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!
Skylar said : For me, I mostly don’t have much rancor towards my spath, just some fear and lots of disgust. Occasionally, the anger will surface, but it doesn’t really bother me most of the time.
That’s just it, skylar. I feel that once you allow yourself to process your emotions ( as you have ), the SHITSTORM ( excuse my language again, hee ) waxing in your soul subsides ( save for the occasional rise of anger which I also think is valid and has its place- since healing is by no means a linear process. It goes and comes. ) … because you have processed it, and you have come to terms with it. The concept of forgiveness to me personally does not sit well, in regard to the sociopath. But I think you did hit an important point here- how we’re each defining forgiveness.
I trust in my soul, body and minds ability to heal- I know that its methods are ancient, and I honor that. Kathy Krajco’s post struck me in a very visceral way a long time ago when i read it ( the link i keep posting around here… excerpted several posts above ) … and what aligned within me was that why is forgiveness even relevant to the sociopath? By this time the victim has likely already forgiven the sociopath an innumerable amount of times- for things he/she was not responsible for. To even think to consider the notion of it is offensive to me, personally ( And with this statement I have to say- this is from a personal standpoint. It does not in anyway reflect how I view how others handle their own unique situations ) … and i just feel that bringing on this air of “you should be compelled to forgive” is unnecessary and has the potential of only burdening the victim further- especially if they’ve no interest in it- the victim, who should be focusing on FORGIVING HIMSELF- forgiving himself for unknowingly subjecting himself to THE SIN OF SODOM ( perpetrated by the P )… making the victim bend over for it. So, those are my feelings on the matter. Hopefully I addressed what you were looking for?
I just want to make clear however- that these are my personal feelings in respect to my individual situation. I know people on LF for one reason or another have decided to forgive- and I respect their choice. If they feel that this has helped them to heal- then I have no issues with it. I respect everyone’s own unique perspective and journey. I just hope we all “heal good” 🙂 as that is the ultimate objective
Hi dancing nancies – thank you for your post too. Someone said to me the other day, ‘you have a bit of violence in you’ , and I looked at him and said, ‘yes, i do.’ there is no way to protest the truth of this. and it felt good and very socially unacceptable – we’ll see if he talks to me again.
OneJoy,
I know what you mean, it does seem strange not to be angry at such an evil entity. And yes, it might be a self-protective mechanism.
When I first realized what I was dealing with, I went into a bit of shock – to put it mildly. It was more than I could handle and I had no choice but to handle it. You see, I understood that he was not done with me and that his target had been my very soul and my will to live. I had to remove the target or he would win. Remember, I know now that he made some very explicit pornographic videos of me. I knew that he was keeping those as a trump card or as a means of creating hate toward me in other people. I had to find a way to protect myself from his use of those videos.
The method I found was to pull back and look at the big picture. In that picture, my ego became very small. It wasn’t about me anymore. It was about evil and how it comes to be in the world. I saw how it happened to him and how he had very little choice as to his circumstances as a baby. I saw how he let his emotions make his decisions and he continued to do that as he grew older. By the time he grew up, he had experienced things that made him feel worthless and it stuck.
When I think of my spath brother and sister and how they became worthless spaths despite being treated much better than I was, by my parents, I wonder if I’ve made a mistake being too generous with the spath. After all, maybe he would have been just as despicable no matter what. But the fact remains that he was groomed by his grandfather, watched his grandfather and his dad abuse his mom, ran away to become a prostitute at age 12 and generally lived a hard life.
Anyway, that’s how I managed to escape being slimed and shamed. I view what happened as a reflection on him, not on me. His life is a shame.
Dancing,
“Should be compelled”—–NOOOOOO WAY! In my humble (or not so humble) opinion, NO ONE SHOULD COULD HAS A RIGHT TO tell you what you OUGHT TO FEEL. That was what my egg donor did about “forgiveness” (HER DEFINITION) of forgiveness, that I MUST not feel the justifiable anger, I must RESTORE TRUST 110% even though they were NOT remorseful or sorry for what they had done and probably would do it again.
Being Bitter toward what they had done though, (not “anger” but WRATH, that anger that has become RANCID from rotting inside my soul….that was not healthy either.
ANGER is a normal and natural part of the grief process, and is a result of injury or fear….but if we don’t PROCESS that anger, turn the heat down on it in a healthy way, it will be like nuclear waste and just poison us with “emotional fall out” from inside.
I still think you and I are mostly talking about the same thing.
Sky, even though your X had a Bad hard life as a youngster, he still HAD CHOICES in how to behave, how to feel, but he chose the “dark side”—that is the thing I think we must keep in mind is that YOU had a choice, HE had a choice, your Sibs had CHOICES, and each of us chose our own path. Genetics may be a part of it, but there is still FREE WILL in how we choose to treat others. You are right, the shame SHOULD be his, the guilt should be his, but he chooses not to feel them.
I had forgotten about those videos, Sky, until you mentioned them again…yea, that is the thing (type of thing) that they hold over us with an eye to controlling us, but you know, I’m at a point now that even if someone did have such a “hold on” me, if they had a video of me doing whatever, I would say “bring it on” I am not going to allow you to scare me with your threats. A threat is only “worth” what you are afraid of it doing. If you have no fear of the threat, the threat becomes POWERLESS.
Our own ability to validate ourselves and what and who we are is the important thing to me now. What others think of me….it’s not very important any more. I no longer subscribe to the mantra that what the neighbors thing is the most important thing in the world. I’m realizing that the neighbors really could CARE less about me, so why should I care what they think? LOL
Nancy,
I’ve been wondering if there are emotions that I haven’t processed because the decision I made was almost instant from the moment I saw what he was. It was not a process. I did process some grieving for what I thought had been my life for 25 years. But my feelings for him were not really a process, they were a decision – maybe a protective mechanism.
