The sociopath takes what he wants

newlife08 wrote, “The shore house is being sold- at quite a loss due to the market and his negligence [ ] The one asset we had for our children’s future ”“ and mine ”“ he bankrupted it deliberately. He had to KNOW the liens would be satisfied before I got even a dime [ ] denies himself nothing he wants while not paying his own bills. [ ] has taken what didn’t belong solely to him and continues to devastate our family. He will wind up with his debts paid, move in with the OW and all the while he sinks me financially”

..new life..my ex did the same to his 2nd wife, before me. Though I was not the “OW” who contributed to his failed marriage [some other woman, a married woman, was] .. he also caused his marital home to be foreclosed on. Many of them do this”

Re your statement, “it was purchased by him through his business to shelter money from taxes” ..

I felt that my ex spath used the home he rented with me [after his 2nd marriage failed] to also “shelter money from taxes” .. he probably claimed the ENTIRE SPACE of the 2-car garage [ours, where I only kept a bicycle and one trunk, nothing else] to that house we rented, as a large percentage “write off”, as a place where kept the inventory from his failed business..inventory that was split, between his 2nd ex and him, pending his divorce and after.., and did so he wouldn’t have to rent an expensive storage space.

They leapfrog from one woman to the next.. use all these women as their “safety nets”!

donna dixon wrote:

“my ex was “perfect” for 20 years then seemed to go off the “deep end” financially ruining us”

.. Mindboggling, isn’t it, for how many YEARS these frauds can pull not just a thread, but the whole damned sweatah ovah our eyes? ..and my ex’s THIRD wife probably thinks she’s safe since 11 years have passed, him with her. Nope. My ex fooled his 2nd wife for 13 years, me for almost a decade.

bluejay wrote, “I have a friend who told me he’s too narcissistic to kill himself”

.. I tend to agree with your friend, also think they are too COWARDLY to kill themselves.

KatyDid wrote, “For the one or two people who did not reject me, they insisted it could not have been as bad as I said [ ] it seemed everyone excused my husband’s abuse and behavior, I wanted SOOOoooo badly for him to be exposed and those who were mean to me would realized he was a CON and maybe they’d regret helping him to abuse me [ ] I kept trying to find someone who knew him to discover the truth”

I hear you..others did the same with me. One former friend, a male who I worked with [a notorious alcoholic..I’ll call him “Fred” but that’s not his real name; the woman who Fred treated poorly was the one who told me who my ex spath ended up with. That woman also told me that Fred treated her like a sychophant, would not commit to her, either, after years dating and living together] had the gall to tell me that if I was on a Buddhist path, then I should not judge, just get over it. What gall! They seem to run in packs.

I, too, kept trying to find someone who knew him to discover the truth. Actually, I did..his 1st wife noticed where I exposed him, and came forth to bring more closure. I don’t think there is anything wrong about finding his exes, to get the full poop on him. I no longer worry, though, if or not the gay guys [who his 1st wife said he had sex with while married to her] come forward to say when that happened. I might still happen though, and that will be “icing on the cake” to my recovery, but I am not obsessed with if that happens or not, just satisfied that I invited them to come forth, if they felt like it. He deserves to have the CARP scared out of him. Like Ox said, “We can’t put our peace on the chopping block of THEIR getting what they DESERVE in the “here and now—”because that does depend on something outside of ourselves”

Ox wrote, “When I’ve told people that I suspect that the man has anti-social personality disorder (sociopath being too hard for them to hear), they look at me like I’m nuts, or I’m just being spiteful [ ] It is frustrating, not expressing my true thoughts about their family member, keeping my mouth shut [ ] sometimes those others will TURN ON you and enable the psychopath to function more effectively”

I actually wrote two letters, one to each of two family members, right after he left me. They probably did no good, but at least I got it off my chest that I conveyed to them that I felt he was disordered.

