Many women have written to Lovefraud about husbands who they’ve come to believe are sociopaths. They were astounded to discover that, not only was the husband cheating, but he was having sex with men.
Lovefraud reader eyeswideshut writes about this in a recent comment to the post, After he’s gone: looking at the sociopath through open eyes. She asks:
Now that I know he is also gay, is sociopathic tendency in married gay men not common as well? When I read the stories of the women in the book (“Straight Wives”), many of the men sound like sociopaths as well. Have you studied this phenomenon? Is it possible that gay men who choose to live the lie of married life are likely also socios?
To this, another Lovefraud reader, Leslie, commented:
On the third extended date I had with the SP, I turned to him one night, after we’d been together, and said, “Have you been with men?” Something in the way he’d made love made me think he had. He stared at the window and said in a monotone, “I have never made love to a man.” It was the same monotone he used to deny that he was living with a woman when I asked him that a year later. He was. I don’t have hard proof, but I know the guy had had sex with men.
Then alohatraveler commented:
I have heard from another victim of my sociopath that he was starting to get more “experimental” when she knew him. She knew him after me. He was expressing an interest in having sex with a man, but of course, with a woman present, because he was “not gay.” We both also saw an ad that he posted looking for sex with a transsexual. Then he placed an ad where he wanted a traditional type of woman.
“Not a gay bone in my body”
Shortly after I met my sociopathic ex-husband, James Montgomery, he proclaimed to me, “There’s not a gay bone in my body.” I had no reason to doubt him. But when I left him after two-and-a-half years, I learned a lot about his sexual activities:
- He had sex with at least six other women during our relationship.
- He was heavily into Internet porn.
- He solicited gay male prostitutes.
- He tried to arrange threesomes and looked for swinging couples.
In short, he wanted sexual thrills. The more different kinds of thrills, the better. I’m lucky I didn’t get a serious disease.
Screw anyone
Sociopaths are hard-wired for sex. They have an excessive need for stimulation, excitement and sensation. They also have no fear and no inhibitions. From a sexual perspective, that means a voracious appetite and anything goes.
Dr. Liane Leedom writes that sociopaths only want two things. One of them is power. The other is sex.
So when it comes to sexual orientation, I believe sociopaths are neither straight nor gay. In short, they’ll screw anyone.
Lovefraud has heard from gay individuals—men and women—who were involved in gay relationships with sociopaths. I asked several of them if they thought the sociopath was actually gay. They all agreed with my theory and said the sociopath was not gay.
Sex with an agenda
This does not mean, however, that sociopaths are out of control. On the contrary, to them, sex, and sexual orientation, is just something to be used in order to achieve their objective, whatever that is.
Perhaps the most egregious example of this is the case of James McGreevey, the former governor of New Jersey. McGreevey, you may recall, resigned from office after proclaiming in a news conference that he was a “gay American.”
The truth was that his political career was imploding under a series of scandals. As I wrote in a review of the book written by McGreevey’s wife, I believe the former governor played the gay card because it was the best way to spin his political collapse.
Sociopaths use people for sex, and use sex to get what they want. Anybody who suits their agenda will do.
If it suits their agenda to be married with children, then that’s what they’ll do. But if sociopaths indulge in same-sex relationships, in my opinion, it’s because they’re sociopaths, not gay.
Yes Style I struggle with regret too from time to time. It’s hard to accept the mental confusion and depression and stuckness they leave us with. However my path before him was one of self knowing and helping others to do the same – I was really into understanding psychology, beliefs and values and journeying into the self. Although this has been the hardest relationship of my life and I never ever want another like it, I have greater self understanding than ever before. I wouldn’t have gone this far had I not met him and had this experience.
It doesn’t make up for the losses, but I can see one positive in it all so far. I hope in time I can find and make more. It’s very very hard to accept everything though for me too. I often wish I had never met him and continued my life as it was before – I don’t know where I would be and what I would be like.
Blackdeer…when dealing with one of these guys, the usual rules like “it takes two to tango” “two sides to every story” “you could have said no” just do NOT APPLY. I firmly believe that with all my heart. So does Sandra Brown, author of Women Who Love Psychopaths” I believe. She even writes of hypnotic trances. If you haven’t read her book, you can get the e-version. I read the second edition version.
the fact that he feels he has to tell you that you could have said no says to me that he knew damn well he did all kinds of psychological things to you to make it damn impossible, just like cult leaders do to their followers.
