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.
Oxy,
The only thought that comes to mind about your story of repeated broken trust is,
Can you airlift out of this place?
Maybe it resonates with you, maybe not, but I felt a strong urge to say it. “Airlift.”
A regularly meditating friend once told me that problems cannot be solved at the level they were created. . . . He did this, then he did this, then I did that, and he said, and there’s still no miraculous insight into it all . . . I think about that a lot, and my usual way to airlift out of a bad place is humor or taking things out of their context. Just throwing some unpredictability in there, in my response to people. Watching them go, “What??!”
Because spaths and related types thrive on predictability. They do this, you do that. They say this, you say that. If you don’t, there’s something wrong with you. So have something wrong with you. Be, as my recent FB jerk said, “dangerous.”
Yeah, I’m dangerous. I defy the rules of gravity and have special powers. I grow wings, I fly, I airlift out of their stupid world. I go somewhere else.
I’m going to spend the whole weekend not devising some clever, persuasive response to this jerk, but instead, some wacky, way-out, insane response, even if just a fantasy that I never do. Just throw him for a loop and leave him for dead, as he is already anyway. Doing things that “make sense” are the fastest road to hell.
Maybe you’ll figure out something yourself, airlift out.
Gotta go . . . crunch, crunch . . . Bad dinosaur! Bad!
Dear Sister,
I’m unfortunately becoming VERY predictable….or maybe it is fortunately, I’m not sure. I do what I say, and I say what I do. Count on it. Cross me, lie to me, steal from me, try to abuse me, and you are OUT OF HERE LIKE A HELICOPTER! My house, my rules!
I am also able now to start to look at these “airlifts” in a way that makes sense to me and diminishes the pain as well. Some people are “bad news” from the get-go, psychopaths or other dysfunctional people, and we don’t see this until we are hooked and it hurts when we see the TRUTH that was there all along, and disengage from them. A loss of what we thought was something good. Others are actually good people but for whatever reason, or none, they change, become dysfunctional and we have to disengage from the relationship, but at least we can look back and see that there WAS good there, it just didn’t last. It happens. It is what it IS. None of us are here on this earth TOGETHER forever. We are born, we make friends, we have family, we and they die…but we all die alone ultimately no matter who is in the room with us at the time. Relationships come and relationships go, they grow and they decline, but that’s what life is all about. Ultimately we are with ourselves. That’s okay.
Oxy:
That was a beautiful post. It came at a perfect time because just two minutes ago I read the response from my dying uncle to the email I sent him. I sent him an email and was very nice to him, but told him what I thought about my mom giving him the money…from her not being mentally stable to him not thinking about the tax implications to his wife doesn’t even drive and they are going to pay off the car for what? I explained many other things to him. In the mean time, he has called and emailed numerous times always saying how much he loves me, etc. HA!! I get this email and the Subject line says in all caps, “DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE MONEY, I NO WHERE I STAND!” And yes, “no” was misspelled. I am not even going to open it. I don’t know if there is more in the body of the letter, but I will save myself a lot of grief just deleting it and not ever finding out what he wrote. It’s funny that he loved me and blah, blah, blah until I gave him my point of view on the situation. I still feel so bad he is dying, but because of that he is desperate and he is not thinking clearly and to be honest, it is obvious that he is feeling that BECAUSE he is dying he is entitled to the money. I can just feel it. Sigh. I cannot let this get me down…I have way too many other things to worry about without having this family drama on top of my head.
Dear Louise,
Each of us will one day come to the point that we die. We may know in advance or not, but it doesn’t matter, no one else is responsible for our lives….we are.
Yes, he has decided, as you said, that because he is “dying” he deserves to have your mother sacrifice her own well-being because he wants her to. LOL
He is not any more deserving of a “gift” of money from your mother than I am—and that’s the truth! Number one, your mother is of diminished capacity and number two, she needs her resources for her OWN CARE, NOT HIS WIFE’S.
Oxy:
Thank you so much for this support. You just never know what family drama is going to come around. I never thought in a million years I would be dealing with this. I hate it, but dying or not, he can’t feel like he is entitled to this money. My parents never even helped me financially, what makes him think my mom would help him? Geez.
It means a lot to have you and everyone else here to vent with. Thank you again! x
Louise, once you are an adult, you are on your own, no one OWES you squat! Your uncle’s attitude of ENTITLEMENT is totally off base. What resources your mother has are hers to take care of her own needs. You do not have a “right’ to them and for sure and heck your uncle doesn’t have.
My Psychopathic son feels/thinks that he has a right to everything I have….which is why he wanted me dead so he could get the entire estate from our family (me and my egg donor) all for himself. Well, no one even has a “right” to an inheritence, it is a GIFT, not a RIGHT, so your uncle is sooo off base.
If your mom has money left after she her needs are met and she is dead and she wanted to will it to a home for “unwed cats” that is her right! If she wants it to go to her kids, that is great too, but it is hers to do with as she wants to.
Don’t let the uncle’s “pity ploy” get to you….he has NO right to be demanding anything, so good for you for not opening his nasty e mail. He “NOs” where he stands and he doesn’t like NO for an ANSWER! LOL
Oxy:
No kidding! That is my mom’s money and with her mental decline, she is going to need it for her own needs.
You are right…the bottom line is it is her money and she can give it to whomever she wants.
Nope, still haven’t opened the email and I am going to just delete it. That is not like me…I probably have never deleted an email in my entire life without reading it, but see this is what the X spath aftermath taught me…to just not deal with this crap.
Another important point that I realized. We all know people are who they are and I have known my uncle of course my whole life. The way he responded is the exact same way he would have responded if he was perfectly healthy. That is the way he is and dying or not, his reaction would be the same. That revelation came to me after I got the nasty email and I was upset.
Louise, NOW YOU ARE LEARNING, KIDDO! It is all about the money, and ONLY about the money! Good for you! Each time we come into contact with a dysfunctional person, a selfish person, and we challenge them, and we WIN, we learn…even if we lose we learn, but especially when we “get it” and WIN! TOWANDA!!!!!
:)—-> “Airlift” out! I like it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for the new thought sistersister!!
Dupedster