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.
TTS,
I never saw the movie but sort of know what it was about. I just thought, why would I want to see a movie about such a stupid person…LOL. Little did I realize it was about me!
No, I’ve never been into SM but then I was only 17 when I met him. Not inexperienced, I’d dated some pedophiles since age 15, but none did anything weird. Truth is, I didn’t think this was weird at the time. I thought he was just having fun and although it left me exhausted, I was happy to please him.
In truth it got MUCH weirder and that’s when I called it quits with the sex. He started wanting orgies all the time. Same MO, only this time involving more people. So he was manipulating me AND the whole gang. It was like he was directing a movie – whoops, I think he was part of the time. 🙁
hidden camera.
Anyway, spath took the sexual manipulation to a whole new level, as he manipulated a whole cast of REAL and FAKE characters to create a crazy sexual fantasy for me. He thought that just because my body liked it, my mind would too. But it didn’t. I wanted to make him happy and he didn’t seem any happier. He actually seemed more crazy than ever, so for the last 15 years I was a born-again virgin.
Roses,
I agree, sex IS overrated. I don’t equate love with sex, so I can take it or leave it.
It’s sad that so many men equate sex with power and many women equate it with love. It isn’t either, it’s more like chocolate.
TTS,
Mine played the “I don’t know how to do it” card from the get go. Last love bomb told me that he told her that he saw the exchange of hot steamy sex emails between his ex wife and her bf and said that he would have done that with her too if he had had the chance”. She caught onto that pity ploy right away and said to me, “wait, he’s been married twice and he never had the chance to do that with her? WTF?”
She was smart. I should have run when he used that same MO with me. I should have made that totally logical and knew it was absolute bullshit. He wanted to be “taught”. I gave him the best sex ever and wore myself out doing it. I loved trying to please him, but it never seemed that he really WAS, although he kept coming back for sex. It didn’t dawn on me until very recently in slowly unraveling all the knots he tied in my head, that perhaps there really WAS a Madonna/Whore complex going on. I seriously believe his wife was deprived, that he created dramas so she’d be unable to have sex with this man. He was so incredibly abusive.
He did the same abusive tactics to me, but I think our sex life was quite active because I was the whore component for him. He didn’t have to commit, made it far more exciting. He used her as the cover.
Bastard.
so now, when I think about sex, I miss it sometimes, but not enough to want to go back to that. It’s not worth all the rest that goes with it. If it ever happens again for me, it’s going to be in a situation where trust and love is involved. That may never happen for me, as old as I am getting, BUT, if it doesn’t, I’ll live.
I can only imagine, because I’ve never had sex with a man who loved me, what that must be like. It looks so much different in my mind than it did with my ex’s.
Skylar, I’m not beyond being more than amorous and creative in the bedroom, if anything, exPOS taught me I’m quite good at it lol! I bet most of here ARE, BUT, when it’s done with a spath, the deviant component is added to it, what would otherwise be fun with someone you loved and trusted (not opposed to that) becomes degrading and emotionally painful with a spath.
I agree with you. It is more like chocolate 🙂
RB
Problem is sometimes chocolate gives me a headache, LOL
You know, not tonight I have a ……..well anyway. It seems like just as I catch on to something my exes want something else. That is why I really am trying to learn now to do what is best for me.
One of the reasons I first thought my exH was just PassiveAggressive is that just when I think I finally get what he wants in any area of life, he wants something else. On the other hand when he finds out I do like something or want something he won’t give it to me.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a man who doesn’t lie, doesn’t cheat, loves me for me. Then we could actually make love instead of sex.
The other thing is when you tell them secrets or things about your hopes and dreams they don’t throw it back in your face later on.
TTS
Dear TTS,
There is an article here that I think Donna wrote (maybe Liane) about that many of the psychopaths are neither straight or gay, they will Fark anything man, child, woman, girl or beast! They’d fark a snake if Star would let them near her reptiles! To them sex is “getting off” doesn’t matter what method they use, it is really only a warm body doesn’t matter what or who it is attached to.
TTS “passive Aggressive” is just a METHOD OF MANIPULATION that any number of toxic types use, and remember, Passive-aggressive IS AGGRESSIVE.
Ox,
I think my ex spath was strictly about women. LOTS of women.
He was a bit “femmie” in some ways, but I was more concerned about how she spoke of his daughter as she approached puberty, than I was about him being with a guy. It’s interesting to note, however, that his brother is gay and he DESPISES him.
INteresting……..
TTS,
Yep mine was the KING of withholding what I wanted. Only on one hand can I count the times he attempted to do anything TO me, it was always FOR him.
I learned to accept that. YUCK! The more I think about it, the more it pisses me off! lol! UGH!!!!!!!!!
One of the weird things that happened towards the end and right during sex was his asking me, “what do women like and want in bed? How can you tell if she has a REAL orgasm?”
Wow. It was truly epically amazing.
RB
ha ha ha ha, Roses. He actually asked you that? And toward the end of your relationship? OMG, he must have sensed the end coming (pardon the pun).
ROFLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Uh, Star, do ya THINK?
Yeah, some of these spaths can be dumb asses. Maybe one of these days I’ll tell you some of the dumb things my S did to get himself caught and punished.