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!
Ana,
He contacted me once yesterday and twice today.
I’m NCNCNCNC.
BF is irritated though he tries to hide it. He asked me if I had “given in” and responded.
Blindsided,
what a horrible trip, it’s just like a nightmare and that is exactly what she had intended for you. You were nothing but a meal ticket to her, from the beginning. My own spath was the same with me: my knight in shining armor. If he had gotten up and left me after 10 years, I would have died of shock. The relationship had many ups and downs but I was convinced that he loved me and was devoted to me until almost the very end.
The only reason I figured out that he was wearing a mask FROM DAY 1, was because my parents overheard him say that he was only with me for my money. (But they waited 25 years to tell me).
Spaths do what they do because they enjoy putting us on a pedestal just to see us fall from greater heights. That is what your spath did to you. My own spath explained this twisted pleasure to me and I’ve seen it over and over again, here on LF and other places.
No, she never loved you, I’m sure of it. Just like mine NEVER loved me for 25 years. When you got cancer, she saw you as a weak and pathetic person who would soon die and she was going to wreak havoc on you with stress, to ensure that you’d die quickly. I would not be surprised if she didn’t take out a life insurance policy on you. Is there anyway you can check? She expected you to die, so why not cash in?
I know it seems absurd to imagine that someone who professes to love you for over a decade, actually despises and loathes you. It is rooted in envy. She wanted to be you by having everything you have. They behave and think exactly 180 degrees the opposite of normal people. It simply can’t be comprehended.
I’m not sure what you can do about your identity theft. You can try talking to the city prosecuter if the cops won’t file a complaint. You can be sure that she will take a parting shot at you as she exits the community. Watch carefully.
Katy,
I do have rather complex safety mechanisms, I live them, and they have become second nature to me now. My spath had a wealthy pawn, when he first took me to court and she paid for a ruthless attorney. Domestic Violence organizations will not take on this kind of situation. Much to costly. They will (and did us), “Exit” you from shelter. (They serve first to self-perpetuate., as does any corporation). So the system, courts, cops, DV advocates were useless, (or worse!), to us.
However “Adversity Is The Mother Of Invention”,(oops that was actually “Necessity”, was gonna edit, but I like “Adversity”. I think it makes you “Invent” quicker! LOL!) as the saying goes. And I was forced to get real creative. I have seen children destroyed by the system quicker than by a spath, and I have come to the sad realization, that they care about as much for me and my daughters “safety”, as the spath.
First I went to work on the spath. I encouraged him to believe their might be a chance for him to attach himself to my aorta once again.He promptly dropped his wealthy benefactor like a hot potato. (I don’t recommend this but this is what I needed to do). I no longer need to worry about court. (as much.)
I also know this particular spath like the back of my hand. He once accused me of studying him, like a “Bug Under A Microscope”. “I am nothing but a science project to you” he stated. I confess, that was part of the draw, I see that now. Kinda like a morbid curiosity, where you can’t seem to look away. Even after I knew he was disordered .It was a devastating preoccupation however. I paid for it dearly.
Having this knowledge helps me now though, in a “Know Thy Enemy”, kind of way. I used to work with autistic teens in an institutional setting, it was a dangerous job, some of these young men could become violent quite suddenly. (Not all autistic’s are violent, but this was the behavioral unit, I would not choose to work that floor, but I was required to cover it, at times). We had to be trained in Crisis Prevention Intervention. (CPI) The mission statement:
“Maximize the clients potential for success, in any given environment, while minimizing risk to self and others.”
It was imperative that we not take any remarks/attacks PERSONALLY. These kid’s sometimes swore at us, spit at us, pulled our hair, sunk their teeth into our flesh…
In order to de-fuse/prevent these crisis’s we had to keep a cool head, and remain detached. I never got upset with the kids at work. I was very, very good at my job…
This training stayed with me and I find it helpful to apply it when I deal with spath. My daughters well being is my main objective. That fact governs every move I make.
This approach works extremely well with an N. I have become adapt at understanding what makes my (n)spath FEEL successful in any given encounter. (It’s like throwing ham bones to a viscous dog, while you make your escape).
As long as there is no harm to myself or my child, I don’t care if spath THINKS he has the upper-hand. If I have to temporarily appease spath, in non offensive ways, to gain time to strengthen my position, then I have no problem doing that.
Aside from the usual security measures most people employ,(locks, cams, and other precautions of that nature,).
I share NO personal information with spath, (but he thinks I do). I use every bit of information I have/can get. To get us through this. Spath still seems to think that I am as ignorant/naive as I was way back when. And that helps me too. As I gather evidence, resources ect…to build a stronger defense.
