Here at Lovefraud, we’ve heard thousands of horror stories of marriages to sociopaths. Thinking about these unfortunate involvements, it seems to me that there are three types of romantic relationships with sociopaths. I call them the Marriage Masks, and they are:
1. Calculated exploitation
The sociopath targets an individual for the explicit purpose of exploiting him or her, using the unsuspecting partner for money, sex, a place to live or something else that the sociopath wants.
My ex-husband, James Montgomery, targeted me because I had what he wanted: money, good credit, my own home and business connections in the city where he decided he was going to make a fortune. He sweet talked me, married me and drained me, and then he moved on without a thought.
2. Passing entertainment
The sociopath finds the partner to be a suitable involvement for the present—until the sociopath gets bored, antsy, or some other individual catches his or her eye. At this point, the partner is discarded.
Mary Jo Buttafuoco described her husband, Joey Buttafuoco, in her book, Getting It Through My Thick Skull. To me, it seems that Joey Buttafuoco was one of those sociopaths who was simply looking for a good time, for entertainment. He worked and she was a stay-at-home mom, so he wasn’t using her financially. But eventually he had an affair with a teenager, then visits to hookers, then a new wife. Changing women was like changing the scenery.
3. Image creation
In order to secure a coveted place in society, the sociopath may seem devoted to his or her spouse or family in public, but life at home, behind closed doors, is another matter entirely.
Here’s an example that was recently in the news. Stephen Green, founder of a fundamentalist organization in the United Kingdom called Christian Voice, preaches against homosexuality, abortion, Islam and Jerry Springer. “The enemies of God are having their say,” proclaims the organization’s website. “It’s time to hear the Christian Voice!”
Green portrays himself as the guardian of morality in the U.K. However, Caroline Green, his former wife, paints a totally different picture—domestic violence:
He told me he’d make a piece of wood into a sort of witch’s broom and hit me with it, which he did,’ she recalls, her voice tentative and quiet. ”˜He hit me until I bled. I was terrified. I can still remember the pain.
Stephen listed my misdemeanours: I was disrespectful and disobedient; I wasn’t loving or submissive enough and I was undermining him. He also said I wasn’t giving him his conjugal rights.
Here’s the whole revolting story in the Daily Mail:
Missing: Ability to love
These categories are not hard and fast, and some sociopathic relationships and marriages may show signs of two or all three types. But however the disfunction manifests, the root problem is that sociopaths are not capable of feeling real love.
They are, however, capable of acting like they feel love—at least in the beginning of a relationship. I call it the luring stage—the period of time when sociopaths do everything you’d ever dream that smitten partners would do. They call, they want to be with you, they give gifts, they make you feel cherished. They do this until they hook you.
Then, sociopathic behavior starts to reflect the real agenda—calculated exploitation, passing entertainment or image creation. The change may be subtle or sudden. The relationship may gradually devolve, it may swing back and forth between normal and unconscionable, or it may suddenly evaporate.
But at some point, the Marriage Mask slips, and we come face to face with the truth: We are being used.
Good. It sure was freezing down here today so I felt really sorry for everyone up there. It sleeted here for a bit and one of my coworkers came running in yelling “it’s snowing ya’ll”. I went in the breakroom where the big window was and it was a tiny bit of sleet. People down here never see snow so I guess they don’t know what it looks like. SMDH!
Henry (dances) I am sure glad that you didn’t go out for anything except a REAL EMERGENCY—nails done!
LOL ROTFLMAO EEEEEEEE*M*E*R*G*E*N*C*Y* LOL hee hee yea, I can’t stop laughing over that one snort, choke, snarf!
I wouldn’t have gone out in 45 mph winds with 12 inches of snow and 4 ft drifts to see the SECOND COMING!!!! I used to think that there were “reasons” to get out in weather like that, but I have found that there are not even reasonable EXCUSES to get out when it is like that. If it isn’t arterial bleeding put a pad on it and HOLD PRESSURE and go to the ER when the snow melts.
If and ONLY IF it is a BIG artery, call 911 and a snow plow.
Emergency nail appointment! LOL ROTFLMAO
OX I knew you would get a rise out of that ~!
Oxy, I really was expecting him to lash out and say something soooo hurtful… he was building it up like “I never wanted to say this to you, because I knew it would hurt your feelings…” and then all he could come up with was TOO MUCH STUFF? But adding his son to the mix – that’s what was supposed to cause pain. That BECAUSE OF ME, we weren’t a family. Smoke & mirrors to detract from the TEXT MESSAGES I found from “the new victim.”
Financially, maybe it was cheap. Emotionally, I still have my ups & downs, of course. I was attached to the little boy, he had just turned 3 and we spent our Sundays with him as a real little family, going to the zoo, having a picnic, etc.
