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.
Sky,
My approach right now is to grey rock and NOT piss him off because he becomes immediately violent. This is NOT something I can approach right this minute (this is where living in the NOW is critical for me), as I need to speak to the staff at the school first to get a better idea of what’s been going on there. This has created a lot of confusion for me, given the “testimony” of his gf’s mother. A stark contradiction to how the staff at school were telling me that my son was doing well and his grades were improving and managing his anger well. Why they didn’t call me IMMEDIATELY, is not something I am clear on, but I will be. It’s time for a sit down chat for sure.
I’ll go from there as to what to do. I may decide to pull him from that school. But right now, we are ALL grey rocking this kid. At least for today. Not going to let him disrupt our peace today!
One thing at a time. We shall see. I don’t think this is entirely all about me though, Sky. He has some major daddy o issues too that need to be addressed. He was “close” to daddy o prior to daddy o’s departure when he was five. He was traumatized by that. Daddy O didn’t want anything to do with him after either, so the departure was particularly painful to him. Then enter exPOS. He wasn’t around my children much. But my involvement in all the drama etc, with ex Pos, has had a profound effect on my children. My daughter and I discussed this at length this morning and her observance was that I not allow him to use ME as the excuse for HIS behavior. It gives him an open door to manipulate me using guilt and shame as a maneuver. That is a tactic of a spath and I WON”T play. NOw if he decides that he is willing to be an ACTIVE participant in therapy (which I may offer depending) THEN we can address his issues WITH ME. But the behaviors are HIS choices and HE KNOWS how to MAINTAIN himself. I WILL NOT allow anymore excuses (Ie, poor kid had adhd, anxiety, depression) to MANIPULATE all around him. He’s been doing this, I suspect for awhile, but with what I heard from his gf’s mother last night, ALL of it done under MY nose. Not anymore!
I look at it this way, Sky, GREAT advice given me from my S1 SO’s therapist when he was first busted and i put him in treatment. He tried to BLAME ME (S1) for HIS behaviors. I TOOK that blame. Therapist sat there, looked right at me and said, “YOU are not to “BLAME” for “HIS” actions!! Know how I KNOW that? Because the rest of your children are NOT SO’s, are they?”
Good point. My children KNOW how to behave, Sky. THey know how to be compassionate, polite and caring about others. What I am seeing CLEARLY now, was NOT compassion out of my son or genuine caring but now see MANIPULATION, LACK OF EMPATHY, BLAME SHIFTING, GUILT OR REMORSE and LYING.
THAT concerns me. He knows better. And those behaviors are UNACCEPTABLE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!
Yep, You’re right SKy. Grey rock. All the way.
LL
I also don’t “get” why the DOUBLE STANDARD (Whore/Madona Complex) persists, century after century, when you would think that, after a woman has been ABUSED in her marriage (he KNOWS the woman can no longer be a virgin!) So, I think those abusers with double standards are ENVIOUS of her KNOWING her FULL SENSUAL power/capacity/strength. NOT sorry that we can’t go “backwards” in time, to our naiive youth. My ex (alleged SPATH), said to me, one time, “your lovemaking was too powerful” (which, I think he was TRANSFERRING/PROJECTING on/to me, his feelings about his GAY MALE COUSIN, who, he confided, had oral sex with him, when he, my ex, was around age 12.) READ, instead, “You had no right to take my virginity. You OVERPOWERED me!” .. which, I think, he SHOULD have told his gay male cousin. It was a total DOUBLE-BIND for me when he said that, because, before he said that, in consequent/previous “love-making” sessions with me, he said our lovemaking was like out of the movie/song [don’t recall the exact title..think it was a song] “Love On A Hot Afternoon” .., & he’d said, previously to me [within the first years living with me), “you make my blood boil”
Yep..a HUGE SPATH, in my opinion.
LL – i had a bit of a funny feeling when you said the girl’s mom was going to pull her out of school – you are right, there are undisclosed events, and maybe a few lies too. dunno, just a feeling.
Two things…
One time recently when we were having sex (in the shower), I was literally about to fall over out of the tub as he was going to town. I said “hang on, Im gonna fall”…did he? Nope! He kept going and said afterwards “you wanted me to stop, but I was RIGHT there!”
.