Now, talking about it with you, brought up some parallels with how my parents would always tell me to “let your little sister have what she wants because she’s little”. My decision to not hold spath responsible for his behavior, might just be programming.
This programming has been what saved me from going crazy when I was with him. The programming always told me to rise above it and I did. Unfortunately, it didn’t tell me to protect myself, only to not care. Either way, it worked for me, which is why it’s so difficult to give it up.
Spath said he was tired of my “god-like ways”. LOL! That really cracks me up because he pretty much nailed it without understanding it. It was my martyr/christ complex that shielded my ego, so he could never make me feel bad about myself. No matter how hard he tried, I never killed myself. That’s why he was planning to suicide me himself.
Sky, Maybe you are on to something….an “ah ha” moment.
Oxy,
I’ve come to terms with the videos just as you said: by not caring. I really don’t. In fact, I played chicken with that spath by beating him to the punch and told EVERYONE ABOUT THEM. So that just takes the wind out of his drama sails. If I write a book and the videos come out – that will just put the wind into MY drama sales! Gotta think like a spath.
The concept of anger vs. forgiveness is still elusive. I feel that the correct feeling is disgust and revulsion. I think that if we have anger, it connects them to our ego too closely. Whereas disgust and revulsion makes us recoil from them.
Still learning though, and I’ll bet I have a long way to go on this front.
Thanks Nancy, for giving me so much food for thought.
Sky, YOUR feelings are YOURs to decide when to have them and what they are….or what you call them.
Good for you for taking the wind out of his sails, sometimes that is the ONLY way to do it.
Son D named our new little calf, “Chuck Roast”—Chuck is so cute, all bright red with his long Scots Highland fur makes him look like an EWOK from the old Star Wars movie…had another great day today, actually….weather was Almost COLD (30 degrees cooler anyway than it has been lately) WOW! Awesome! RAIN! and maybe more rain tomorrow who knows.
Do have to drive 3 hours to a funeral for my cousin’s husband, though. Then come home afterward…will be a long day.
So won’t see you guys tomorrow, but I know that you will all keep Lovefraud between the ditches and be there to support each other.
Oxy, once again, I must say Thank you & (((hugs))). It is utterly refreshing to (once again) find the kind of empathy & read the comments from you & Safeguard & all the rest. Oxy, you literally living “on the same farm” as your spath is chilling. You know what I mean – you get it.
For the record, the Bankruptcy Court has ordered my ex to, “surrender the house” – as part of her BK filing. It seems unusual to celebrate someone experiencing financial difficulties. However, I would be lying if I denied my happiness in hearing that she will be departing our (tiny) community. I still feel bad for my step son. His life will (once more) be uprooted due to his mother’s actions.
Also, Safeguard, you are correct. It was gut wrenching to experience what my ex did to me – and the family. This site is one of the few places we can turn and not have to worry about doubt and disbelief from others.
BTW, I have had another interesting experience vis a vis my neighbors-to wit: In my original posting, I describe how my ex spread several malicious lies about me (I was a hit man; heroin addict etc.) – and there were some neighbors that believed her and sided with her. Well, now that time has passed and I have won the defamation lawsuit (which made the newspapers) and my exis going down the tubes — those very same neighbors are trying to get “buddy buddy” with me. I am not sure how to react?
Dear Blindsided,
Gloating over our enemies’ downfall is not an uplifting way to feel, but I would be LYING if I told you I had never felt any gloating over the down fall of the psychopathic enemies in my life…I HAVE definitely done so, but I don’t think these examples of my better moments really. LOL
When my Now-X DIL got arrested for buying the Trojan Horse Psychopath a gun with money she had stolen from my egg donor for the purpose of having her BF Kill her husband, my son C, and they got foiled n their plan AND arrested….I waited at the top of the stairs when she came up the stairs to the court room for her bail hearing….and as she came up the stairs shackled hand and foot, in an orange jump suit, I stood there and looked down the stairs at her and said “Fetching outfit, Laurel” and it FELT SO GOOD to be vindicated and to see her getting what she so richly deserved…but at the same time, I know I shouldn’t and don’t want to feel that rancor, that bitterness in my heart….it isn’t WHO I want to be…but I AM human, and I do have some nasty thoughts and intentions and feel some normal, human, hateful emotions, just like I guess everyone except a saint would do…and “I AIN’T NO SAINT!” LOL
I AM glad though that you are spared or will be spared the trauma and drama of living next to her and seeing her frequently. My egg donor’s house is not generally in my line of sight, and even if I see the house, I seldom actually see HER, but I changed the town I shop in (I live between two towns) so I don’t have much chance now of running into her in Wal Mart unexpectedly like I did once.
Your step son living in chaos and reaping the “benefit” of his mother’s psychopathy is his “unfortunate life story” unless he can learn from it and get away from her at some future date. Some kids do, some don’t. I’m reading the story now of a woman who grew up in abject poverty and abuse, hungry, cold, almost naked, with a drunken dreamer for a father and a narcissistic mother, and an extended family members who were perverts and sexual abusers, and yet, she managed to become a successful writer as well as a successful human being. Some can do it, and I hope and pray your step son is one of those who do break away.
Glad you are here, Blindsided, there’s a lot of support, empathy, compassion and most of all UNDERSTANDING here. TOWANDA!!!!