I actually knew one guy who ADMITTED to having an antisocial personality disorder. I would discover, across two years, of knowing him from some clubs where he performed, that yes, he behaved like what he said he was. Seemed like a RARE thing for a spath to admit having a personality disorder. At least HE gave me some warning. Last I knew, he claimed to be a “Christian” .. but he had this “push-pull” thing going where, one night of the week, you thought he was friendly to you, another night of the week, he might have just as well have spat in your face. Narcissist, too. Played harmonica. Rolled his own tabacco..sometimes would share one of his cigs with others, so others thought he was “nice” .. he wasn’t! Others enabled him, too..let him think he was “grand” .. socialized with him JUST BECAUSE he could play a great harmonica, but they would not listen to anyone who tried to tell them about how he abused others. He claimed his ex wife abused him. I think it was the other way around.

skylar wrote, “he will be back because he will want to revel in the drama and he can’t do it if he’s not there [ ] When he comes back, as I believe he will, he hopes to see a look of shock or anger or some other intense emotion on your face [ ] Everything spaths do is for the sake of manipulating emotions”

Skylar..you are right on point about that. Mine dropped by (unannounced..rude..without permission), after he had moved out, with a coffee table book about transvestites in the fashion scene..claimed the book was a “cool find” .. was just rubbing it in my face [to get a reaction from me, but I went gray rock], I think, so that he could “feel” like he’d pulled a good one on me.. one that [he hoped] no one else would believe me later, when I sought comfort from peers, friends, family”

the sisterhood wrote, “I have been stuck in limbo between wanting to see justice done by exposing my ex-spath for what he is and appreciating the life I have now with all of the beautiful, wonderful blessings I have been given. It is quite a tightrope [ ] I just can’t get past how everyone seems to love the jerk and look at me like I am the pathetic, scorned lover”

”don’t feel alone.. sometimes things trigger me and I find myself back in that space again, but those times get fewer, with more time in between each”and yes”FINALLY, I am able to have WEEKS of indifference, at a stretch. What a relief! It has been more than a decade for me, since it happened. No. Do not feel alone. I think it is natural that we all go through these stages.

sisterhood wrote, “no one else has ever been victimized by him like I have. His previous girlfriend was treated well to her face because she had connections he didn’t want to ruin. She was a good girl (madonna) He cheated on her like crazy, but he was so good to her in her presence. His wife, the girl after me, is seemingly treated well to her face for the same reasons. She is also a good girl (madonna). His wife offers him excellent social status [ ] I didn’t offer him any social standing. I didn’t have connections to prop up his image [ ] His friends rallied to his defense whenever I stood up for myself. I became the psycho girlfriend [ ] all three of the women in his life, his past girlfriend, me and his wife, are all from the same town. We are all around the same age [ ] when people who know all of us hear my story and what I have experienced with him, it doesn’t match up with the other girls’ experiences [ ] I was so sickened by the misogyny of my ex-spath and his friends and I felt so connected to other women who have suffered from the same type of abuse and slandering. Not many “get it”. Not even other women. A lot of women I know don’t want to see the truth of their situations”

Funny you should mention that, sisterhood”.., my ex still has one ex GF who he keeps as a friend (platonic is my guess), who has stuck around in his life, even two wives after her experience living with him decades ago [for only about a year..she has no clue what HELL his two wives after her went through, and his 2nd wife for much longer than his first] .. He has even convinced that woman (I will call her “Eve” but that is not her real name) to befriend his 3rd wife..convinced her that he “changed” .. well.., both his 3rd wife and Eve have blinders on. He just wants a harem. His 3rd wife, well, I think he THINKS she can offer him “social standing” but he cannot escape his sick past the way he escaped to her..jumped state lines, probably because he had conned too many in his former state. Also, he used me to “prop up his image” .. especially his image on stage [musician] They WILL find ways of using each and every victim. They do not stop.

To Sisterhood.. you might THINK that no one else experienced his abuse. You might be surprised later, to find that others very well might pop out of the woodwork, to confirm your experience, like my ex’s 1st ex wife did. We two..in fact, his two ex wives, and “Eve” were also all in the same age group, all from the same area. The m.o. of yours sounds very similar to mine. Eerily so.