I am feeling my way through this land mine. Literally creating my Safety Plan, as I go. I still have nightmares, problems with anxiety, I have become somewhat reclusive too. I don’t want to re-join life again, for fear spath will crush the early attempts. I wanted to appear as boring and unappealing to spath as possible, and as a result, I became that.
I really don’t have answers for anyone else. I am just putting one foot in front of the other right now.
Safeguard,
you think very much like I do.
It is difficult to lay low and get anything done, but at the same time, we know they are just waiting for us to make a move so they can sabotage it.
We have to be more stealth than they are. Lay coiled like a snake and when the time is right, strike lighting fast and with lazer accuracy.
Skylar,
Do you have any idea why after all this time, heeees bbaaack?? I pray you don’t answer him at all.
Blindsided,
Sorry to hear such a horrid story. You have my sympathy and prayers.
Safeguard
You ARE a superhero. I admit that I too have taken a couple of pages from my spaths handbook. I implied that I wanted a certain outcome in our divorce and would be devastated if I don’t get it. But it’s not true. I only want a divorce. The settlement I did get was just frosting on the cake.
I let him think he has really messed me up. (At one time this was true but I reconnected with my integrity and my humanity.) As long as he thinks losing him is so damaging to me, he is happy to cut me off more by letting the divorce happen. He posts pics of himself, and shows off his new woman. It’s to hurt me and I play along. But really… he disgusts me, just as his parents disgusted me.
As if I would ever want a low life, a fraud, a hedonist. When I married him, he had the persona of an honorable family man who was caring of his community. Turns out to have been his IMAGE but NOT Real at all. He ridiculed his community, and is def NOT a family man. He has NO loyalty to his family even as they helped him defraud and abuse me. And he was skinny dipping and sun worshiping with Innumerable women. I am so humiliated that I ever married someone who I have NO respect and is so low class. Miss him like my dog misses fleas.
I did NOT marry just to have someone. I married to partner with a man I respected, admired, and loved. But he turned out to be someone not worth admiration or respect, he’s an opportunistic predator and capable of pedophilia, esp b/c he LOVES the attention of children in a CREEPY way. eewww eewwww eewwww
Safeguard
It also took me years to want to rejoin life. I was so numb that I didn’t know I was numb. But now, my divorce is so close. I can hardly wait to remove the chain jerked around my being. I want to be free and not worry what he’s going to do next. I knew I had recovered when I finally WANTED to travel and spend time with others or sit outside for hours at a dinner party.
Not so long ago, I’d attend an event (was frequently a no show) for a couple of hours but that was all I could handle.
I think you will be happy and surprised how much your life starts to matter again once you feel free of HIM.
Safeguard
I just realized tonight. Part of the reason I finally wanted to rejoin life and society was b/c of Lovefraud. You see, before when I’d go out with people, it was so shallow. They had no idea what my history was, and I sure wasn’t going to share it. But why go be with people who COULD NOT give a rats arse about the real me? Then I found love fraud and for the FIRST time (except for a wonderful therapist who helped me get away from my husband) I found regular, NORMAL people who got it, who knew what I was talking about and the healing that comes from FINALLY feeling validated is MAGNIFICO.
Perhaps as you get some of your emotional needs met here, like me you won’t need anything from others other than the joy of their company. Just simple enjoyment.
That’s what I realized tonight.
Skylar,
“we know they are just waiting for us to make a move so they can sabotage it.”
Yup. Exactly. And my daughter is his window into my life. He extracts any info from her, on my personal life, that he possibly can. He has no problem enraging her with his incessant grilling for information. Whatever I do he will hear about eventually. I am not ready to risk enjoying anything/one in my life again, just yet. Too many losses already. Plus he targets all my friends/family too. Anyone I hang out with gets harassed. I feel terrible when that happens.
Spath has used/ betrayed every single person in his life, even his own parents. To a Spath, Nothing is sacred. 🙁
Thank God I do have, one tight-knit group of stanch supporters, who Fear Nothing, and would do anything for me and my kid. 🙂 Without their love and support, we would be dead in the water by now.
@Katy,
yes, there is a sense that I don’t “belong” now. The events that have happened in my life, were incomprehensible to me even. Once you have been kicked off the boat dock of complacency by a spath. You can never get that sense back, that good trumps evil, that life works in a certain way…and you don’t fit in with those who still operate under the, “bad things will never happen to someone like me, illusion.
I dunno, maybe I’m naive. I just honestly get the feeling that he’s the sociopath. I hope I’m not being fooled.
Safeguard,
I hear you, sista! Right now though, I think you are focusing on keeping yourself and your child safe, and playing your cards close to your chest, and I really think that makes good sense.
Welcome, Kristyfields. Keep on reading, you’ll find the answers.