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.
Hi Chelsea, I totally agree with you. As I’ve posted before, I am a practicing Buddhist, with loving kindness heart center. I am 4 months out and ebb and flow and continue to send him and everyone lovingkindness. It does not help me or the universe or anyone else if I give into negative energy and let it take over me. I do and will always give into pain and grief and feel these things fully, but again, without “giving in” to the whirlwind of the feelings, as I did so many times before, which always led me back to him. Today, I am close to heading back toward him. It is hard, hard as my earliest preverbal betrayals, but I “know” better what to do. When I miss him, and I dearly do, I question just how it was possible for him to fake three years of intense, mostly positive, loving, nurturing energy. He was right there with me, completely alive and himself in those moments. But this is where my faith comes in… I must trust that deeper knowing now and stay with it.
I also understand the need to educate. As a writer and therapist, I plan to share my story (and already do) to whomever will listen.
Personally, I do not watch TV or read the News. I read some sites online, but avoid anything media sensationalized, etc. I think this is because of what you are saying/asking… avoid neg energy.
Would you mind sharing your story with me/us? I am very curious and would love to hear it. I am headed to work now but will check back later and will be listening when/if you want to share… Thanks for your question. Love to all, B
Chel;
After my x-spath told me he only wanted to be friends, I remained in contact with him because: 1) I thought very highly of him; 2) Since I was at low in my life, I could understand why somebody so good would only want to be friends.
Two weeks after my last email to him, I found out the truth, or at least part A of the truth. 180 degrees from what I thought of him.
There are many traits and signs of a sociopath. When one finds out the truth about a person is 180 degrees from what you think, its almost certain you are dealing with a sociopath.
I am so sorry you became involved with such a person. Recovery is difficult, but not impossible and does take time.
Hi guys,
Believe me its been 7 months spath-free for me, and its really just one day at a time with the healing. Somedays I am grateful to be free of the spath, and other days I feel destroyed that God allow this to happen to me. I know its not Gods fault that I chose a sick monster, but I wish God would of not given me such a kind soul so I would not have been so dam stupid in accepting or attracting the demon spath I allow in my life.
@behind blue
I too struggled everyday trying to understand the hows and the whys of being with a spath. My ex-spath is with a 27 year old girl now and he is 47. Worse, he hooked up with her while he works out of town and I stayed home raising his daughter so he could keep his career. He has lied. cheated and deceived me the entire 5 1/2 years we were together. Oh he was good at his lies. When the relationshit finally ended with us he went around telling people I was crazy and he had to get away from me. Funny, everything he has been telling people are the exact things he did to me. When I try and explain to people that he is the crazy one ,it seems that he has already did a smear campaign about me so they don’t know what to believe. Believe me it takes EVERYTHING out of me not to go up where he works and expose him for who he really is a “SOUL RAPER”. It was so toxic with him that I started recording him when we were together just so I would have evidence of his abuse. He has no idea how much I can expose him, but I have tried to just let it go and move on. I still hear he talks crap about me, but because he lives out of town 90 percent of the time I try and remove those thoughts from my mind. I would love to expose him and destroy his life like he has done to mine. Do you think he cares NOPE!
Hi Bodhi,
My story in a short version is published here on the LF site. Its titled “I would rather be homeless than spend another day soul-less with you”. I look forward to learning more about your story too. Thank so much for your support!
As well, thank all of you LF members for yoour constant support and love!
Much light and love to all of you!
Chelsea
Candy and BBE, thank you both for your responses. I’ve gone through some of the posts and can’t believe how similar the behaviors are to what HE is doing. When we broke up…he just kinda disappeared and then I started hearing through others what he was saying.
Blame Shifting..yes he did that through-out the relationship and in hind-sight..there were times when I said to myself..oh darn it..I’m going to have to break up with him..then I would tell myself…wait..let’s see what happens next. I started feeling like I was the problem and that I needed to get help. At the end, I started setting boundaries and limitations..once I did that…the relationshp ended.
two days after we broke up he called his brother and told him I wouldn’t set the wedding date so he had to ask for the ring back but that we were still seeing each other. I said NO we aren’t together and No he didn’t get his ring back. During our conversation his brother told me to run away…he was a liar..psychotic..uses women..con-artist…sexual deviant…lied about his finances,.. etc… At first, I didn’t believe it, “that’s not the man that I know”. 8 Weeks later..I have decided to believe what he told me.