But now, keep reading, and you WILL gain the power to say no, No Contact will enable you to ACT on NO. There is no point to discussing any of this with him. His brain is sick. He literally can’t think straight when it comes to love and empathy.
You new guy sounds very nice. I would go SO SLOW on the sex or even tell him , sorry, you need a several months break from that. My husband is the kind of man who would understand that. Those kind of men DO exist.
It was like you were in a cult of one. The shame and blame for what you did belongs to HIM, not to you. It is not uncommon for women with psychopaths to violate their own moral and sexual standards. I certainly did. And while now, I can see clearly how my legs were free to walk out the door, psychologically I was tied up. I have forgiven myself. I didn’t know then what I know now. I also feel that particular con of lovefraud will NEVER happen to me again. That too helps me forgive myself.
If you were not a woman of tremendous love and integrity, what you did would not bother you. It does bother you. Hold your head up high. The blame and shame belongs to him. Without HIM, none of it would have happened.
Justabouthealed, thanks so much for your words…I get stuck in whirlpools of guilt sometimes, as unproductive as I know that is. It’s part of what kept me in that mess for so long though…bit of a masochistic streak, I’ve learned. This is why NC is so important, because he’ll try to push that button if he can (clearly). I was warned that he wasn’t going to let go easily and that’s proven to be more than true. He’s tried every angle and then when nothing works he cycles through them again to see if anything will work this time. Just like a toddler!
He always said he was going to start a cult or a religion and knew he had what it took to do it, and laughed about how easy it is to manipulate people and, in fact, said that people really do want to be manipulated, therefore it isn’t a bad thing at all. I laughed about that and thought “in a million years I’d never be naive enough to end up in a cult.” :/ Just because I didn’t shave my head and live in a commune doesn’t mean I didn’t fall for it I suppose. I’m going to remember what you wrote here…my legs were free to walk out the door but psychologically I was tied up.
I did read Sandra’s book a while back, I need to go through it again for reinforcement. It shattered so much of what I believed was real but even so, hard to process the fact that the person I thought I knew well for most of my adult life doesn’t even operate like most people.
The new guy is very nice, we waited a long time before we even held hands and the whole process has been very sweet. It was the fact that he was so present, consistent, and patient with me, not just in words but in actions, that I fell in love with him.
glad i found this site. trying to tell others who havent been through something like this – can be quite frustrating for them to hear and see me be so depressed.
They are like get over it already. you should be happy he is gone. While i am, i am still so very angry, mad at myself for letting this creep inside my house around my daughter for 3 years.
and the way it ended – he spat in my face, literally, with no remorse. It hurts really bad and not mention, i am $30,000 in debt from this jerk.
hedidntbreakme: omg! i was spat upon too…amazing when i think ive seen all the common signs in each of our stories another one comes out that id really tried to forget.
🙂
Hedidntbreakme–I saw a lot of similarities in our stories too…ex sent out pics of me to “prospects” that were never meant for anyone else to see…then there was the times he offered me to his friends without my knowledge, telling them how great I was in bed, etc. The sex crap will be the hardest for me to come to terms with. I so get what you’re talking about in that regard.
I know what you mean about trying to talk to others who haven’t been there…they can’t begin to know how complicated and twisted it is on the inside. I’m glad you’re out and on the way to healing.
Wow. Wow wow wow wow. . .
This particular article is right on target about some stuff that came down with me and my S/P — and it’s stuff I’m really uncomfortable talking about with other people, because like Style1 and BlackDeer, I did some stuff that I would have never done before.
On our first Halloween together, he went as a woman, and looked really good! I thought I looked pretty hot in my sexy vampire outfit, but he didn’t look twice at me. He was way too hung up on his bra and lipstick and purse.
He was very into himself, and into primping; as I think Pollyannanomore says above, it was more like being with a good gay friend or a girl friend, and when I approached him that way, things went very well. Furthermore, I believe he was trying to push me into a threesome with a male friend of his with whom I suspect he did have sex regularly; I rejected the threesome. The problem then was that male friend developed a bad crush on me, and I think my S/P got very jealous and angry at me.
