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.
Choked growth,
I don’t know how old you are but you strike me as very intelligent, articulate, and determined. You also seem to have a lot of insight into your situation. You had the wherewithal not to give this guy any money and you didn’t have children with him. You don’t seem to be struggling too much with denial. It sounds like you know what’s up. You also understand your motives for inviting him into your life. Good for you! And yes, he does sound like a textbook sociopath and a very dangerous person. I don’t know what the resources are like where you are, but my blanket advice is always to start with a domestic violence shelter and see what resources they have. There may be free support groups or even a talk line.
There are many of us here who have survived horrible childhoods. You are not alone. There are role models for people like you, and many on this site. You don’t need to be defined by what happened to you in your past, but I think you already know that. I’m always amazed at the determination of people like Oprah and David Pelzer (did any of you ever read his books? He suffered the second worst case of child abuse in California history at the time. He is now a successful award-winning published author and advocate for abused children.)
You are very fortunate to have such a good relationship with your younger sister. My younger sister and I never bonded, mainly due to the way the abuse was administered in our family. Like you, I left home at an early age and disowned my parents (though it has taken me years to feel good with that decision). I hope you and your sister can be anchors for each other through difficult times.
I like the STD idea if you can pull it off.
Good luck – you sound like a very strong person!
To ValleyGirl,
RE: “of course he had a young child he used to suit his purposes, telling me we were a ‘little family’, even though he really just used me as a baby sitter on his custody days.”
You are lucky your relationship only lasted six weeks. Mine lasted 8.5 years. And yes..he did the same to me..used his sweet young daughter (age 10) as chump bait to reel me in, and yes, I was used as a babysitter, but also as a major mentor in her life, to help him raise her during her custody weekends with him.
I’ve mainly healed. It has been >10 years since I’ve been out of that relationship, but he played some dangerous mind-torque games & I feel certain I won’t be the last he’s tried them on.
Hi Friends,
I need your help and comments again.
They are back. My ex-spath and his new women who is a drug addict and I am sure a spath herself. Its been two years since he left, abbandoned me and his kids. We have been fighting legal battles, not the kids because they want nothing to do with him 18 and 14). In Oct /2010 after a court case which I guess he was unhappy with, he depostied cut up babay pictures of my kids in the mailbox. My son picked them up and we were all pertty scared of the frame of mind this person must be in. We do not know if it was him or her who cut up the baby pictures and put them there, however they were his pictures of the kids. School pictures, baby pictures, about 10 of them all cut up, in small bits. Scary. I phoned the police, they have it noted. This past weekend he emailed me wanting his “stuff”and the vehicle. His stuff needs to be sorted out in court to deternince if infact it is his “stuff”. I replied that he should contact my lawyer. He did not like this reply and replied back that its his stuff, but I actually think it was “her” words. Nevertheless quite threatning. I replied to contact the lawyer and blocked him. I go to work this morning, and the message is on my work computer. I called the police and told them that now I am scared. He had been violent in the past, hit me, broke down doors, but this was two years ago. Now I guess things are financially crumbling and he wants more. I do not trust him or her. And quite frankly I think they hate me so much and they are going to do me harm. A protection order was denied to me eve when I was hit two years ago, because apparently, I should not have been there in front of him, I should have moved out of the way and let him take whatever he wanted. When i found the pictures in my mailbox I also called the police, it was not normal for a person to cut up baby pictures. My lawyer did some sort of Cease and whatever letter, however he is back, broke and angry. Especially since he needs to pay for my daughters University tuition. What do you all think I should do ? I do not want to overreact and be deemed an crazy women. But I know how crazy he can get, and the little women is on drugs, she will do whatever to get money. I feel very unsafe. What is your suggestions ? The legal system is so overburdened already that unless he actually kills me, they are stuck. Help.
Dear Survivorlady,
Thanks for reminding us about the photo tearing bit, I do remember it now that you mention it….so many stories here it’s hard to keep separate sometimes.
I don’t blame you at all for feeling threatened by the photos being torn up, that IS A THREAT.
As for his “stuff”—first I would look at what is the “value” of the stuff actually. Are we talking about $3, $300, or $30thousand?
If it is Of little real value or use to you, GIVE IT TO HIM, put it in boxes and drop it off at the “cop shop” and e mail him he can pick it up there at 10 a.m. on Saturday the X of March.
If he is wanting to go through every drawer and closet in your house and pick out half the rubber bands and half the printer paper by counting the sheets of paper and the rubber bands, the answer is “NO!!! See my lawyer.”
If it is a large amount of valuable stuff that you feel you have a right to and you need this stuff or the value of it, the answer is “see my lawyer.”