Most recently the spath called his brother and told him to stop talking to me because i was bipolar, stalking him, he was afraid for his life..etc (the list goes on..most of it laughable) His brother told him, “you are the liar.. she’s not doing any of that to you”.
Imporant to note he has been violent and there is a record of his violence. He has reportedly said I made all of those incidents up as well as lied that he said he would kill himself if I left him. Also…I was there when he told his parents he wanted to kill himself if I left him…now his mother is saying it was all a lie and I controlled her son to make him say he wanted to kill himself. HELP..could it be a whole family of spaths?
Question: do restraining orders work against the barrage of lies or does it make it worse?
Dear Chel,
First, welcome. Secondly, nah a restraining order is apiece of paper, thge ONLY way it helps stop the string of lies and the SMEAR CAMPAIGN is if you TAPE IT SECURELY over his MOUTH! LOL
yea, you can either have a nest of them like rattle snakes den up together, or they can be co-victiims with you, but they will never believe they are victims, because he TRULEEEEEEY LUVS THEM! (Puke)
Again, welcome!
Dear Chel
Welcome. Read on… we have all experienced similar things. I tried to warn the new girlfriend about a month ago – and she had actually figured out quite a lot on her own already. I wish I could be a fly on the wall to hear the bat crazy stories he made up about me when she confronted him – because she (sadly for her) stayed. My conscience is now clear because I warned her (I had known about her the whole time and wanted to wait for her to figure it all out on her own).
He came after me hard when we first met and I wasn’t even attracted to him because he’s not my type at all – “good morning beautiful” emails every day, told me he loved me within a week, called/texted/skyped/emailed all the time, said he had waited all his life to meet me, took me engagement ring shopping within the first month, etc…you all know the drill. I dumped him after discovering 2 lies (found a lawyer’s bill for child support/visitation rights even though he told me he was never married and didn’t have any kids- his real kids he claimed were from a fake dead brother + he claimed to own many things and I found the rental car receipt on one of the audis and the aston martin he spent $4k to rent for a weekend) This was right after visiting our wedding venue for the 3rd time (the one he picked and wanted to rush into). I’m sure his version with her is something very different 🙂 She has told me he claimed I cheated on him and would always be a cheater and that we broke up in 2008. I left him 3 weeks before they met in Dec.
All this to say…. they do what they can to protect their story. Honestly, the best way to move on is to realize the person you believed them to be didn’t exist. I have such peace in my heart and gratitude that I uncovered it all. Glad to read that you mostly feel this way, too
OMG – I just read that you took care of his child and supported him. I supported mine in his career – introducing him to important people in our industry. All the lies… Just know it’s not you, it’s him. They do whatever they can to protect their fake stories. He will fall on his own – don’t worry.
Chel,
yep, it runs in families. Thank God you didn’t marry him and have kids with him. It’s the one thing I escaped from as well, even though I was with spath for 25 years – no kids.
You could have ended up fighting over the kids, he could have killed the kids or your kids could have ended up spaths too.
You can’t stop him from slandering you. It’s what they all do. They can’t help it, it’s like a nervous tic or something.
BBE – I like that…the 180 degrees. That’s exactly what my ex-spath pretended to be. Completely someone else.
Hi guys,
@OX,
Since you have been so informative on so much of the spath behavior, and have given me and I am sure so many of us great advice I wanted to know how is it that spaths can fool so many people? In my situation everyone knew us as engaged, BUT up where he works out of time I did go up there once about 1 1/2 years ago and he introduced me as is fiance to everyone, and then I had not gone back up there until I started experiencing his late nights at the bar, and then excuses where he was at. Oh he would give me the old, “how do you think I feel being away from home from you and the family”, “I have to suck it up and be away to support my family”. When it was apparent he was up to no good and I did not allow him anymore excuses his spath behavior got worse and he literally started smearing me to everyone that I was crazy, BUT within two weeks of our break-up he brought his new 27 year old prey out. But, telling everyone they JUST started dating…RIGHT! I sooooo want to send a letter to that town he lives in and posting a FYI you have a spath preying in your town and these are the signs. But, I will not identify him, I will just point out the signs and let the little town figure it out.