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.
What Im still finding hard to understand is WHy they feel they have to behave in the ways Ive described above. What the F– do they get out of it? A feeling of power? One up manship?A feeling of superiority?
Dont they GET that if they lie and con you today why would you trust them tomorrow? Do they even care?
They must truly be so empty inside to try to get power on the back of hurting someone, and being callous and cruel.
Im still no nearer to understanding these f–ers.
Mama GemXX
gem, that is sick and twisted, and I don’t get it either.
How could they have a laugh at hurting someone for no reason.
I guess since we are real people with compassion and empathy,
we just can’t understand the pleasure they get out of this.
Hopefully these memories remind us of why we stay away!
Mama Gem,
my take on it is that they feel an overwhelming need to cheat.
Why? Because they think everyone is trying to cheat them. They think the world is unfair and everyone owes them everything.
Here’s an example that might help: My spath brother is 46 and lives with my parents. They give him free room and board, cable tv and internet. they lend/give him money when he can’t make ends meet with food stamps (which he sells). But they didn’t give him the nice bedroom downstairs with the garden window and view of Seattle. They gave him a windowless utility room because it was supposed to be a stop gap measure until he got his act together and they didn’t want him to get too comfortable. They wanted to give him an incentive to get out in the world and make it. But they have been generous and patient. Guess what? He RESENTS them. They didn’t give him a good enough room. He says they don’t trust him and treat him like a dog. HUH?
The sociopath lacks gratitude. You can’t do ENOUGH FOR THEM. It boggles the mind to try to understand the attitude. If you give them a hand they will chop off your ARM. And they will still hate you for not giving them enough. The attitude is so ego-centric that you and I can barely wrap our minds around it. But if you pretend that you are the only human being with any importance in the world, then maybe you can begin to understand. It won’t last long because you won’t be able to maintain the convoluted logic for very long, then you’ll be confused again.
The world is unfair for not giving them everything they want right now.
They have a feeling of indignation all the time. Then there is the rage.
I could go on and on. I’ve contemplated and turned it around in my mind for so long. I’ve had people call my exP “selfish” but it doesn’t begin to touch the corrupt abomination that he is. The lies bring a whole new dimension to selfish.
There isn’t any point in contemplating how they think unless you are doing it for the express reason of being vigilant against others of their type or as an example of how not to be.
They don’t GET it and they never will.
((Mama Gem)) they can’t hurt you anymore because you KNOW.
hi sky,
you said – they feel an overwhelming need to cheat.
you gave an example of your brother and his living off your parents.
my jerk, is a surgeon, not lazy, works hard and earns well, but he cheats on his wife with other women. so why does he cheat in a marriage.
why would he think the world, women, owe it to him and he owes the wife no respect and commitment.
do you think he will continue to cheat on the next woman.
your thoughts
petite
oh yes Petite,
my example is just like an analogy. It isn’t just about money.
It works with emotions as well. he feels he isn’t getting enough love and respect. My own spath, when he realized that I was no longer buying his lies, said, “when did you stop respecting me?”
The spath wants your love but doesn’t WANT to deserve it. Actually, Petite, he never actually cheated on you. You were still in the testing phase. He was testing you to see how much bullshit you would put up with. You did sooooo great, you shoved that spath out the door and made him feel stupid. I love you so much for that. You score points for OUR team!
I could give you so many layers of reasons why they feel this way but I think this might not be appropriate for this forum. The works of Lloyd DeMuse and Rene Girard have been my inspiration for understanding the spaths. It stems from a hatred of women that began before they were born. It’s like a man who loves to throw garbage on the ground, knowing that the earth is being polluted. Why would that make someone happy? My spath described it best, he said, “BECAUSE I CAN!” Those words describe a feeling of power over something else. Usually that something else is a woman. (the earth is considered a “mother”) All spath have a hatred toward their mother.
Before they were born the fetus was a parasite that took from its mother and gave her his waste products. This was nurturing to him and felt good. The spath is an emotionally retarded person who wishes to return to that state: taking nutrient and giving back poison. It feels good, it feels like survival. My spath told my BF that he wanted to gut the crazy-husband-stealing-neighbor-woman, whom he was having an affair with. He wanted to “gut her from the throat to her navel”. Many sociopathic killers actually do that to their victims.
Petite, they are just fucked up. There is no other way to explain what they do.
Hi Sky,
thanks. I am not sure if he was chasing after other women while also pursuing me. there was not enough time between us and I would not have continued with him and gone a step further to explore if he was cheating with me.
so you think his wife stopped believing his lies and givng him the Godly status (he did tell me that his wife did not respect his work as a doctor) or he just got bored of her and started cheating with other women.
Irrespective, do you think he will cheat with the next woman or will he give her the dream that he was going to give me.
feeling very down for the past 1 hour and I am glad that you are awake.
petite
Oh Petite,
all my words of explanation are meaningless to you when you feel this way. I know. feelings don’t want explanation.
