Lovefraud received the following e-mail from a woman whose daughter is caught in the web of a sociopath. The woman and her husband are not enabling the relationship—the sociopath, of course, wants money. They are hoping and praying that their daughter will escape.
Here is her question to other Lovefaud readers:
What was the “turning point,” “awakening moment,” “realization point,” that woke them up OUT of the fog, the gaslighting, etc., and what made them realize they needed to RUN, to get away from their sociopaths? Â What finally “did it,” what finally “broke the camel’s back?” Â Where they realized what was happening to them, had been done to them, when they finally realized things were NEVER going to “get better?”
There must be a “trigger” here somewhere. I’m just trying to grasp what it’s going to take. Â What is going to have to happen to jar her awake from this brainwashing/fog?
My experience
I remember the moment for me.
I knew my husband, James Montgomery, was lying to me, although I didn’t realize the extreme extent of the lies. I knew all my money was gone; my husband had spent about $227,000, much of it carelessly. I suspected he was cheating on me, and when I discovered proof, I left him.
Still, even after I left him, I thought my husband was just one of those guys who can’t stay faithful. I did not realize that my entire marriage was a scam right from the beginning.
The real moment of truth came when I called one of the women my husband appeared to be involved with. According to bank records I’d found, she had given him $6,000. The conversation went like this:
“I’m Donna Andersen. I’m James Montgomery’s wife, and I’d like to suggest that you don’t give him any more money.”
“It’s too late. I already gave him $92,000.”
I almost dropped the phone. And with that conversation, I realized that my husband had married me for the specific purpose of taking my money. That was all.
Your moment of truth
This reader has asked a really important question, one that may glean some possible approaches from helping people escape the sociopathic trap. So please post your experience.
What did it for you? When did you finally realize that you had to get out?
In my experience things started to spiral very quickly. After 5 1/2 years I had no money left from my previous marriage settlement, was in debt to my eye balls and was now not only getting verbally and emotionally abused he started to physically abuse me. My tight family and friend support system was all but driven away and I was afraid. The final thing was he assaulted me whilst he was holding our baby daughter but even with that the fear kept me there for a little while longer as he kept telling me he was going to take our baby and in my silly confused state at the time I thought if I was near him I would know what he was up to and less likely to hurt us. About 3 weeks later he phoned me ranting about something or another and I just bust out crying and said I cant do this anymore. He turned around and said well make sure all your stuff is gone by the time I get home. His words at the time for me were my out. I ran home as quickly as I could and with a girlfriend that coincidentally called me straight afterward packed up my self and my 3 children’s belongings and fled. I guess I was waiting for to let me go, to tell me to go because before hand I was never allowed to and was so scared of him. For me when he began to get physical I knew I had to get out of there, I just didn’t know how. I believe they eventually go that one step too far where it deeply effects what we can and cannot put up with, plus when he started to unravel he came apart at lightening speed. Even when I thought I was at my weakest I was actually at my strongest. To get away was the hardest thing to do but I was so conditioned I didn’t believe I could survive without him! Well Haha to him!!!! I am surviving pretty dam well now! I dont think with Sociopaths there is that one moment, I think it is a break down of the relationship with lots of lots moments. It took a while before I could believe my gut was right as I had been tricked into thinking differently about everything if that all makes sense!
Xy always exposed my son to material not suited to his age but when he bought my little guy a medieval eating knife for his eight birthday that was it. I found the emails ordering it and complained to the seller who then abused me and suggested X also buy me some mild steel condoms. The knife still arrived, it was eight inches long and really sharp. X suggested he could use it only for eating dinner. I left, he pursued and continued to harrass and try to economically cripple me even when I was living in a leaking one bedroom granny flat. Its taken me many long years to separate myself from him and his financial abuse and financially controlling behaviour but every minute away from him was worth it.