Skylar is right with, “the ultimate revenge: when we take the dung they left us and make it into something great”

I took recordings of songs we performed together [the master tapes]; my new partner helped me turn them into a sellable CD (my first) .. so yes, what a JOY it was to somehow turn lemons to lemonaid, at least for one little moment. He probably hoped he had sucked my musical soul so dry that I would never have the courage to perform on stage again. I DID..and with BETTER MUSICIANS THAN HIM, who I met AFTER him! .. so no.., we must not give up. I didn’t, though he probably hoped I would.

To Circus..welcome to LF. You wrote, “I became interested in the disorder because of my aunt, a psychopath who nearly tore my family apart, and because I recently broke up with a guy who is probably a psychopath”

Circus, my ex spath’s first wife because a LCW because of the spath. You, too, are TURNING LEMONS INTO LEMONADE, just as my ex spath’s 1st wife did, just as I continue to do. Bravo!

KatyDid.., how well I understand “His mask is off to you, but not off to the ones he needs to fool. Once my husband revealed his mask to me, he couldn’t get it back on again, I knew too much. I had to be destroyed [ ] moving gave me peace, a place where I didn’t have to watch over my shoulder or cry at THOSE looks by the townspeople. With that distance, I remembered who I AM [ ] I am SO PROUD to not be LIKE HIM or HIS family/minions [ ] The others will mean nothing to you b/c like me, you won’t want to associate with anyone who is LIKE HIM”

That part of your story sounds like mine exactly. What a relief not to have to deal with the ex spath’s mother, who, for years, seemed like Aunt Bea from the Andry Griffith Show, but later the “worm turned” and she became more like the Manchurian Candidate’s mother.

Circus.., you wrote, “Really? Because I know two psychopaths who are in therapy. Clearly, this guy is curious about his own pathologies. And he doesn’t believe he’s a psychopath. And maybe he’s right”

Circus, you sound like the “Devil’s advocate” .. Did you think that maybe..just MAYBE the ONLY reason the spaths went to therapy was to LEARN PSYCHOBABBLE that they could later MISUSE to their advantage? Learn the JARGON of psychobabble, the way I think my ex learned codependency therapy, so he could flip the script on his exes, justify what he did wrong..call them “enmeshed” and “over-reacting” at his whim, whenever it suited him?

Circus wrote, “One of my nephews I would have absolutely sworn was a psychopath. [ ] His antisocial behavior has disappeared. He is polite and friendly. He has a part-time job. He goes to school. And he has his own place [ ] Things are not so black and white as you all would like to believe. Not every evil, charming, liar is a sociopath. The vast majority of them are not. And a lot of them can be helped”

Curious as to how you [absolutely?] “know” that the “vast majority of “evil charming liars” are “not” sociopaths. Perhaps your nephew had a personality disorder that improved as he grew out of puberty?

Circus wrote, “please stop labelling everyone you see as a sociopath, because it’s very, VERY stigmatising. And it tells them that they are evil and untreatable, and makes their already confused lives hell. Furthermore, if they begin to believe they’re untreatable sociopaths, they get worse, and they take it out on the world. Cue vicious cycle and endless suffering”

I feel no pity whatsoever for SPATHS, nor for pathological liars. Seems like a “stretch” that you think we “all” are “labeling everyone [we] know as a sociopath” .. I do not think any of us have done that up here.

Circus wrote, “Only a therapist or psychiatrist can determine his mental state. If it comes from anyone else, it’s hearsay”

Circus, I agree with the first part of your statement and perhaps SOME with the 2nd part, but most of us up here have had YEARS living 24/7 with spaths/narcissists, pathological liars..and very often ALL THREE THINGS! .. so we got to experience it UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL, the way many shrinks NEVER get to see/hear/experience them. Can we ALL be wrong, if our many experiences are almost WORD FOR WORD parallel with each other? [rhetorical questions most often need no answers, that does not mean it is BAD for us to answer them]

Zim