His older daughter is grown and been NC for 5 years. GOOD FOR HER! That was another red flag, and she had actually testified against him at the custody hearing for his son. He did pay child support but OH he hated it! Would refer to the little boy as 343, the amount he had to pay each month! And instead of saying cheese when smiling for pictures with the boy (wish I could get that damn fake smile out of my head!) he would say “court ordered”! I thought he was joking when he would say he’d sign him over to me if I paid the child support – but now I honestly think he meant it! He was totally neglectful – would be watching Sunday football in a trance and I was just a babysitter…
I do miss him and I did love him, just never let my guard down 100%. He didn’t have his hooks all the way in, though he still clawed me pretty good.
But giving my # to his friend to further mind-f me was the most traumatic. That guy was even worse I think – he has stopped trying to connect with me now. I don’t know if either of them will try to contact me again, hope not.
I know I am luckier than a lot of the other posters here, but it still painful that he didn’t love me, because he can’t love anyone. From a clinical perspective I can understand the physiology (ie, not having the part of the brain that facilitates emotion) but on a personal level it feels really, really bad.
My 5 new goals are improving self-esteem/self-worth, living in the PRESENT (thanks LL for inspiring me on this one), focusing on HEALTHY relationships, improving body image, and letting go of material STUFF.
I have a hard time not looking back, but I know in time it will get better, as so many of you have shown. Thanks for that!
Dear Valley Girl,
In some ways you may be “better off” than others here, but PAIN and loss is total, as I told Redwald in another thread. Your pain is not less than anyone else’s because he didn’t get more money out of you than he did.
I had to leave my house 3 years ago (actually nearly 4 now) and I really was traumatized over that one, but after I did it, I realized that my house is just sticks and stones, brick and mortar, STUFF and there is nothing material that is truly valuable.
No one takes a U-haul to the graveyard. STUFF is just that, STUFF and it isn’t all that important in the end. I had all these “sentimental” and “family heirlooms” and “keepsakes” and all that crap and I have given away or tossed most of it and I’m getting rid of more and more of it. I dont need to hang on to my husband’s keepsakes to be “close to” him, I’m sending them to the kids and grandkids. Why am I hanging on to my P son’s kindergarten things? Tossed them. Why am I hanging on to my highschool school newspapers? Who is going to care about them? Not me! My grandkids I am not going to have? Tossed them! Just keeping the things I enjoy and the things I use on a pretty regular basis. The more stuff you have the more stuff you have to take care of and clean.
My depressed friend is starting to become a “hoarder” and she has some really neat stuff, but you know she has been so depressed and just keeps getting more and more stuff until her house is so crammed now you can hardly walk inside it. Literally.
She does crafts and does them well, but she has like 6 or 8 spinning wheels, and enough wool and other hair fibers that she could make a carpet for the pentagon but she keeps getting more and more and more. She weaves basket and has enough reeds to make a basket for a hot air balloon basket for every state capitol in the US. She sews,, but has enough material to make a new dress for her thousand closest friends, and still is buying more. She collects this and that and something else and has piles and piles of the things she “collects’ behind every chair, every table in the place.
She’s somewhat aware of her “hoarding” as well as she watches those “hoarders” shows on television. I guess maybe she is comparing herself to them and they are “worse” than she is. She wasn’t always like this, but as her depression has deepened it is getting worse and worse. I hate it for her, but I can SEE what is going on and she does NOT want to see what is going on. She and her husband live mostly separate lives, but when they are together he is caustic and hateful…this was the first time he had been caustic and hateful to me…but you know I had much more attachment to THINGS and STUFF before the big blow out and before I had to flee my home for my safety. I realized that this house, this farm, the airport and everything else isn’t worth much if I am not healthy and happy. THINGS can’t bring happiness once you have the basic shelter and food and clothing (and I mean bare essentials) provided for, the rest doesn’t bring anything in the way of REAL happiness in my opinion. I had worked so hard for my home, and the farm, etc. and put so much time, effort and money into making it a comfortable home, but I realized that without safety and peace, it meant NOTHING.
I am still only moderately attached to the house now, and if I have to leave here without being able to sell it, I can do so without too much regret. If I have to sell it (after the egg donor passes away) then I can also do that without regret. I realize now that the PLACE I live and the house I live in are not that important. PEACE and SAFETY are important.
Oxy, when my great-aunt broke her hip a few years ago, and we went to check on her home while she was hospitalized, was the first time I saw what a hoarder is. Hundreds of bottles of expired vitamins and supplements, racks of clothing and shoes, crystal, piles everywhere, it was just insane. And I definitely do not want to end up like that. I am hoping to discuss with my counselor (have 2nd appt this week) how Cognitive Behavior Therapy might help me make better decisions, and keep from being overwhelmed. Think I saw that on Dr. Oz.
