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.
Yeah, I know he wanted that number. I also was not gonna realease the contract to him without at least TRYING to get a payment from him. He stuck me with every other bill he was SUPPOSED to pay.
Babe,
holy smokes – how draining. Those circular conversations with him will never end unless you end them. Of course he wants the number, and of course the current battle of wits entertains him – in fact it FORTIFIES him all the more. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses. The price of peace. Truly, in time, it will be little more than a niggle in the back of your brain, as you find so many other better things to concentrate on – trite, but true enough. And trust that if it weren’t true, I wouldn’t say it, because I try to avoid trite comments such as the one that people offer to me all the time when they hear “what happened”, which it to say “there is someone out there for you”, because that is just way too simplistic, and implies that we are only worthy when matched up. And mine never paid anything he was supposed to when he waltzed out the door. He pays support because his family pressures him to do so, and because his good guy image is at stake, and because he is afraid of court and his employer, but it is a fraction of what it should be, sporadic, and given begrudgingly. Except now that his new bird is in the pic, ‘cos I suspect that since he is sponging off her, and trying to impress her, and gain sympathy, it makes sense to pay more regularly. As for the other money – bills, repairs, children’s counselling, medical and dental, well, I will never see any of it.
Zim you had me in stitches. You know, he HATED having his nipples touched, or anything remotely near his rectum, and on occasion, it occurred to me that it was a case of “methinks thou doth protest too much”, meaning, I wondered if he was secretly afraid that he was gay, and was angry with himself, or afraid his reaction would betray him. Plus, he always made a huge deal about how much he loved big breasts – again, was it bravado to distract from the truth? AND he told me his first wife’s vagina had started to gross him out after their first and only year of mariage, and before he left he finally admitted what all the pained expressions he had painted on during sex were all about, and told me mine grossed him out too, and judging by the look on his face, and the queasy look on his face as he relived the moment when our first child was born, and recounted to me how the “sights, sounds, and smells” had put him off, well, for once he wasn’t lying. Strange though that despite the grossness of my private parts, he forced himself on me less than 3 weeks after her birth, telling me “No means Yes”. Hey ho – clearly he is more mixed up than I am. So anyway, the point is, perhaps her asexuality suits him and he is praying that she won’t force her vagina on him too often. Ooh I’m laughing now. A melancholy laugh – but no tears at least! Probably just years of work ahead of me trying to get to a place where I have enough confidence in the normalcy of my vagina to search for a second opinion…maybe by then it will have shrivelled up and gone away…and my gyne telling me it is looks/smells/sounds normal doesn’t count…sigh.
And Neveragain, good point about their secret delight in being the only one in the know – have wondered about that subject a fair bit since he announced his engagment..if he was taking pleasure in re-living his past, returning to a time of ease and places of comfort, or if he was enjoying the secret duality of it all, or if I was just musing over coincedences.
Thank God for this board and all of you on it. Just sorry we had to meet this way ; )
“…or anything remotely near his rectum…”
Not mine.
BBE,
cackle cackle. hey, come to think of it, he never complained about my rectum so at least there’s that…
Neveragain,
funny that you posted that link because I’ve been reading up a lot about “him”. I have no doubt in my mind that he’s a spath. No doubt.
The more that comes out about him, those around him, it’s becoming even more clear, but what is also interesting is actually watching this play out in public with his outrageous behavior. We’re literally how a spath completely “undoes” himself.
LL
**watching**
GoingThroughTheMotions –
“Those circular conversations with him will never end unless you end them”
Do you know, of ALL of the abuses and frustrations, this is the thing that I am MOST relieved to have done with.
Almost 4 years out and now his silly lawyers have to try to unscramble the double-talk, the twisted perceptions, the “facts” that can’t be backed up by any proof and the un-conversations that go around and around and around without ever catching their own tails………I believe that in his case, they are earning every single penny they are charging him! 🙂
Aussie girl,
When I think of all the lies, double speak, shouting, denial, spathing, gaslighting, emotional {and sometimes physical}violence,I was subjected to, and all from my teenagers.Continued into her twenties and thirties, and forties with older spath D.
When I was still living in that house of horrors withthem and my alcoholic ex, my self esteem was so low I basically put up with it, as I had no-one in my corner to stand up for me.
Basically what friends I still had had NO idea what was going on, and prob wouldnt have believed me anyway!.
When I called the police, they believed my ex, not me.
It wasnt until I remarried and had someone to love me and stand up to the biatches that I started to assert myself, but really not even then, as I was so gaslighted by both daughters and their sick, cruel, mind games.But they forgot I now had my new husband as a witness to their sick behaviour.{They tried there level best to gaslight him too!}
It has taken me 2 years in Lovefraud, to finally START to GET it, for the FOG to clear, for me to finally give up on these biatches of daughters, who I now know have NEVER loved me only used me.As Oxy said,
Life is so much better now Ive given up hope.”
I havent given up hope for a new better life, but I HAVE given up hope of any kind of life which has these biatches in it.The clear, cleansing searching light of TRUTH, has finally dispersed the FOG, of FEAR OBLIGATION and GUILT. I owe them NOTHING more, and they too owe me nothing.let them live their lives, and deal with their own karma. I want no part in their lives any more.
Unfortunately this also means very little to No contact with one set of Gkids, and the other ones, Ive never set eyes on .
A bit like 2 cancerous growths, they have to be CUT out and removed with a very sharp scalpel,and thrown away.
I see now that to go on with this sick, pretence and half life of pretending everything was “normal” would have been the slow cancer that would kill me.
Love,
Mama gemX ” The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off!” Aint that the truth!! As for closure, I know Ill never have that, only NC forever.
” The greatest thing you have is your self-image, a positive opinion of yourself. You must never let anyone take it from you.” – Jaime Escalante, teacher
I just saw this on a web site. So true. the spaths must know this because that’s what they target.
One of the sick twisted things they used to do with my darling husband was-he’d offer to cook them a nice meal, say an evening meal, and asked them what theyd like best.
Spth d. 2 said, for example, Roast pork, stuffing, roast spuds, gravy, and sprouts.Wed decide on a time, eg, 6.30 pm.
Meal was ready at that time.
One of them phones,”Were running a little late, David, is that OK?”
“OK, when do you think youll be here?”
say half an hour late. Ok. then another call, still running late, rinse and repeat.
This would go on till around 10.30 PM by which time the meal was ruined, and we were both very fed up.
In th end, they didnt show up at all.
Ive actually seen my nice husband reduced to tears by these bitches.
“Thats It! I wont be doing this again!”he said.
What is the point of all this? I know to make Mum feel bad. if I can make hubby feel bad ,hey presto, Mum feels bad and Ive won!
What a hollow victory.
Another time, spath D 1, was in tears as she told David her dad had stolen her bed.{hed been storing it fo hr when she ran away to live in a squat,} and now he had a new Girlfriend, and had taken all his stuff up to Northern New South wales, including her bed, it seemed.
David hugged her, dried her eyes, and promised to buy her a new bed.
Read her diary some months later,{I know I shouldnt have,} in which she said she and her Dad had had a good laugh about her conning David, and her Dad had no intention of stealing her bed!I rang him up about it too, and he said,
“Why on earth would I steal it? I made it for her!”
Its true, he actually hand made that bed for her.One of the few carpentry jobs he ever did.
What sickos.
All I feel for them now is contempt, and disgust.
Mama gem.XX