Yes, he will cheat. I don’t think he just cheats on women, he probably cheats on his taxes and every other chance he gets.
It’s what they do.
Yes, he will offer her the dream he offered you and then he will snatch it away to watch her expression of pain. They love the expressions on our faces. That’s why I keep a poker face on AT ALL TIMES. I let no one know my true feelings. I believe that spaths are everywhere and I have a big red sign on my forehead that says, “spath supply”.
Petite, I don’t know you but most of us here have something in common. We are all spath magnets. Each of us has a little something about our appearance or personality that makes the spaths want to feed off of us. Being on LF has been good because we are able to look at our vulnerabilities. We learn more about our hooks. If we can overcome our own narcissism we can see ourselves how THEY see us. What is it about us? What can we do to hide our hooks? All this is great stuff to learn.
I don’t really want to change the things I like about myself, but I do want to understand what attracted the sicko’s to me. My upbringing created it, that much I know. Now it’s time to really look honestly at myself. That’s what I love and admire about LL, she is not afraid to see or discuss her hooks. She is truly amazing. Look to her for an example.
good night petite,
I’m going to crash now, it’s 1:15 AM.
xxxxoooo
good night Skylar.
thanks for sending the post way past midnight your time. yes, feelings come and we once again drift, but thank God, when I dirft, I have strong forces pulling me back into reality.
Yes, I am also reflecting on my inner being as to why I needed all those good words from him to make me feel good about myself. Why I yearned for his affection, and let him lie to me and give rise to knots in my stomach and yet I kept convincing myself – he will be OK with time – this is just one episode.
When the episodes started to add up, I knew this was unhealthy for me. I was being silently tormented and was walking on egg shells, always thinking of when he will cheat on me like how he cheated on his wife 6 + times.
thank god, I am coming out of the fog and trying to find the deficits in me and trying not to analyse him too much.
yes LL is amazing and a role model to be followed.
petite
“If you give them a hand they will chop off your ARM”
Skylar:
thank you for illustrating this truth so well. It is hard for me to remember all the time, and I think that people around make it worse – they cannot understand and seem to judge your refusal to extend yourself in any way as bitterness or immaturity in the face of something that happened “so long ago”. Only a precious few seem to understand that I am protecting myself and my kids from being used further. And only a precious few avoid that “laissez-faire” attitude that most seem to exude about “the past being the past” and “one day you will be able to be friends again”. But if they knew, really knew, I know they would change their tune. Because recovering from a spath is not as easy as I make it seem, and I am guarded with my feelings. And the zen-like maturity required to get through it in tact, is unbelievable.
Anger is very hard to sustain, and sometimes, I wonder why I am in No Contact with him. Sometimes I wonder if I perhaps it would just be easier to extend to him the olive branch, as I did so very many times before, and as he was sure I would continue to do, and to enjoy catching up like old friends, and to co-operate like friends for our mutual good, and for that of the children. What a dreamer.
Then I remember that this would mean that the spath got exactly what he wanted – to push me and the kids through the trash, and come out smelling like a rose. And the mean part of me knows it is the one thing I can keep for myself, and keep him from having. And sometimes I wonder if this withholding does more damage to myself than it does to him. It certainly makes me feel spath-like and contaminated, and runs contrary to everything else that is in my heart. Sure he wants my continued love, friendship, help, approval and “public endorsement” by way of a continued relationship of sorts. But I don’t think it consumes him the way it consumes me – he is otherwise occupied. And sure, he would love to have that relationship with me, because I’m sure he misses my supply now that he doesn’t get it every day (reminds me of that phrase “everything old is new again!”) but also because he would enjoy using our relationship to manipulate the new woman. Just as he used his relationship with his first ex-wife to manipulate me in the ealry days, and then again at the end.
Petite:
this is the hardest part – the wondering if you simply weren’t the right fit, and he is the only one smart enough to have figured it out, and as my spath suggested, when you catch up, and get up to speed, and your emotions settle down, you will realize it also, and be fine. You will suddenly be fine with the awful gaslighting, abuse, betrayal, deception, selfishness etc. It is laughable. And you know, it will probably seem like he is giving it all to the next woman, but you know that isn’t true, just as well as I do. And he may make a show of it, and she may, for her own reasons, play her part as well. At some point, I hope not to care anymore, not even a teeny tiny bit. And I hope also to get to a point where I no longer judge myself at all, based on his treatment of me. And to forget about him, but to remember who I was, and to not let that change, except for the better – whatever it was that he targeted, well it could have been a neediness that sparked his interest, knowing we would be easy to control, but there must have been something else too, perhaps your kindness, or your gentlenss, or your nurturing nature, or your penchant for taking on responsibilities – and you don’t want to let these go. I vowed to my spath that I would not let his treatment of me, and behaviours towards me change me for the worse, or colour my behaviour. Not there yet, but trying. I believe we will all get there xx