And yes, there was the porn. And then the internet sex. And lord knows what else. I think he had/has a very active and multi-dimensional internet sex life, and I tried to confront him on that, and he got very very angry. I too asked him if he’d ever had sex with men, and he insisted “no.” But he was just so well-versed with all types of sex, and yes, obsessed with anal sex. I rejected that, for a long time, and then he kind of went ahead and did it one day, against my wishes, then insisted that he didn’t know that was my ass. I just laughed at him – how could a man who watched porn that much and enjoyed sex that much not know one hole from another?
It was all so weird: the conversations we had where sex was the only thing he could think about; the pictures he got me to let him take. I’m certain he shared them with his friends. He took tons of them on my camera, then asked me to email them to him; and I, like a dumbass, did. He liked them really sleezy, and grossly pornographic; I liked them a bit more artsy, and even took to taking very artsy nude photos of myself, and sending them to him. I really believed they were for him and him alone, and also that he thought my body was pretty. So I made it pretty! He ultimately got mad at me about that, but now at least I’m kind of happy that he was stuck with showing his friends really artistic shots of my torso and back (sometimes displayed among roses, or in sepia, or against pretty tapestries or stuff like that.)
It had gotten so weird over this last summer; I am certain he was having sex with other women, including, more than likely, his own daughter. Also men. And he became very abusive towards me, sort of like I was the biggest drag on the block, but he wouldn’t think of breaking up with me.
I began to think that my job was to be the straight-woman (in more ways than one!) who made him appear “normal.” I had to get the heck out of the whole mind$%!@....... and clear my head. I tried to get away once in late August; he lured me back. That was when he started threatening me. I did break it off for good in early October, but continued a little contact until, well, he sent me a very unsettling, threatening e-mail just before Christmas (explained in another column here.)
So the Order of Protection is still temporary. I have to meet him in court next week to make it permanent, and I’ve been talking to lawyers, and thinking “can I ever explain this crap to them?” I’d rather not, and I won’t. I think I have a strong enough case based only on the threats he sent me via e-mail. But boy this particular article, and all your responses to it, give me comfort, and make me feel I’m not the only one out there who has been down this weird road.
Unlike Style, though, sex with mine for me was fantastic! There was a real chemistry between us, and I think he felt that way, too — for awhile, at least. And I still, in my weaker moments, love him like crazy. Or love the man I think he is/was.
But I also started taking Tae Kwon Do today! Gotta get empowered, girls.
I think we can survive.
Be well, my friends. . . . thanks for sharing. . .
LG: no two truer or awesome lines have lived so close to express this experience of coming out of the spell and into the kick ass phase, and the big gulp of air known as life:
‘And I still, in my weaker moments, love him like crazy. Or love the man I think he is/was.
But I also started taking Tae Kwon Do today!’
🙂
Dear all Lf wonders~
As I write intimate details of my life with the s……I often wonder if some do not wish to hear such details…..
I always end up with the same conclusion……I still think its helpful to some…..maybe not all….but discussing ‘certain’ topics IS helpful in connecting to experiences we wondered about or questioned in our deepest intimate moments.
Some of us have felt shame for things we did or ‘went along’ with for/with the S.
I do not ever wish to offend anyone….(and I know if our NewLILy was here…..she’d be boinking me HARD!)
My goal is to offer support and empowerment through my journey to others that have walked a similar path.
Humor is something I have found solace in….I have always been able to laugh about things that I have also cried about.
For me this is important!
I appreciate everyone here who shares and continues to open up and reveal details we (maybe) wouldn’t shout from the ‘rooftops’. Details of our experiences with Cluster B’s or toxic persons who have hurt us and made us vulnerable.
I beleive that by sharing these details…..it is another path to healing, by letting those memories out…..
Sometimes they are memories we have packed down so deep…..we were shocked to remember them……
So……thank you all for sharing, participating and allowing your vulnerabillities to be released in the hopes of healing and helping others through our journies.
I know sometimes it can be difficult!
Sometimes it takes hearing about others experiences to see we are all NOT that out of the ordinary or Crazy as accused.
So ya’ll take care and I just wanted to say THANK YOU!!!
XXOO
LousieG…your story is another all-too-familiar one…I do hear you… (and have to laugh, how could he not know one hole from the other–right???)
Amen Erin, on the disclosure as well as the humor (both have helped me immensely 😉
I really appreciate all who take the time to share their stories here. Virtually every post validiates, in one way or another, that I’m not crazy, I just lived crazy.