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.
maverick12 – welcome. Some post! The GOOD news is……he’s out of your life. That’s a bonus.
You have done REALLY well to get to this point. Stay and learn.
Spaths (as we call them) have one main thing in common – no conscience.
You are NOT alone. This is a brilliant site and very well managed by Donna.
Yes, you have been spathed but there is hope and the people on LF will help you to understand what you have been through (because we have all be there to a greater or lesser degree)
Thank-you Candy. Although my post was very long it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Stuff comes back to me all the time that I’ve pushed out of my mind. It haunts me and I feel like in alot of ways it runs my life.
I came across this site last night when I was reading about casey anthony. I googled “Is casey anthony a Sociopath” and wound up finding an article on here. I was reading the traits of a sociopath and I’m not even kidding I got goosebumps. I was reading the description and things just started rushing at me the words were jumping off the page. For so long I’ve felt almost like I was crazy. I’ve never received any validation for what happened. I confronted him on the phone once it was all said and done and he was across the country. He never admitted to anything. A big thing he would do when I would question him about something was to say that he couldn’t remember what I was talking about. He would also yell at me and tell me I was mentally unstable. He told all of our neighbors I was mentally unstable. One of my neighbors told me I wasn’t being treated right. I made the mistake of telling my spath husband that this person had mentioned it appeared I wasn’t being treated right. Years later I found out that he went to my neighbors house and threatened to kill him if he ever spoke to me again. My neighbor didn’t tell me about the incident until spath had moved across the country. My life was a living hell. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Hopefully I will find some answers here. Thank you for the warm welcome.
Louise;
I don’t know what the legal drinking aging is in the UK but in practice Europe s a whole does not enforce drinking laws as strictly as the US and in Europe I have seen some obviously underage kids drinking in bars.
Given his sister being a heavy drinker too, it is logical to assume both his parents were heavy drinkers and probably smokers just like their children. And both of then were dead of cancer by 50.
Dear Maverick,
YEs, welcome! I hope you will find the knowledge and the comfort here that I have…this is a good place, even if it is a difficult thing to NEED to find this place.
Knowledge is power, so learn as much as you can. There are hundreds of great articles in the archives, and lots of great support here from people who DO get it about what you have been through.
Actually just be glad that he has “deserted” your children, they are better off without him in their lives….it may cause you some poverty, but there are worse things than poverty and having an active sociopathic parent in your life is one of them.
There are several women here who would gladly trade the child support they get for the X to leave them alone. So count your blessings on that score.
Again, welcome to a great site for support! God bless.
SK;
All spaths have sexuality issues. Your x-spath masturbating while on the phone to you is no surprise. My posted videos of such on x-tube, under the same name he used for a dating website. And that name is not a common one and unique to him.
Maverick – post as much as you like. Get it out. We call the stuff that comes back to us a ‘aha’ moment.
You are not crazy and you will get no confirmation from him, he will NEVER admit to what he’s done. he can’t, he has no soul and no conscience. They have a mental block when asked to recall things they do not want to remember.
Yelling at you – that was blame shifting from him to you.
There are lots of people here who will help you to make sense of everything. It takes a long time to get to grips with what has actually happened, but you will get there.
I need to go to bed now, work in the morning. Once you start reading you won’t want to stop. I read for 2 months solid! Nite.
BBE:
They do all have sexual issues. I definitely saw that in mine.
Maverick:
What a story. You have been through hell. Oxy had some good advice for you as does everyone else here. Please keep posting here and let everyone here help you. Hugs.
Louise, Duped, Et al
Thanks.
I know I broke NC by accepting the call – I was shocked, I had blocked his call from our PBX, but then our office moved two weeks ago, new PBX, new phone system, and it didn’t occur to me to block it.
Anyway, in a way it was good that I took this call, he was more open than ever, he is seeing a therapist (which is a REAL sign that his world is falling apart – he refused to do that for three years when I was seeing him)…in any case I can clearly see he is mentally ill, it’s gross.
SK
SK:
Well, it’s good to hear he is seeing a therapist. I hope they can help him. Is he on any meds? Sounds like Zyprexa could help him. Keep us posted.