of course you worry how this will effect your grandchildren, and though you are not bonded to the little girl like you are Grand, I do not need a “crystal ball” to know that child is in for a difficult life, starting early. You mentioned her hyperactivity etc. I know all the things you are going through to help Grand, and that little girl will NOT have someone there going to BAT FOR HER. She is on her own, and by the time she is 12-15 she will be following in her egg donor’s footsteps is my guess. It is a shame, but not anything you can do.
I applaud your and your hubby’s decision to concentrate on the ONE kid that you have. At your ages, you are giving a lot to be a parent to a child with so many special needs. It would have been a whole lot easier to just call CPS and let it ride, go NC with the whole bunch of them….but at the same time, I hear the joys you get from the Grand.
What does her husband think or say or react to the promiscuity? the prostitution? Does he know? He must with her arrested and in court? Was he there I wonder?
Sigh….I am so grateful that I do not have any grandkids to go NC with, to worry about their welfare and safety. My husband’s grandkids that I love dearly are all doing well, but they live remotely so it is widely spaced visits and pictures on FB.
Hi. I am new here, and would like to share something.
Currently there is this guy, he like likes to pull pranks on handicapped
People and those he deems “morons”, order things online with other peoples CC information, always seems nice at first and to casual aquaintances but if you spend enough Time with him you will see he never has anything good to say, refuses To see the good in other people and refuses to acknowlege their
Abilities and talents unless he’s , judges people and deems his targets worthy of harrasment if he perceives them as cocky or moronic. He’ll
Call them, send others to call them, harrass them with repetetive words
Like saying their names over and over and trying to recruit other people to harrass his current targets. He likes to tell mentally handicapped people lies and promise them things but then break the promises on purpose.
Is this man a sociopath and dangerous or a harmless pranksetr?
Ponyboy, welcome to LF…from your description of this person he is a BULLY that is for sure. He is DISHONEST, mean spirited, and seems to lack empathy or compassion. There is no way to “diagnose” someone as a psychopath but I would say that he is definitely high in those traits if this is typical of his behaivor.
How old is he?
I would suggest that you spend NO time with this young man, because having “friends” like this isn’t a good thing for anyone.
((Milo)),
I sure wish I knew…. But I don’t think a mother can recover from this? Not in the true sense of the word recover, anyways.
In MHO the only thing a mother CAN do is reach a point of indifference or emotionally disconnect as much as possible. Or try to find some other “state of mind” that isn’t quite so painful to live in.
Although this isn’t a perfect solution towards recovery… I am not sure what else would be possible for a mother to achieve?
Grand is so lucky to have you. And you are doing everything possible for him. In addition you have an awareness of the fact that this is something he will have to come to “grips” with (his mom) on an emotional level as he is growing up.
Having that awareness is so important.
And Grand also has grandpa….That ALL important male role model figure, growing up.
So many boys of divorce don’t have that these days.
xxxx
He’s 36, he spends his days looking for people to mess with. He told this psychotic dude that some girl was in love with him, so he made him rent a limo and go 4 states away, the girl did not exist. He has this girl who
He’s constantly hiding her things, blaming her for abusing him, alternating between being nice and then
Acting nasty, slandering her name to other people etc.
He has her living with him in seperate rooms and let’s
Her live there for free, but he’s highly abusive to her.
He swore on his mothers grave many times when lying
About small things of no consequence…hours earlier having greived over her death.
Messed up right?
Yeah I think I won’t hang out with him. I have a history
Of being “friends” with bullies. The bullying isn’t ever
Directed at me and I am not a bully myself. They just
Like to brag to me about themselves and what they do
To people. I just sit and listen. I always end up stopping
Contact and they stalk me for a little and then move on.
Ponyboy, I would suggest that you find better and more productive friends than bullies. If this guy spends his days doing all these things, I’m not sure how he makes a living, but it doesn’t sound like he as anything going for him except being a bully.
