From time to time, Lovefraud hears from men who complain that we talk about male sociopaths but not female sociopaths. Actually, I was very careful to refer to both men and women in every post on the main website, Lovefraud.com. And here on the Lovefraud Blog, we do have a category devoted to female sociopaths. But the fact it, approximately 80 percent of Lovefraud readers are women who were exploited by sociopathic men. So yes, it does seem that Lovefraud tilts towards male predators.
That’s why a website called ThePsychoExWife.com is an important resource.
I first learned about this website last week from the following story in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Divorce blog’s rancor erupts in free-speech dispute
Here’s the gist of the story: A suburban Philadelphia man and his wife split up six years ago, after a nine-year marriage. However, the child custody battle raged on, featuring antics by the ex-wife that will look very familiar to those of you who are attempting to co-parent with sociopaths.
So the ex-husband and his new partner launched ThePsychoExWife.com as a place to vent. No names are used. The ex-husband is identified only as “LM.” His new partner is “DW.” His two sons are “S1” and “S2.” And his ex-wife is “PEW.” This stands for, as you can guess, “Psycho Ex Wife.”
Apparently the website was up for several years, and recently PEW found it. LM contends that, because no one is identified, PEW had to be actively looking for it in order to discover it. He also contends that PEW showed the website to their two boys.
PEW complained about the website to the court. Here’s what happened next, according to the article:
At a June 6 custody hearing, Bucks County Court Judge Diane Gibbons ordered him to “take down that website” and never again refer to his ex-wife “on any public media” or mention his children online “other than ‘happy birthday’ or other significant school events.”
Judge Gibbons essentially threatened LM—if he did not take ThePsychoExWife.com down, he would lose his 50% custody of the children.
LM contends that the court order is a violation of his First Amendment right of free speech. He’s hired another lawyer to appeal it.
Borderline Personality Disorder
Based on the theatrics and manipulation exhibited by the ex-wife, LM has come to the conclusion that she has borderline personality disorder.
Borderline personality disorder is a sister condition to sociopathy. Like sociopaths and narcissists, someone who has this disorder has difficulty recognizing the feelings and needs of others. They also tend to have unstable emotions, on-and-off mood changes, and emotional reactions that are out of proportion to whatever events have triggered them. So what is different? Unlike sociopathy, a central feature of borderline disorder is anxiety.
Researchers estimate that 1% to 3% of the United States has borderline personality disorder—the same prevalence as antisocial personality disorder. However, according to the DSM-IV, about 75% of those diagnosed with borderline personality disorder are women. “You should know that there is a gender bias in diagnosis such that women are often labeled ”˜borderline,’” wrote Dr. Liane Leedom in her Lovefraud Blog article, Sociopaths, cluster B personality disorders and psychopathy. “These women can also be sociopaths who leave a trail of victimized friends, lovers and children in their wakes.”
PEW admits that she has an alcohol problem, she has lost her job and her house is in foreclosure. Reading her emails that have been reproduced on the website, she appears manipulative and blaming. I’d say LM’s assessment of her is correct.
So ThePsychoExWife.com has become a resource for people dealing with a woman with borderline personality disorder. According to testimonials, even therapists find the website to be helpful.
Save the site
LM has complied with the court order and the home page of ThePsychoExWife.com has been shut down. But a new website has been launched, SaveThePsychoExWife.com. This website chronicles the court battle and posts several court documents. The transcript of the hearing in which Judge Diane E. Gibbons ordered the website shut down is enlightening.
Apparently, pages of original site, ThePsychoExWife.com, are buried in Google’s servers, because you can still find them. Here’s the About page, which will enable you to read other pages.
LM and DW face an expensive court battle, and are asking for donations to help defray their legal expenses. This website is providing information about a serious personality disorder. Hundreds of people have benefitted from ThePsychoExWife.com, and we know how helpful an online support group can be.
This is an important case for Lovefraud. We’ve run into First Amendment issues before. Phil Haberman was able to convince a family court judge in Florida that his ex-wife was stalking him when she wrote a blog exposing his military fraud. The Stolen Valor Act has been struck down, with federal judges ruling that the lies of men who claim to have won medals is protected speech.
Information about personality disorders needs to be made public, and frauds need to be exposed. But the law about blogs and the First Amendment is very unclear. So I’ve donated, and I encourage you to donate as well.
UPDATE:
ThePsychoExWife.com will be featured on the Today Show tomorrow morning. Tune in!