I think shopping has long been my outlet for boredom, anxiety, loneliness, and before I met the spath was an almost daily occurrence. While we were together, I was sneakier about it. Of course, he was doing some sneaking of his own…
I think now, maybe the “stuff” was here to protect me… it has now served it’s purpose and maybe I can let go. Like I said, if I really loved him and wanted him in my life, wouldn’t I have made room? I told him that one time, in tears, that he meant more to me than all the stuff, but I think what I couldn’t do was give it up because HE wanted me to, it had to be because I wanted to. He was most insistent about the books, especially the romance novels! He said, you have me now, you don’t need those books for romance. I just laughed and said, Honey, you’re never gonna be a pirate or a Highland warrior!
It’s nice stuff, not junk, but you are right, it’s not what’s most important, and life would be simpler without it.
That is one of the hooks the spath had in me – the fear that he was with me IN SPITE of my flaws, that no one else would put up with me because I’m not, say, June Cleaver. Yeah, he had my number alright –
Dear ValleyGirl,
Hey, I don’t think any of us are June Cleaver! LOL ROTFLMAO
My egg donor keeps house that is so clean you could eat out of the TOILET safely! I’m not that bad by any means, but I do like to not have a house that is likely to be condemned by the health department either.
When I am seriously depressed my house gets more cluttered and dusty and after my husband was killed, for about a year it was AWFUL, you could have planted potatoes in the dirt on my floor, I just didn’t have the energy to clean it or CARE. So I am aware that depression does this to folks, me included.
I have NO doubt that my friend is clinically and seriously depressed and If I was married to that man I would be in prison for murder! LOL But she is not willing to help herself or acknowledge her problems or what to do about them. I can’t change that and I can’t fix her. I wish she wasn’t this depressed, but, (shrugging shoulders here) I can’t fix her any more than I can fix anyone against their will. However, I do NOT have to participate in it, or allow her problems to be come mine.
Each of us has to “paddle our own canoe” in the fix-it departments.
I had/have way too much “stuff” and I’m SERIOUSLY working on getting rid of the bulk of it. If I do have to leave here in 3 years or so because my P son is going to get out, I can’t take all the stuff I have here with me, and don’t need it truth be told. I had enough dishes and pots and pans to open a school lunchroom, enough sheets and towels to open a hotel, and so on, so have pared down on all that stuff, donating a bunch of it to the DV shelter and to tornado victims a while back, and got a reasonable amount of stuff to cook with left…and working on getting a bunch more sold or gone. At least I have a breathing room period to get it done.
Set yourself some goals, and work on one room or one area at a time….Clean everything out of one area or one room, empty it, then only put back what you will use. Put the rest into a “garage sale pile” and a “give away pile” and a “throw away” pile and then do that with the stuff. Or just cut it down to a “give a way” pile and a throw away pile. and then do that unless the stuff is really valuable. Or find a “garage sale rebuyer” and call them. Or an auction house if the stuff is worth anything at all.
I went through my books—I’m a book-a-holic too, and just kept the few I will reread and got rid of the rest. Or find a book trading group or a resale shop that will take them and trade them in for more to read. I also pass them on to friends and nursing homes or DV shelters to read.
Good luck with paring down. I think you will find that once you get into the swing of it, it is actually kind of fun as you can then decorate your place and without so much stuff it will look really cool. Making our own SPACES calm and peaceful is part of the healing process I think. Whether that space is a cardboard box under a bridge or a mansion on a hillside, it is what is inside our minds and hearts that makes it a HOME. (((hugs))))
(((hugs Oxy))) Thanks for the good ideas. I think I’ll know when it’s time to let someone new into my life when I feel comfortable letting them see the REAL me.
I have long struggled with perfection issues, only to give up when I don’t even get close to being “perfect” in any given area.
What I am learning from this experience is that I have been more focused on surface instead of substance, and now I see I have to go deeper within to work on the INTERIOR to make the changes needed for a happier life.
I’m sort of getting it, slowly – one bite of elephant at a time, as you said in another post!
Blinded-No-More, hello! Nice to meet you!
This site has also kept me sane.
I am so glad you posted and so happy to read
how much you got from his retirement fund!!! Yay!!
Otherwise, what a merry-go-round, jeez,
and I know you will drag his sorry ass back to court
if he stops making the child support payments!
Sorry you had to go through all that, but you sound good.
How are you doing now?
Oxy….the dude is married…..and btw….NOT a catch for me. Just interesting guy.
No lovebombing etc…..wasn’t AT ALL like that.
I’m satisfied…..and it’s off my plate.