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.
Skylar – That is too too funny about the youtube song!!!! I Love it!!
Dear 2good2Btrue,
Congratulations!!!!! That is a great way to handle it. Hope you can just not answer from now on. I am not a doctor, but a registered family nurse practitioner (retired) but I did work in both psych and in family medicine clinics…I am posting here as a private person, not giving medical or professional psych advice.
I am happy for you seeing that (and I quote you) “I am convinced I could have gotten stuck in the cycle of him BS’ing his way back into my weak heart. But I am so done!!! ”
That is great to hear that you have come this far! Stick with it!!!! (((hugs)))
Skylar…I agree with toogoodtobetrue about the youtube song and I laughed out loud when I read that you would sing and laugh when you answered the phone. I can only imagine how my spath would have reacted if I would have done that the other day instead of arguing with him. ha!
Sky –
What’s the song called and who sings it? It won’t upload to u-tube downunder here, and I could use a giggle! x
aussiegirl.. the you tube link she posted was for viva la vida by coldplay.
Thanks! I’ll have to listen more closely – I actually have it on CD but haven’t played it for a couple of years.
Cold Play is one of my favorite bands. I have their first 3 CDs and they are among my favorite CD’s. Imagine my delight when the spath had them on his IPOD in his car for us to listen to. It helped cement the early bond I made with him. Many months later, after I thought about it, I realized that he told me he read all my threads and posts on the reptile site before stalking….er….uh….contacting me. He probably read on one of them that I liked Cold Play and went out and bought the CD’s for the love bombing portion of his exploitation.
That’s a great song Skylar!
I heard this one on an oldies station today, and I thought about sending it his way!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKQbcJyVKR0
Mending, I still check her FB profile pict. (She set her page to private for some mysterious reason, so that’s all I can see). I think I do it just to finally “catch” him in an undeniable lie, but he’d still deny it anyway somehow, so I know I should just stop. It really bothers me that I keep researching him and that I still don’t have the resolve to stop wasting any of my precious time on him. I guess it’s a weaning process…
Just listened to it with “new ears”. WOW! So apt.
Thanks for that Sky.
Star –
You just reminded me – when the Superspath and I separated, I kept all of my CDs. I had either owned them prior to meeting him or else had paid for them myself after he moved in with me. I love music, had dozens of CDs and would play them all the time at home. He arrived at my place with maybe 6 CDs in his “collection” and left with the same ones.
Anyhow, at some point before I went no contact, he asks me to copy them all for him because he has no music now – and I NEARLY DID!!!!!!!! WTF?????????????
AFTER I knew he’d been lying to me for years.
AFTER I knew he’d been cheating on me for years.
AFTER I knew he’d been hiding money from me for years.
AFTER I knew he’d been slandering me behind my back.
AFTER I knew he’d been abusing his son.
AFTER he had been physically/verbally abusing me for years.
AFTER he had threatened to “finish me” (because the game was up).
I can only shake my head……..
Aussiegirl,
I’m shaking my head along with you.
I honestly don’t think I’m a very good target for sociopaths. I’m too lazy to support them and too poor to give them money. I don’t do stuff like that with men. I never have. I’m way too entitled with men. I expect a lot from them or I kick them to the curb. And it doesn’t take me long to figure out their games. Once I figure it out, I’m gone. There are no second chances. I think meeting that particular spath was just the law of probability. If there are 4 in every hundred, that means for every 25 people you date, there is a good chance one will be a sociopath. I’m sure I’ve dated over 30 or 40 people in my life. It was the luck of the draw that I got one. But I’m glad that I got in, got out, and got on with my life. And I got a bit of an education in the process. Now I know what signs to look for. I had never witnessed the love bombing before. Looked pretty good to a middle aged woman who is used to guys being aloof and non-committal, eh? I honestly didn’t know people like this existed. I’ve been played by the best, and I thought I was down with all the games men play. The spath took game playing to a whole new dimension:
(Spath): “I will just not show up for a date, pretend like you don’t even exist, give you no explanation, then call you 3 days later trying to see you again as if nothing’s wrong. I will discard you and then act like you are the one who broke up. And by the way, having brain surgery is a good excuse for a no-show/no-call. Right?” I can’t believe I fell for this crap as long as I did (2-1/2 months). *shakes head with aussiegirl*
I mean, really, who ever expects that an Iraqi was hero would make up an entire story about a phony head injury. This one just really caught me off guard.