My turning point was when I entered therapy. I had been manipulated into believing that I was “crazy” for several years. After many years of having everything blamed on me , being told I was crazy and told I needed to see a shrink, I began to believe it. Afterall, I felt terrible, I was depressed, confused,drained and felt out of balance most of the time so I did feel a bit crazy. After beginning therapy,I didnt leave the realtionship immediately, I learned alot about abuse and manipulation and I started to become clear about what was really going on. I will never forget the day I decided to end the charade, it was a sunny fall day. I had been passifying him by staying in contact, as he had a history of stalking and would become obsessive and scary when we were apart and I just didnt want to deal with it. But after thinking it through over and over,I decided enough was enough. I realized that the situation was never going to get any better. There was no such thing as the fairytale he promised and fantasized about.His behavior was not my fault. I called him and told him we should not have contact with each other, I felt it was the only way I could move forward with my life without getting sucked back in- he was not happy about it , I didnt care. I decided it was MY life and MY choice. I recognized that after 7 years of manipulation and abuse -I didnt even like him. I would not choose him if I were selecting a person to date and I certainly was not willing to stay stuck with him and allow him to control my life. It was a challenge and things got worse before they got better. He did obsess, threaten and stalk- but I succeeded. I never went back. I continued with therapy, I became clear and continued to learn:)
Ive had two turning points. One was when I was missing a ‘book’ from my house, which he had made quotes out of, and then denied knowing where the book was. As I asked him about the books wherabouts, he got VERY defensive, turining it around on ME saying “I cant believe you would accuse me of stealing from you.” We went on a vacation that weekend and things were FINE. I had forgotten about the book completely. He, though, hadnt. One week later, he brought it up again saying he couldnt believe I accused him of stealing from me and he didnt know where this was leading us. I could see CLEARLY how he had used manipulation to guilt me and make me feel bad about myself. I also could see the crazymaking and how ‘sick’ he was and how ‘sick’ I was as a result.
We had NC for 5 months.
After ‘re-engaging” in April when he contacted me, I tried to set boundaries and rules. This worked for about 6 months until it got to the point where we were gonna move in together. He suddenly had ‘financial’ problems. Needless to say, he moved in and didnt really ‘want’ to pay his portion. He moved out stating he ‘wasnt attracted to, interested in or feelign me.” He also hadnt paid any bills for the two months he was here. Well, its now time to pay the piper for the bills HE had, which he THOUGHT Id just take care of when he left.
The second turing point for me? This morning after receiving an email where he tried using the positive qualities I KNOW I have like trustwothyness, integrity and being a good person, AGAINST ME! He has tried guilting me into paying a bill HE had while living with me stating he ‘thought’ I was going to take care of it and he did not peg me for being untrustworthy or dishonest. I AM SO FAR FROM BOTH OF THOSE THINGS!!! Not to mention this bill is in HIS name, under HIS ss number and it was HIS responsibility to shut it off when he left…although he had an outstandign balance then and I do believe he THOUGHT Id pay it to just be done with it…
Surprise…I didnt…and so if that makes ME a shitty, untrustworthy, bad person…well, then I guess I fit the bill!
Which turning point with WHICH psychopath?
With my P-sperm donor it was a severe beating and being raped, and in fear of my life.
With my P son it was realizing that he was not sorry for his crime (murder) and that he actually was proud of it. The look of absolute evil in his eye when he said it.
With my X-BF P that I became involved in during my grief after the death of husband…it was seeing what a liar he was, that he had always been a liar, a cheat and wasn’t going to change. It wasn’t “sudden” so much as consistent thinking over a period of a couple of weeks. I didn’t want to accept what I was seeing, but finally I did and broke it off with him.
I sort of have an “eject” button on my emotional life now, and at the first sign of dishonesty or deliberate meanness I hit the “eject” button and eject that person out of my life. It has sometimes been a very painful thing to do as some of these relationships have been long term and were important to me, but I have after careful thought realized that anyone who is dishonest and unkind to me is NOT someone I need in my life.
morning Oxy,
yeah WHICH psychopath for me too.
With my exsPath it was when my N-parents finally TOLD me that they had overheard exP tell someone else that he was only with me for my money. Thank God they finally told me. They told me because they began to see that this fiasco was not just about me but had begun to involve them and their P-goldenchild daughter.
With my N-parents, it was the realization that they had kept that info from me, for 25 years. And then I remembered the way they had treated me in childhood and how much the controlling behavior reminded me of the exP.
