I was with my sociopathic ex-husband, James Montgomery, for two and a half years. During this time, I knew he was costing me money, but he attributed his lack of business success to “being ahead of his time.” I eventually discovered that he was lying and cheating on me. But although I saw eruptions of anger, my ex was never abusive towards me—nothing like the abuse many of you have endured.
Some sociopaths can treat people reasonably well for an extended period of time, if it suits their purpose. For example, Lovefraud received the following e-mail from a reader:
I was not in a disastrous relationship with my S. Our relationship was less than three years, our marriage less than two, when he openly cheated and decided to leave me, then played games of false reconciliation, which in hindsight were so he could have two sex partners.
The short end of my question is… How do you reconcile the basically happy marriage, the illusion of a man you married with the horrible monster he has become in trying to create turmoil in your life and use your greatest love (your child) to hurt you?
Expressions of love
I’ll get to this reader’s question shortly. But first I want to review some of the information Lovefraud learned in last year’s survey (not the current one) about people involved with individuals who exhibited sociopathic traits. One of the objectives of that survey was to investigate whether and how often sociopaths expressed love.
We asked the question, “Did the individual you were involved with verbally express love or caring to you?”
A total of 85% of all survey respondents said yes. And, when the individuals being described were the spouses or romantic partners of the survey respondents, rather than parents, children or others, 92% of the males and 95% of the females expressed love verbally.
How often did this happen? A total of 44% of survey respondents said the sociopathic individual expressed love daily.
Complete change
The survey also asked the following: “Please provide a brief description of the way the person you were involved with expressed love. How did this change over the course of your relationship?”
Now I’ve been hearing all kinds of stories about the games sociopaths play in relationships for more than five years. Yet some of the answers to this question still made my jaw drop.
A small group of survey respondents reported a complete change of behavior the moment they were committed to the relationship—moved in, married or pregnant. This startling change was reported in reference to 7% of the females and 5% of the males. Here are some of the quotes:
Initially with dates, flowers, gifts and little thoughtfullness’s. After I married him, he said, on the Honeymoon, ‘I can stop acting now.’ I thought that he was joking. I later learned he did not do jokes.
From very loving to cold indifference…started right after we were married — The change was startling — cold, distant, indifferent, condescending, mean spirited, accusatory — self righteous, irresponsible
It changed the minute we got married. Then he owned me you see, I was nothing to him after he lured me in! All he wanted was MONEY!
In the beginning of the relationship (before marriage) he was loving, caring, could not do enough for me. Called me his soul mate, his true companion in life. This continued until the day I married him, within hours after the wedding ceremony his personality shifted. It was as if I had dated and fell in love with one person, but married someone I was completely unfamiliar with, he was a stranger to me in all ways.
Doesn’t exist
So, back to our reader’s question, “How do you reconcile the basically happy marriage with the horrible monster he has become?”
The man this reader saw during the happy part of the marriage did not exist. It was an act, a charade, a mirage that the sociopath kept going until it no longer served his purpose. The real man is the horrible monster.
Good night Skylar. Hope you feel better when you awaken. Perhaps one day I will be there for you.
LWH
xxx
LWH, sociopaths target people of all ages ( and unfortunately, even children ). I was targeted by a female N while i was in highschool, for roughly four years… You’ll see that LF readers come from all ages and backgrounds, if you peruse the posts long enough. They strike what to them is “easy” and whether you’re 15, 30, or 65, if you have a good heart and willing to give a person the benefit of the doubt, then you’re a perfect target. Of course, “easy” is as I have said here before, “easy” in their eyes, because they are predators. Kindness is a strength by any other means, and these perverts take advantage of human kindness to their own sick, selfish, fucked up ends.
The devastation that sociopaths wreak span all ages… keep in mind they’ve been doing these things since childhood so imagine the trail of destruction they leave behind, with each age. It certainly isn’t a pleasant notion to swallow, but very real.
And a very hearty welcome to LF..
The same thing happened to me when I was involved with my lying spath. Everything was good – but I did not know that when I went to bed at night he was on line (in my home) with an internet pornography site and had his own profile with pictures taken in my home.
I was off one day for a work holiday and said to him about doing something that day fun – the hatred look he gave me, I will never forget!!! It was evil and sinister. Little did I know at that time – he had a meeting set up with someone from the porno site…
I will never forget that look and how he lied to me even when he was ill and I was taking care of him. When a part of me thinks – he was not so bad – I remember that look and remind myself- YES HE WAS.
czarinamom;
I knew my x-spath had some sort of an online presence from the onset, as I went out with him and several of his friends and while we were all bantering, one joked “did you ask him about his Gaydar.com profile?”
Here was I Red Flag that I let slide, one reason being that such sites are nearly ubiquitous in the gay world. The next time I was out with him, I brought up the subject by simply saying that I was not dating anyone, not even on a casual basis and not was I active online.
One thing I learned from my experience is that just because you say something or have a value, this does not mean that the person you are talking to has that same value.
Thus, when he said nothing about being active online, I took that for an affirmative. Later, I would learn this his lack of a response to an important subject simply meant that was an area he did not want to talk about, another example being recreational drug use.
More on this but I need to get going.
Dancingnancies
I have been targeted with n’s four times throughout my life. It is only now through this site that I understand more what I was dealing with. My ex husband was the worst. He really battered me emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
My sister is one and she is physically abusive. I have been NC for 10 years from her. The other two were mums at the school of my wee one. I had asked them politely if they could stop there child bullying my child. Basically brought it to their attention. They started a mobbing and a whispering campaign against me. I ended up taking my child out of the school and home educated her for a couple of years. Thankfully she has integrated into her new school and is doing well.