Sometimes giving them what they want is the easiest thing to do and the SAFEST.
As for him having to pay some or all of your daughter’s tuition to college, it actually might be worth it to have her work her way through school and have him OUT OF HER AND YOUR LIFE. Sure, that is “giving him what he wants” (not to pay for what he should pay) but at the other end of that discussion is IS IT WORTH IT TO HAVE A DANGEROUS MAN PISSED OFF AT YOU AND THE WOMAN HE IS WITH WHO IS ALSO DANGEROUS?
The answer might be “NOT FOR ANY AMOUNT OF MONEY IS IT WORTH IT.”
The thing is that ONLY YOU can make these decision and decide what is right for you and your kids.
I’ve been at the stage where I wanted to stand and fight for what was MINE, for what I worked for that they were trying to take from me—my very home, everything I owned, and I decided it was SMARTER and WISER to leave it all behind than to try to defend it. Sometimes a live dog is a better bet than a dead lion. Sometimes it is better to be a living “coward” than a dead “hero.” It is better to “give up” and remain standing and alive than to “FIGHT TO THE DEATH.” The men at the Alamo all died “heroes” but they were DEAD none the less. Sometimes we can “buy” some benefit to others by our heroic deeds and deaths, but in most of the cases, all we buy is our own suffering and death when we’d have been better off to turn tail and run, and LIVE TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY.
Only you can decide whether to stand and fight or not. God bless. (((hugs)))
To GoingThroughTheMotions,
Per you statement, “he HATED having his nipples touched, or anything remotely near his rectum”
Maybe he was only comfortable when a GUY was in that “zone” with him, so when you were a female it “confused” him..
It was just the opposite with my ExPos. He wanted things PUT in his yazoo, animate and inanimate. My guess is that he was/is a “bottom boy” (“femme” in any gay relationship he has with a man, with who he ADVERTISED on a swingers’ site he wanted to share his “other side” ..quote verbatim..and his next woman..the MARRIED woman who wouldn’t believe me?! She can bring it on..I still keep the proof, saved copies) .. that or a “versatile”, that can become either top or bottom. It grossed me out. No “chocolate fingernails” for me, thanks. Yechhh!
He had this knack for keeping items of his exes, usually photos, but also furniture, not unlike criminal psychopaths..rapists do..keep little “souvenirs” of their victims. He kept a baby photo of his 1st wife (I didn’t realize this until much later..never questioned him about it until the end..always thought it might’ve been him)..I mean an INFANT photo of her, that she said she NEVER gave him, and I think the infant was naked, but not sure of that, it was so long ago. He had another photo of the woman he lived with before his first two wives, taken by a professional photographer, one that I thought was “suggestive”, & I don’t know if she gave it to him or not. He tried to keep a photo of me where I was half-nude, that he snapped w/o my permission. You could see me turning my head real fast, whipping my hair around my face so I couldn’t be recognized. I found it stashed in his ledger book, in his desk drawer. I think he was hoping to keep it. Ha ha. I snatched it back. He kept an antique bed, heirloom of his first wife. He told me that he later gave it to his daughter. I spoke to his first wife. She never “gave” it to him and told me he never “looked for her” to return it, at least, not hard enough, which is the excuse he gave me for having ever had it in his possession post their marriage breakup. He admitted to me to having stolen the (government property..county property) street sign, from the street where he once lived with (he told me) his 2nd wife. I found out later, from his first wife, that he had also lived on same street with HER, so it is not unreasonable for me to think that he “overlapped” those two wives.
Yes, I feel sure he was a SPATH, now.
Oh mine asked very early for a pic of me when i was a teenager. And he took many pics of me later on. He was very fond of photography. And as souvenir he stole an asstray from my flat. Why the hell didn’t he take some panties?
By the way, he liked having his nipples touched.
To Eva,
Funny what you said about him not wanting you not to touch his nipples.
