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.
BBE:
Good observance of realizing there was probably even more going on than what you knew with your X spath. Same with mine. Get this…he was separated, had a DUI and couldn’t drive, living in an apartment he hated, had a MAJOR thing happen to him at work that could have gotten him fired, still had his wife and kids to worry about, I was in the picture, the OW in triangulation was in the picture and was relentlessly still pursuing him AND like you said, I think there were other things going on even on top of all this that I didn’t even know about! No wonder they run. They are a mess. He is a highly functioning alcoholic, charming executive. Gets away with everything.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_vPEGEz-2U
This definitely made me think of some of the things I felt when I was with my exspath..
Louise;
My was a charming flight attendant, not an executive. Functioning alcoholic, certainly by American standards.
While now I realize more was going on, I did not at the time. Not until the online profiles, both porn and dating.
No doubt he is running away from his past and much of that has to do with his family life and growing up poor. But I think there is more, part of that is based upon his porn tastes and part of that based on some of the “matching” questions he chose to answer which include:
“Would you date somebody who confided in you that they had a sexually transmitted disease?”
“Would you date somebody who was convicted of a sex crime?”
“Would you date somebody who was a former sex industry worker?”
BBE:
So did he answer “yes” to those questions??
Louise;
They way it works is that to improve one’s “matching score” with him, one would have to answer yes to those questions.
Thus, to “match” better with him, you must be willing to:
Date somebody with a STD.
Date somebody convicted of a sex crime.
Date somebody who was a former sex industry worker.
And he storms out of a restaurant on me when I asked him back to my place…
BBE:
Hahahaha, WOW! That man is seriously damaged. It’s something about being born in Liverpool I think! (Sorry, I mean no disrespect to all my UK friends on here). I’m just talking about these two!!
BBE:
By these two I mean your X spath and my X spath.
This is why I think him and his sister are not very close, which I at first not only thought odd considering both parents are dead an he is her only sibling.
It was a big red flag. Normally, under those circumstances (dead parents, not other siblings, small extended family) an older sister would be close to a younger brother.
Louise;
How did you learn your x-spath had a DUI?