Katy,
My daughters (spath), father used her as an object to cause me distress also. He even left me a vm saying (our six yr old), will be the “loser” if I don’t move back in with him.
“I won’t have her, and you won’t have her”. (?!!) He told her in his most recent phone convo, that I “better “commit suicide” before he gets a hold of me.”
She is often angry at and punishing towards him. I spoke to him last night, on the phone. I mentioned that our child has a high emotional IQ. She KNOWS when he is using her, to hurt me, and she’s angry about it. She doesn’t know what it’s called, or how to talk about it, but it’s clearly painful for her to be used to hurt her own mother.
I mentioned to him, that she doesn’t want to hear a thing about me, when they are together. She just wants him to focus on her. She just wants to be together with him, enjoying each others company. I asked if he would try and do that for her.
I saw this on a website, and I am thinking about asking him to look at it, and maybe get some parenting counseling and signing an agreement like this. Although I would prefer she not be “regularly exposed” to a spath, I have to work within the custody agreement, as best I can, and she does enjoy his attention, sometimes he is very good with her, just not when he’s not getting what he wants. Don’t know that it would do any good…but I need to try and reduce my baby girls pain some how…
The Children’s Bill Of Rights:
BE IT REMEMBERED that on this ______ day of «MonthSign», «YearSign», personally appeared before me, a Notary Public for the State and County aforesaid, who, being by me duly sworn according to law, has read and has been advised of the following children’s rights:
1. The right to a continuing relationship with both parents.
2. The right to be treated as an important human being, with unique feelings, ideas and desires.
3. The right to continuing care and guidance from both parents.
4. The right to know and appreciate what is good in each parent without one parent degrading the other.
5. The right to express love, affection and respect for each parent without having to stifle that love because of fear of disapproval by the other parent.
6. The right to know that the parents’ decision to divorce was not the responsibility of the child.
7. The right not to be a source of argument between the parents.
8. The right to honest answers to questions about the changing family relationships.
9. The right to be able to experience regular and consistent contact with both parents and the right to know the reason for any cancellation of time or change of plans.
10. The right to have a relaxed, secure relationship with both parents without being placed in a position to manipulate one parent against the other.
______________________________
«PETITIONERNAME»
Gemma,
I too had an “open mind” when I first registered at P-Ex. They did have legal references that were useful, (they LOVE screwing PEW on court!). Did you by any chance catch his Mothers Day post? One Mothers Day, he posted a list of every mother who had ever murdered her children. Many of his own followers (and they are a cult-like tribe over there), called foul on that post.My God that man hates Mothers Day!
Didn’t know about Twitter and FaceBook! OMG! 🙁
Safeguard
There is a lot of horror in this world. While I was defined as the bossy *B*, in fact I had NO say so at all about my own life’s decisions until I LEFT my husband. And even though I lived a foggy and couldn’t figure out what the heck was real for a long while, I did NOT talk about my husband to my daughter. It was NOT her emotional burden to bear, it was MINE. (Gaslighting puts the vulnerable into a real fog.)
Again, I have proof of my husband’s behaviors but the court is NOT interested in anything but facts, NUMBERS. That was hard for me b/c he gets away with a lot, but it also LIMITS HIM. And I am glad for that.
I agree your list is what life SHOULD be but it only works with cooperating parents, and if parents are cooperating, there is no need for the list. When the parent is disordered or dysfunctional it’s more of a wish list.
I wonder just how quickly a blog purporting to help others in a similar situation, but written by an ex-wife or ex-partner and mother, who armchair diagnoses the father of her children as a borderline or a sociopath, and then proceeds to pathologize him on the WWW would be ordered taken down by a judge. I’ll bet such a blog would have been brought to the attention of any such male/husband/father years ago, and mom would have been swiftly and severely dealt with.
Most of us here have been victims of the SMEAR CAMPAIGN from our psychopathic X relationship—whether it is x marital partner, S. O., Friend, boss, or relative. If every one of our X’s put up a blog I can only IMAGINE what those blogs would say about us!
Can you even imagine what my Psychopathic son Patrick would say about me, how I was responsible for him being in prison for murder because I wore his butt out once when he was 11 for running away from home the first time he was spanked for lying –the first episode of lying in the face of evidence he had ever done, actually though I didn’t know it at the time, it was the first indication he was to grow up to be a psychopath and pathological liar—I spanked him for lying and refusing to admit in the face of evidence, so he ran away, and when we found him, I spanked him again. Yep, that is why he is in prison today, those two spankings made him the psychopathic killer he is, it was my fault for abusing the poor kid. I have not given him the unconditional love he deserves as my son, and I cut off contact with him in prison when he tried to have me killed. Showing how uncaring and unfeeling I am toward my own flesh and blood. What a beast I am!