With my P-brother, it was when I moved back home to live with the N-parents and he had been living there for years. And he called the police on me and sent me to jail for domestic violence – AFTER he attacked me AND scratched himself to make it look like I had done it. This actually confirmed the turning point with the N-parents because they allowed him to get away with this and he continues to live there.
With my P-sister, it was when the spath was trying to pull his final con on me and I could tell she was in on it. She is so stupid that SHE didn’t know that spath was pulling the strings. She thought her P-trojan horse husband was pulling the strings. But she would call and make little remarks like she knew about the con. She would also call and waste my time at 12PM fridays, JUST LIKE THE SPATH DID. This was an attempt to get me to miss the garbage pick up (I know it sounds ridiculous but that’s what they were focusing on and that’s also what gave them away).
With P-neighbors, again it was the garbage pickup. They had been doing it for months but it was when spath did it too, that all their BS began to coalesce into a revelation of spathological thinking and plotting.
That’s the thing about spaths, (someone else here on LF said this the other day) one or two things they do, make no sense, but if you put together the myriads of behaviors over time, they come together to form the picture of a spath. That picture is as clear and easy to see as the hand in front of your face. You just have to know the red flags.
My turning point was when I began to love myself.
After that, I could no longer pretend I did not see the red flags of lies, lies, lies.
I stopped listening to what he said and started
watching his actions (which did not back up his word).
This was advice I learned from dying professor Randy Pausch
who gave a “last lecture” to his small children,
that was advice he gave to his little girl to follow when
she grows up and starts dating.
Toxic man was just using me. I didn’t want to believe it!!!!
I felt like I hit a brick wall at 90mph.
Had to pick up the little pieces of myself and put myself back together.
I had the advantage of already being a member of the LF community because of a previous
relationship I had been in, I guess at first I just didn’t “get it”.
By reading the articles and comments here… I had to re-learn
there is true evil walking around posing as a normal human being…
but the greatest gift of LF is finding out that it’s not about him,
it’s about me… and healing me.
There is a definite PATTERN to the behavior of a psychopath, and it repeats like a knitting pattern…at first you may not be able to SEE that there is a pattern until things start to pile up and there are enough threads that intersect that the pattern starts to become apparent. It isn’t just one event here or there, but over lapping ones….a lie here, information kept secret there, a little bit of unkindness, then out right abuse…they all go together to form that PICTURE OF A PATTERN of lack of compassion, lack of caring, denial of your pain. Knit-purl, knit-purl…purl-purl knit-knit lie-slander-secrets-anger-blame-rage-projection and on and on and on.
What is so amazing to me sometimes is that NOW, in retrospect, I can see the pattern so clearly and realize that even at the TIME I saw the pattern and made excuses for it, made up things to deny it was there. LIED TO MYSELF. ALMOST FOOLED MYSELF. Leaned to “function in my dysfunction” and to fake out my own pain….and convince myself to keep on keeping on.
My turning point ……
If someone came to me NOW and told me they were in debt up to the hilt, had been in prison at least twice, had other women, lied incessantly, cheated, be-littled me, swore, ranted, pushed me around etc would I take him into my home? So WHY THE HELL did I take him in?!
Answer – because I did not know all of this (I was blinded by ‘love’) at the outset but bit by bit the mask fell and the fog lifted. And I realised that the man I thought I knew I did not know at all.
I had a VERY lucky ‘escape’ thanks to my family standing by me and supporting me.
oh man… let’s see with the most recent or the rest…
with the one that just brought me to lovefraud, HE ended it. whatever “ending” means to spaths.
but, THANK GOD.
i was no longer a convenient source of supply for him, (wouldnt give anymore money for his grand utopian living project) hence the initiazed break. i guess without having the language for it at the time, i knew i was no longer of USE. and LOVE had nothing to do with it, never did.
even during the “good” times, it was all an illusion. every “nice” thing he did for “me” fed into him underneath, not me.
but of course he has tried to make contact since. and i know i could have slid back in. i caught myself backtrack thinking a couple days ago but can now readily stop it.
just focus on the LIES. all the hundreds of thousands of neverending LIES.
HE IS THE LIE FROM HELLO TO GOODBYE. i mantra that now.