Also…I had said Id buy him a bike for his birthday, two days after Xmas. I told him Id spend 350. About a month after his birthday he sends me a text saying “tomorrow we will go to the gym, go shopping, go look at bikes and then you can go out.” I found this text SOOOOOOOOO rude! He was dictating to me what my schedule was gonna be, but all with things HE wanted to do. I responded “let me talk to (my friend)”. Saturday rolls around and we go to the gym and store…those were givens. We get to my house and have an argument about his son’s lack interest in independent activities. Im in my room, isolating and he comes in like ALL WAS WELL (which Im seeing is a pattern of his also…when Im at my most frustrated, he acts FINE). He says to me “so, do you want to go and get my bike now?” I say ‘you are expecting me to BUY it for you today?” he says “ummmm, isnt that whats gonna happen?” I say”nooooo, I dont just have 350 dollars to spend. I was under the impression you wanted to LOOK at the bike. You cant TELL ME when Im gonna BUY you the bike.” He responds “I told you I wanted the bike today. you cant just tell me youre gonna buy me a bike A MONTH AGO and then tell me you cant buy it.”
I was SOOOOOOOO pissed!
I said “I am planning on buying it, but you cant ASSUME I can do it today.” He says “then why did you say we could go there today?” I say “because I THOUGHT we were gonna go and LOOK…I didnt know “LOOKING” meant “BUYING.”
He responds with “thats fine, whatever. If you said ‘lets go look at rings today, I would expect that I was going to buy you one.”
REALLY!??? Isnt there something wrong with this?
We go the following weekend for the bike. He picks out one thats 250 OVER what I was willing to spend. I say ‘you can pick up the rest…Ill pay 350″. Fine, he gets the bike.
About three days later, he says “I cant pay the bills this month.”
WHAT THE FUCK!!! We go round and round about not buying a BIKE he cant afford if THE BILLS AREN’T PAID…he responds with “but it was a really good deal.”
Mother EFFER!!! RAWWWWWWR
One, AGREED!
And I’m going to LISTEN TO MY GUT on this one!
LL
Babe,
I realize you’re at at time when you’re really going to be untwisting all the knots he tied in your head. I cannot believe, AGAIN, how uncanny it is, your ex and mine. it’s very interesting seeing it from an observers perspective rather than within. TOTALLY different. But so much like mine with word games.
My spath use to piss me off on purpose around holidays and his birthday. He did it because he knew I would NOT buy him ANYTHING because i’d be too angry, therefore, when the days came and went, he bought ME something but I didn’t get HIM anything. He USED that to berate me and make himself the victim.
That’s what they do. Your was just twisting the situation. Words. And the outcome was effective wasn’t it? This is why NC is going to be so important for you right now. And you’ll probably feel a little angrier as more of the knots become untied in your head.
JUst be prepared for that and keep posting because so far, everything you’ve said he’s said or done, is totally completely one hundred percent textbook spath. You’ll get it completely.
LL
Zim,
I think your observations of the Madonna/Whore complex are VERY interesting to me!!! I think that’s what was wrong with my spath. But it wasn’t limited to just his marriage, it was also a weird thing with me too. Not right away, but it became that way.
He wasn’t as “attracted” to me if he knew he could “have” me. I would have been relegated to “madonna” status. He didn’t want me to be madonna status because I’d always been “Whore” status
Boy did i get slimed with that one too.
LL
To robxsykobabe,
Addressing your statement, re
“He responds ’I told you I wanted the bike today. you cant just tell me youre gonna buy me a bike A MONTH AGO and then tell me you cant buy it’ ”
After my ex left me, I spent FIVE years writing a book. I had a publisher, signed with same, until, 2 years later, that publisher rescinded my contract, because I could not pay thousands of dollars needed to push my book through a lawyer, to have it “vetted” for potential libel, even though I wrote them that I had changed the names of everyone in my book, to give everyone mentioned “aliases”, so they would not be recognized. It was never (as far as I could tell) in my contract with that publisher, that it was “required” of my to pay $7,000 to any lawyer, for this service. So, I was astounded, when same publisher rescinded my contract, within 2 years after I had signed with same. I have since found out that other first would-be authors have been “conned/dissed” similarly. Now, I think to publish that book as an e-book, so my story can FINALLY come out. Below, is a brief excerpt from it:
James Dean was a “bisexual”. I didn’t know that about Dean when I bought the tie.
Sardonically, I recalled one blues artist, in the first of a series of seven documentaries that PBS aired, about blues musicians and blues history, the interviewer asking his interviewee (musician Corey Harris or producer Martin Scorcese”I can’t remember which) why one famous artist was so natty: “when a broad likes you, she’ll [dress him in fine clothes] just to have him play the blues for her—something I had done. I didn’t like the guy who said that. He’s setting women up to be suckers for gigolos, trying to feed-forward what all men should expect. His message is opposite of Ry Cooder’s message in “The Tattler”. In that song, Cooder makes fun of a man who can’t even “put clothes on his own wife”.
I have never thought of myself as a “homophobe”. I’ve had a few friends in my life who had that lifestyle; that was their choice, not mine. Still, for two years after hearing about pedophilia in the news (priest abuse), and after Jered’s exploits, I stopped buying those aged cheeses that I’d bought for years from the Monastery of Gethsemane in Trappist, Kentucky.