The horror of my Ex is that I believe he had incestious thoughts for our two daughters. I have also realised that he likes children and men. As said before he had multiple personalities and each of these had preferences.
I LIVED with this man. He went about MY HOME playing the doting father. He was exposed to my children. And I hadn’t a clue. Talk about stupid.
Thanks for listening
Littlewhitehorse
xxx
Dear Littlewhitehorse,
Glad to see you back! Hope you are doing well.
I can relate to the “mobbing up” of dysfunctional/psychopathic types. Of course those children’s apple didn’t fall far from their mother’s trees did they? The kids were bullies and the mums were bullies before them.
No you were NOT stupid, you were gullible and that is a big difference. Stupid is forever…but gullible responds to knowledge. You didn’t know then, now you know and now you are protecting your daughters. So give yourself a BIG PAT ON THE BACK! (((hugs)))
Oxdrover
I can’t believe you remember me. Yes I am protecting my daughters–and I got them away as soon as I found out about him. It just gives me the creeps that he was interested in them this way. My home is always full of young girls–their friends and I am horrified that what I thought was normal was not.
Thanks for replying–I always look out for your posts and enjoy the scenery you create.
LWH
xxx
Dear Littlewhitehorse, OF COURSE I REMEMBER YOU! I have plenty of short term memory problems (that’s no joke!) but I do remember you, though not all of the details of your story.
Yes, we DO “feel stupid” about what we thought was normal or what we allowed to happen, but we weren’t stupid, just gullible. Educating ourselves gives us the tools to work with and repair our lives and our emotions. I happen to have a real aversion to pedophiles and have read a great deal about them. Dr. Anna Salter is one of the most widely known experts on pedophiles and I suggest you get her book about predator pedophiles.
The thing that is THE most scary about them to me is that they are so “ordinary” yet they are so sly, crafty, and gutsy about grooming and abusing children almost “in plain sight.” They have no remorse and I think that most if not all of them are total psychopaths.
I just by “luck” happened to know one who was an abuser of 1,500 KNOWN victims, a man named Charles “Jackie” Walls III. He worked with my X husband and his wife and kids and sister went to church with us, his father was a close friend of our family’s as well.
It never dawned on me Jackie was a pedophile, much less one of such proportions. One of Jackie’s victims told his parents, and then when Jackie found out, he got the kid to kill his parents. The kid was arrested and the entire story came out, resulting in Jackie’s being tried and sent to prison. Jackie had even molested his sister’s sons, one of whom killed himself as a result.
I’ve known others, and their victims, both personally and professionally. As far as I am concerned, pedophiles should be burned at the stake! It isn’t only men,, though, who are pedophiles, but probably as many women as men. Check out the blog link here “female offenders” which has some great information on the female version of this crime.
All we can do to really defend ourselves and our society against them is to EDUCATE ourselves and our children openly and honestly about sexuality and what is appropriate and what isn’t.
Glad you enjoy my rambling! Keep on reading here there’s some great information here and take Donna’s survey if you haven’t done so yet. God bless (((Hugs))))
Littlewhitehorse,
I definitely believe you. As far as age goes, it seems I have been targeted at different ages, but when my husband of 25 years left he took special delight in the fact that I was older and was taken by surprise. He reminded me that I had been through this before as I had talked a lot to him about my first marriage. I used to believe that my first and second husband were two sides of the same coin.
Now I believe that my recent exH was far worse. He was so much harder to figure out. I am learning more day by day as I read this site and have read a lot of books on the subject.
I got the house and alimony as we didn’t have any children together. My adult daughter with autism was from my first marriage. Because of raising her I was not able to work a lot to obtain my own social security points. He thought he was going to leave me with NOTHING! At first, and in fact until very recently I felt guilty about this. I thought he was so stupid I needed to spot him a few points in the divorce. Now I realize he was crazy like a fox. My mother said something that was true.
“He doesn’t care about you.” “That is why you get a lawyer and get what you are entitled to.” My mother who is a bit of a Narcissist herself though believes I took H to the cleaners, but it was his fault. I am just starting to realize how actually evil exH was and that I deserve everything financially and more. He put me through Hell. I also lost the extended family that I had grown to love. None of them are in contact with me. The only person I actually hate in that family is his older sister. I believe she and H were in it together as far as some sort of collusion. Not sure how to explain that even to myself. I am 60 plus now and he is still in his fifty’s. I thought that this was the worst thing that could have happened to me.
I do not believe so now. I have my freedom, my own thoughts. I am starting to learn who I am. I am also starting to realize that I am stronger and smarter than I ever thought.
Like many of you I am dealing with health problems probably because of the stress, but I am so much better without him then with him.
Keep posting, littlewhitehorse. I actually meant to welcome you and I started writing about myself. I think the reason is we see our situations in those of others and another layer of truth comes to the surface.
True-to-Self
Ox Drover
Your post to me was hard hitting and I agree with you totally. I too have an aversion and was very protective of my kids whilst growing up. I just feel so deeply horrified. Just sheer horror.
True-to-self
Can I ask you. What was it about my story that made you definately believe me. I am so glad you did. He too had a narcisstic sister who hated me and I also lost a lot of loved ones from his side.
Thanks
LWH
xxx