My former long-term boyfriend, decades ago, before the ULTIMATE SPATH, after him”(I associated with him from age 18 onward, for more than 10 years) told me that his nipples were not sensitive, that guys don’t get off on having their nipples touched. I took me more than 20 years later, with a different long-term lover, that, indeed, guys liked their nipples touched. Though that first lover of mine, of almost 9 years, was not, or at least I don’t think so—a SPATH, he may have been, though, (he WAS an admitted alcoholic, which I would not discover until 30+ years later), at least, a MAJOR NARCISSIST, for whom I moved TWICE across the country, relocating to TWO states, forsaking TWO GOOD JOBS with benefits, to join him in life. It took him two more years, after I moved to the second state with him, to find a state job, probably because his male buddy, a guy who shared his falconry hobby, practically handed it to him. He never had to stand in line at any state employment commission office, as I did, several times, across years, to get my next job. Heck. I doubt if he ever had to create a professional resume for himself. He was a spoiled trust fund baby, who didn’t get his first “real” job until after I had been with him for 7 or 8 years. In those years, I busted my butt as a nurse’s aide, and after that, when I discovered that occupation was not to my best interest, learned the publications trade, and earned a good living, even while he was still living with mommy & daddy, or living on his trust fund. The coward! When I was age 18, in my first three years with him, his mother seemed to love me.. promised my own mother that he would never hurt me. Well, he left me NO OTHER CHOICE but to abort TWO babies that he conceived with me (he had no job, I was the only one employed at the time) .. His mother & biological family never knew what he put me through, but he blamed everything that went wrong in our relationship on me. Not to mention, he kept a stash of Playboy magazines under his bed, and his younger brother, whose bedroom was next to my ex’s, placed a tape-recorder in the closet, between the two bedrooms, to record the lovemaking sessions of me and his brother (talk about boundary violations!)
Later, when it was all done, he seemed to have given his mother some story about me cheating on him, when, he sexed some lover he’d known (during our breakup) before he met me. At one point, he told me that his mother said that I got a good write-up (for my artistic/professional talents) because (she attributed/projected it) I had supposedly slept with the journalist (A PROJECTION!) .. but how could that be, when I had at least one article before that (positive, about my accomplishments) before we fell out, and MANY MANY articles (positive) about me, gained, >30 years later, about not only me, but about my co-workers??? (did all of my co-workers sleep with each of those journalists that gave our project good press???)
I swear, if there was anyone who wanted to lower my self esteem, as much, if not more than my later SPATH did, it was him! Heck, he even admitted (but not until more than 30 years later!) that he was an alcoholic, when I knew him (and was too naive to realize it, at the time), and that he was JEALOUS of me! Now that I think about it, my first love (the “trust fund baby” I described) was probably a SPATH, too. Nothing like it when a male destroys a young female’s soul, at a very young age, then escapes all blame, to blame it on her. How many SPATHS must one endure through life? It becomes almost too much to overcome!
The irony of my story above, is that I learned from my ex (it took a phone conversation with him more than 30 years later!) that his father more or less had told him, when he was young, that he would never amount to anything (that, I gathered, he would always be a “fuck up”)..he told me that his father would not let his mother visit him in the hospital when he was dying (MR. BIG TIME NAVAL OFFICER!) What should have been a major RED FLAG for me was in my first year with that ex, he told me that, before his mother & father married, she had aborted one child of theirs. Gee….lucky her..the man who had impregnated her, for whom she aborted a child, later married her & had three children. Gee, seems my ex was not even the “great man” his own father was.., as, he could not even marry me, when I “stood still”, once he had FINALLY found a DECENT job/career (think of the Jonatha Brooke song, “Angel In The House” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQd0y61FOuQ ..which I find is a healing song, now.)
Correction/clarification, per “Later, when it was all done, he seemed to have given his mother some story about me cheating on him, when, he sexed some lover he’d known (during our breakup) before he met me”
CLARIFICATION: He had sex with this artist woman (when we broke up for awhile, back in the state where I met him, who he had known and stayed “friends with” when he first dated me. We got back together when he convinced me, a 2nd time, to leave yet another good job, a STATE JOB with benefits. HE convinced me to join him, in another state, where he was to live with a buddy & his wife (who lived in a huge house; the wife had a decent federal job, that moved her across country, the husband. Well, he did not exactly have any decent profession, another falconer friend of his, and who my ex said cheated on her, in their first years of marriage—they divorced. Besides.., who the hell wants to live in a GROUP HOUSE, rather than a one-one one situation with one’s mate? Who wants to hear another woman’s vacuum cleaner working on a weekend morning, when one is trying to sleep, when you, rather, do your vacuuming in the evening hours?) Geez, my story is sounding like a Balzac novel. Sorry.
How many TRAUMAS must one woman endure, before she finds “Mr. Right”, and when, meanwhile, she tries to establish her OWN profession..to become INDEPENDENT..to SURVIVE???
I have found some films to be both healing and informative, about sociopaths. They might help others up here, too. One is “Phoolan Devi, Bandit Queen” (Indian film, true story, about a woman raped, over and over by bad men, to later achieve fame/recognition/position in life.) My S.O., thank God, a healing man, introduced it to me. Another was “Shipping News,” about a woman who experienced incest from her own brother (she exchanged her brother’s urn ashes for sand, in his burial urn, while she flushed the real ones down the toilet, when she was invited to his funereal services. He had raped her as a child. Not that I ever experienced incest, but for those women who have, this is an excellent film.)