You are obviously aware of your tendencies to gravitate toward bullies as friends, so you might want to find out why, so I would suggest that you might think about some therapy for yourself to help you find ways of having more uplifting and productive friendships in your life. Good luck. God bless.
Truthspeak,
I’ve been contemplating how cognitive dissonance ease off can be sped up… I know I sped it up, with several tricks, and I never looked back… it helped both with the addiction and cognitive dissonance.
In order for the cognitive dissonance to ease off, you need to make “a choice” around which your brain can start to rationalise for the good of you that you were right to leave him, in a way that you feel there’s no turning back. In order to make it the dominant choice over the active choice of the past to be with him, you must make the choice to leave a very active one, and one from which it seems there is no return possible – in other words, when you burn your bridges in your mind.
It is actually what I did in the first two weeks after he broke up with me and I realized how severely he had deceived me and I knew he was a spath. I threw away and destroyed “evidence” of there ever being a relationship, I pushed him in little ways so he severed any tie to me (and it included giving him one private message in which I ripped his mask off… I let him know that I knew what he was, but I could do that because he was far out of harm’s way), deleted phone numbers, etc… To my mind, all these actions meant such a severe break that there were no routes left for me( or him) to return. If I wanted to mend the burnt bridges I’d have to grovel, and I accepted enough about him and knew I’d have enough self-esteem to not even try that.
I still had a lot of healing to do, but the cognitive dissonance did not stand in the way anymore then. I think I only had doubts about my conclusion in that first week, about 3-4 times. It never resurfaced after that.
To deal with the addiction. Although I didn’t doubt my conclusion anymore, I could still feel I missed the illusion he had created at times. I dealt with that in the following way:
– I cited every vice I knew of him, every bad thing he ever did to me and to others
– Whenever an unwanted ‘good’ memory rose into consciousness, I forced myself to recall a ‘ good’ memory of my life where I was single and alone… memories that were strong, happy and emotional enough to convince myself that I’ve been equally and perhaps even more happy, by myself than with him.
Since I progress better under encouragement and with a positive midset rather than a negative, especially the latter method was very empwering and the most powerful. After a month, I had no “missing him” moments anymore.
I hope those are helpful tips
truthspeak and darwinsmom,
part of the problem with cognitive dissonance relates to where the good memories are stored in our brains. The right brain stores many of our emotions and the right brain exists outside of time. In other words, it doesn’t comprehend time, it always exists in the NOW. So if you are remembering those emotions, you are remembering them as if they exist now. I guess those memories will always exist, but hopefully they will fade, if we don’t reinforce them. Instead, it’s better to reinforce the memories of the truth.
I keep a series of recordings of what he said and a journal of what happened during the last con. It really helped me to reinforce the knowledge of how evil he is.
It’s amazing though, that almost 3 years later, if I allow myself to remember how protective he was of me, I begin to go into cog/diss myself. I begin to think that he DID have some kind of love at the root of his intentions.
Maybe it is true, and his desire to possess me was the closest thing to love that he could feel. Unfortunately, his fear of intimacy made him willfully turn his love into hate toward me. He didn’t want to love me so he had to hate me.
So does that mean it is useful to us to think: It wasn’t all THAT GOOD.
Most of the time, I think it is the case that the performance falls short of the real deal. And that we see the little clues better when we look back.
A few years after I look back and I don’t remember the part that seemed so dreamy at the time. I see all the little hints that the whole thing was BS.
And it makes me wince.
So, I shrug it off. That was then, this is now. Not so important to remember what he did, but to know that people like that are out there and if I’d trusted my gut and the loved ones who tried to warn me, I wouldn’t have to think about it at all.
They say hind sight is always 20/20….
Well, whatever else is true about him, he’s gone. Its done and I will think on it differently when I do. If I do.
More compelling to think about is from where I stand right here, right now, what next? What now?
I lost a lot of time thinking about the disordered one. If I had one wish, it would be to recover how much of that I lost for time is precious.