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.
DUPED:
I hate that you are feeling so bad right now. Wish I could give you a “real” hug 🙁
Duped,
Darling it is easy enough to get triggered by something like that Jaycee show last night….and as strong as you are, there are times that it “gets to you.” You are human after all!
If watching this kind of thing “gets to you”—then avoid it. Sometimes there will be shows that make me angry (this Casey Anthony trial did) but I also see that maybe her getting off will give some attention to the murder that might help laws be passed and better things in the future to PROTECT kids before they are murdered.
The thing With Jaycee maybe will help get some action from parole boards and parole officers…I’ve had my problems with both of them doing their jobs.
(((hugs))) and my prayers, Duped.
Louise;
I believe that sociopath, being good predators, size up their prey. I think he was testing you early on. Had you reacted negatively to the DUI, he might have moved on to somebody else.
BTW, Alcoholics almost always continue to drink and drive after DUIs. My x-spath never learned to drive, so there was no chance for a DUI. However, he did seem to have a fixation with alcohol. That could be part cultural due to his being British, but even his older sister has the same fixation as quite a few of her FB posts are alcohol related.
BBE:
You are right! I never thought of that before, but now that you point it out, that’s exactly what he was doing…testing me…sizing me up. I didn’t have a reaction to the DUI either way. I don’t remember saying much about it…I just let him talk.
Of course they continue to drink. It’s very hard for them to stop. It’s a way of life; they are addicted. And I do think being British is part of it. It’s cultural. Even your X spath’s sister is fixated. They grew up with it. I’m not sure the legal drinking age over there, do you know?
Louise, DUPED
You are so right.
Am I strange for feeling bad that he started masturbating while talking to me?
He said he doesn’t find people “interesting”
Can somebody comment on this? Please? What the hell is this?
Superkid
Superkid:
He sounds schizophrenic to me. The talking backwards, gibberish, funny sounds…I think that is schizo type stuff. Paranoia, definitely.
He really needs help, SK. What are you going to do?
SK, he does sound very mentally disturbed…doesn’t mean he isn’t also psychopathic but you do not need to be in contact with this person. There is no way anyone can diagnose For sure what is going on with him without direct contact with HIM and cooperation from him…but the bottom line is HE IS TOXIC TO YOU.
That is ALL you need to know. Get and stay away from him.
Oh no, superkid….
You need to stay very far away from this person.
Are you sure we aren’t talking about the same sp???
We have had similar conversations and I am here to tell you,
YOU NEED TO CEASE ALL FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS and STAY AWAY FROM THIS PERSON. Trust me. Please.
Have you ever told him to get some help? If so, how was that received? You really and truly need to stay away from this person. This person is dangerous not being stable this way.
DANGER:::DANGER:::INCUBUS ALERT:::DANGER:::DANGER:::
Please, please, please, stay away from “IT”.
It’s the only way to make sure you are alright, SK…
DUPED
SK – I agree with Ox. He sounds VERY unstable. I sense from your post that you want to ‘help’ him but it is not up to you to ‘fix’ him. We have a saying over here….’if you are rich and act this way you are eccentric, if you are poor and act his way you are mentally ill’
NC is the only way to look after YOU otherwise you will be dragged in to his insane world.
Hi,
I married an spath in 2005. Obviously at the time I had no idea what I had gotten myself into because I was “in love” and I was only 23 years old. He demanded expensive gifts that I had to take out loans to pay for. We had 2 children together. I finally left him in 2009, I knew he had cheated on me but recently I found out that he cheated on me for the duration of our entire marriage. He was never satisfied with the vehicles we were driving and constantly traded them in and went upside down. Of course when I left him I was stuck with an astronomical car note, I was paying car payments that should have been for an Escalade or something. Once I got the courage to leave I lived in a battered womens shelter with my kids. I obtained a restraining order. I got my own apartment. Two weeks after I obtained my restraining order he moved back to the other side of the country to live with his parents. He was a police officer when he was married to me. Now he works under the table for his dad to avoid paying me any child support. He is in the Army reserves and recently was scheduled to deploy. His deployment was put on hold for a few months because he owed me so much back child support that the government had seized his passport. He paid it off and eventually went on the deployment but the calculation for his suport is for him not working so he’s paying me peanuts compared to what he’s making and the only reason he’s paying now is because he’s getting garnished. He cancelled the childrens health insurance last year and I didn’t find out until the base hospital told me I (my kids) couldn’t go there because I didn’t have tri care. Since he’s reserves he was able to just stop paying for the insurance to cancel their policy. He is still womanizing. He has been engaged for months long before our divorce finalized. He took out credit cards in my name that I didn’t find out about until my tax refund was withheld. I have had no contact with him since December of 2009. He has never even sent an email or a text to find out how his children are. I recently met with one of his mistresses who lived here in my area and she told me that he used to talk to me on the phone on speaker and cuss me out and talk to me like a dog when this other woman was there. He told her we weren’t together and I was psycho (I never knew he had another woman there with him until recently) and so I would sit there on the other end of the line trying to do anything to appease him and when he would get off the phone with me he would tell this woman that I can’t get it through my head that we aren’t together, when the fact was that we actually were. He begged me to have our second baby he said he wanted a chance to prove to me he could be a great father and be there for me during my pregnancy. I stupidly agreed. He wasn’t there for me. He told everyone I tricked him into getting pregnant. He got another woman pregnant while we were married. It’s so hard for me to organize my thoughts and fully describe what happened during my “marriage”. Once I left him, although he got out of my life he tortured me by not signing the divorce papers. The legal system was so confusing for me I didn’t know what to do so my divorce didn’t finalize until this year… I had to scrimp and save thousands before I could afford a lawyer to finally end my hell. He left me with the debt of someone who was making amazing money and I make a modest income and am a single mother of two children. He destroyed my life and doesn’t care at all. My relationship with my family has been destroyed as a result of the marriage as well, I had very little support system to get through all of this and still feel like I don’t understand what happened. I can’t get a grip on it. As I think back and type this my heart pounds and I am short of breath. I am so happy to have stumbled upon a site like this, it made me feel less alone.