For 8.5 years, Jered gave me no solid clues that he was on the “down-low”. In the beginning, we watched innocent movies together, like Scent of a Woman. Afterwards, he remarked, holding me at night, “if I was in a pitch black room full of nude women, I could detect ’my woman’-you-by just your scent.”
I was left with no cause to doubt him then. They say lovers get addicted to each other’s scent.
I remember the etching that Jered had done of a brunette, nude, lying on her side. He showed it to me in one of our happier years. He said that it had to be me”the woman he’d drawn in his imagination (he claimed not to have had a nude model.)
“Doesn’t it look like you?” he asked.
“I guess so” I said. It was a good rendering of whoever it was.
So could James Dean draw (etch).
Kenneth Anger’s book, Hollywood Babylon II, in a chapter called The Trouble With Jimmy, shows a ’high school doodle’ that Dean had made and titled “The Composer”, a poster-like etching of a nude dancer, the “P” of the word “composer” turned into a treble clef. Anger’s discoveries about Dean mimicked discoveries I’d made about Jered’s lifestyle, similar to Dean’s. [Copyright © 1984, 1985, Kenneth Anger. Reprinted with gratis permission.]:
“James Dean was a host of thriving colony of crabs. He acquired the critters from a binge of sleeping around”Dean had taken to hanging out at the Club, an East Hollywood leather bar.” (135) Anger described Dean as a “predatory night prowler, who dug anonymous sex” and “had recently discovered the magic world of S and M”Regulars at the Club tagged him with a singular moniker: the Human Ashtray. When stoned, he would bare his chest and beg for his masters to stub out their butts on it. After his fatal car crash, the coroner made note of the ’constellation of keratoid scars’ on Jimmy’s torso.” (135)
On the night of the crash, Anger explained, Dean had been to a party at Malibu “which ended in a screaming match with an ex-lover, a man who accused him of dating women just for the sake of publicity.” (143)
I felt that Jered had done the same thing with me. I used to think it was cute, the way he lazily sipped from that Perrier bottle (the supermarket checkers at Giant called him the “Perrier Man”) while lying down, without spilling a drop. I thought it was cute how his Puck-like lips curled on the lip of the bottle.
I discovered later that Perrier contained traces of benzine. Too bad there wasn’t enough of that substance to do him in, I would think, from time to time.
Before discovering Jered’s ads for sex with men in his ad on swingerdirect.com, I received an instant, pop-up message from an unknown entity, asking “do you have a beard?” or “are you a beard?—I cannot remember the exact words of the message, but I remember that it confused me. I knew what the word “beard” meant (other than what a man grows on his face).
I knew the word beard was code for a woman who protects and hides a homosexual lover. I certainly did not agree to any such lifestyle. Had I known that Jered hid another side from me from the beginning, I would not have consented to be with him.
If I had become a beard, it was without my knowledge, and against it.
Jered showed me, after he left me, burn marks on his arms, that at first he’d said were from burning himself with the jeweler’s torch. He later told me those burns were from cigarettes, from a “macho” ritual that he’d participated in as a teen, trying to prove his manhood.
He still dropped by our rental place in Prince William County, almost daily for two months after he left me. During our last conversation, he admitted to me to having met strange men in cinemas and bookstores, in his youth.
About James Dean’s avoiding military service, Anger wrote, “he informed the Fairmount Selective Unit that he was gay” (135) ”the same way Jered had done for his draft status.
The ties that I bought for Jered had abstract designs of keyboards and other designs that befitted an “artist”, the artist I thought he was.
After a few years living with me, Jered’s looks temporarily improved, mostly with my help. I never intended to be a Pygmalion, but he went from looking like a pot-bellied, pony-tailed version of George Jones, to resembling a citified, short-haired, older but smartly dressed version of David Letterman.
Jered had Letterman’s mannerisms, vocal pitch, some of his expressions, the same brindle-colored eyebrows (somewhere between red, gray and blond), and definitely had his mouth and chin, but his voice was like Chris Isaac’s or Kevin Welch’s.
Jered learned Welch’s song, Somethin’
Okay—so, basically, I say to you, robxsykobabe, that your ex, in my opinion, was a gigolo, a PIMP, or BOTH!
Now..if any of you have read the last comment I posted, re “Regulars at the Club tagged him with a singular moniker: the Human Ashtray. When stoned, he would bare his chest and beg for his masters to stub out their butts on it”
For everyone..my ex told me, when I first began dating him, that a scar on his forearm, was from his jeweler’s torch burning him. It was not until 8.5 years later, that he told me that, in his youth, he had played “chicken” with another guy, where they both put a lit cigarette between their forearms, to see who would pull his arm away first.
I have since read, about BPDs, that self-harming behavior is one characteristic of BPDs. Go figure.