The thing is no matter how badly we were treated, as a parent, we must let go of the bitterness or we become bitter to the point that our own lives are destroyed. It isn’t just about “tit for tat” or proving that the other parent is a jerk, but in BEING a good parent, a loving parent, and a calm and peaceful presence in the lives of the children.
It does make me wonder why the Today show canceled his public appearance, did they find out something they didn’t know when they invited him on the show? Maybe this situation isn’t as one-sided as “daddy” presents itself. BTW if all the “crazy” e mails I sent to my egg donor were lined up side by side or the “crazy” letters I sent to my son where there with them, you’d have me committed because in the throes of the chaos of summer, I wrote some pretty crazy things—and unfortunately sent or mailed them. Doesn’t mean the mother isn’t disordered, but it doesn’t mean the dad is NOT disordered either.
I think we need to know both sides of the story before we take one side or the other. Many sane people are driven to appear “insane” by dealing with a disordered person who looks, by comparison, sane and in control, when in fact it is the opposite. In addition, many situations where one or both people are abused is a case of CO-abusers, and the one who “loses” paints themselves as the “innocent” victim and the other one as the Beast of Bagdad, when in fact, it is a case of TWO disordered people still seeking to vent their rage on each other at the expense of the kids.
It isn’t about gender, and I agree with Dr. Leedom that if you take into consideratiion the BPDs (mostly females labeled that) and the PPDs (mostly males labeled that) you have close to an equal number of disordered people, and probably 4-10% of the population of the US….with serious levels of personality disorder.
@....... katy,
Wish list. meh…
I know. I was thinking it could give me leverage with the court if we had an agreement like this signed in mediation. spath is always trying to paint me as “Uncooperative” to the judge. Right now I can’t do a thing when he violates basically every item on the list, which is just calling for common decency, really.
I could have written your EXACT post btw.
I have made mistakes, in that I try to treat him respectfully, and he uses that to push for more. I end up mad that he trampled my boundaries cause I was kind to him for my child’s sake, and my daughter ends up confused and stressed. IE: If I think so highly of daddy, why am I so “mean” when he asks to “sleep over”?
It’s so hard sometimes…
Here are some stories from PsychoExWife.com:
Reader’s Story: Dealing with parental Alienation and a Move-Away
http://www.thepsychoexwife.com/parental-alienation-move-away/#more-556
False Allegations of Abuse – the CPS call
http://www.thepsychoexwife.com/false-abuse-allegations-cps/#more-537
I also want to note, that, as mentioned in the original post, these characteristics:
“has difficulty recognizing the feelings and needs of others. They also tend to have unstable emotions, on-and-off mood changes, and emotional reactions that are out of proportion to whatever events have triggered them. So what is different? Unlike sociopathy, a central feature of borderline disorder is anxiety. ”
Also descibe PTSD to a T. not just “Borderline”. just sayin…
Safeguard
Document document document. Facts. Names, dates, times. Court will expect him to show proof that you’re uncooperative – your documents can refute his label and can also be used to show proof where you ARE cooperative.
I do see how being KIND to your husband sends a mixed signal to your kid. Nothing requires you to be kind, you only need to be NOT HOSTILE, unemotional (yes HARD to do but your kid is the one that matters right? I had no problem sacrificing my feelings for my child.).
For your child, you tell her sometimes there is grownups business and sometimes there is kids. When I told my child it was grownups biz, she knew there was something else going on that she didn’t have to be concerned.
btw… mommy and daddy sleep apart now, that’s grown ups biz. Mommy and daddy sometimes disagree but that’s grown ups biz.
What stands out for me in the extra links is the name calling and ridicule. The writer is not protesting or helpless, the writer is vitriolic. As I told my husband, HIM saying so does not make it so. Saying something is a fact when it is actually HIS spin does NOT make it a fact. In fact, he is so LOUD in his jerkiness, that he makes it hard to hear his POV.
I see a woman who is LOST, defensive and paranoid, just as I was after years of gaslighting, cheating, manipulation, etc. As my therapist told me, I was NOT crazy, I was in a crazy making situation.
While HE has support, she is LOST. Show me her again in two or three years away from his crap and I’ll bet she’s a whole new woman.