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.
Also Zim, part of the repeating is their secret delight in knowing something we don’t know, and feeling that we would be horrified if we knew this was a repeat and they delight in that kind of power. It is a power with no real opponent, so they are guaranteed to pull it off, but they build it up in their mind and get off on it. Control and power is everything to them.
Hi Star. Keeping up with stories on here is tricky. Usually when I post everyone else is in bed and by the time I catch up I’m lost too.
Sorry to hear you have ezema the only thing I can suggest is a steroid based cream. However, anxiety/stress can play havoc with skin conditions.
I was feeling lonely and started chatting on Friends. I was soon ’snapped up’ by my spath as you can imagine. What a catch! Own house, car, credit blah blah.
It was all a roller coaster, he moved in, followed by lies, debt, more lies. Used my place liked he owned it. I have worked all my life to get to this point and he just walks in and claims it. (those were my kids words)
Anyway I kicked him out, the police were involved. There’s loads more but this is the condensed version.
Weird isn’t it the way we try to ’save’ these spaths. But you are right once we are out of the toxic mix we can start to move forward.
Robx ”“ You are right about them taking over. When I read your post I thought YES that is what he did, took over, made out everything was his. The house, car everything down to the tv remote control!
HHEELLLLLPPPP!!!
So, my post about talked about the text messages I was sent yesterday regardign me ‘locking out’ the phone account and his phone…ect…
Well, I didnt respond to those. I went on yahoo this morning and this is what I got from him…
“The phone is yours now. I got a new phone and number so the number and everything that goes with it is yours. I mailed out the bill from last month that I forgot in my bag but the rest is yours”you can just cancel it. I tried to work with you but you still want to do everything on your terms”I will call Comcast later and if you haven’t switched it out I am going to cancel it”Its been 5 days now. I wish you the best. ”
What the F!!! The bill he mailed out was MY PORTION of the bill!!! “The rest is yours’ part of the bill is HIS portion!!!
And what in the hell does “I tried to work with you but you still want to do everything on your terms” mean!!! He tried to TELL ME or MANIPULATE ME into releasign the phone BEFORE HIS PART OF THE BILL was paid!!! I didnt and now IM the asshole? As for comcast…how could I cancel the service when it wasnt in my name! THAT sounds like a game to me. I was EXPECTING him to cancel the service…its in HIS name and he doesnt live here anymore!!!
“Its been 5 days”…5 days for what!? Since he tried sweetly TELLING ME what I was gonna do? THats HIS time limit…and now the ‘consequences/punishment’ comes?
I feel like Im going insane!
Dear Robx,
QUIT READING HIS SHIT!!!! As long as you try to figure out what he means you are going insane. There is NO WAY YOU CAN MAKE “SENSE” OUT OF WHAT HE SAYS—he is gaslighting you and the ONLY way you can handle him is NO CONTACT and that means not only don’t RESPOND, but DON”T INGEST HIS SHEET!
Ox Drover:
Ahhh ha ha!!! Ok, ok…! Im calm…sheesh! 🙂
Dear Robx,
Good deal, babe! LOL ROTFLMAO 🙂
robx – yep, he’s messing with your head. Switch off the slow spin on the washing machine and break all contact. Cut him out, don’t let his mind fcuk get to you. There is no sense to his words. Don’t waste your time trying to figure it out.
ahhhh, all too familiar. Why can’t we just ship them all to the moon.
Babe,
Same church, different pew.
My spath was great at gaslighting me too. This is perfect in that you don’t make sense of NONSENSE!!!
This is so much like my spaths shit that I AM EXHAUSTED reading what you write when he texts or IM’s you.
Ignore his stupid ass. Let him play his games elsewhere. Just know that YOU”RE not insane, but HE sure the hell is!!!
You WILL feel insane, however, if you continue to ENGAGE in the insanity, kapeesh? 🙂
LL
Babe,
I would call the cable company and tell them that the last tenant has moved out and you have moved in. Give them the forwarding address so they can mail him the last bill and set you up a new account. That deliniates his bill from your bill.
As far as the phone, he wanted that phone and that number because he expects to get calls on it. It was important to him, but since you won’t release it, he is pretending that it isn’t important. I kept my spaths phone number. It’s still mine and in my name. It’s only $10 month. a couple of interesting voice mails came in on it, but I haven’t checked it in a while.