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?
I am glad to see that others took more than just that moment…
I was 6.5 months pregnant with my son when I had 2 detectives walk into my classroom telling me about a woman filing Fraud charges on my husband … he had stolen over $40K from her over the course of their year and a half relationship (we had only been married a few months longer than that!!) There had been subtle red flags along the way that I just ignored or thought “He may be bi-polar or something.” After that… the ball just kept rolling and rolling… we found out about 3 more women. He made promises that all of that was over and he was a changed man. He said that God had gotten a hold on him and he promised to go to counseling and get help. Being 7 mos pregnant at that point… I felt I had to try… I believed that everyone deserved a 2nd chance (I just didn’t know how many he had already had!)
He made it through the birth of our son and within 2 weeks was at it all again. My family and I started investigating and finally got him out of the house when my son was 3 months old. At that time we REALLY started digging…. 30 plus women, over $600,000 in debt (just mine… doesn’t count all the others), a 3 month old, no income, and all of the house bills were 3 months past due.
Praise the Lord for HIS strength & an amazing Family who was there for me every step of the way. We still deal with the insanity on occasion, but it is sure nice to be on the outside of it when it comes around.
We haven’t seen him since last July. He just wrote a $35,000 bad ck this weekend (so the state troopers tell me) and is in trouble in at least 3 states.
It is amazing that a tall, funny, handsome man can con you out of NEARLY everything you have held to be good, just, and of value.
I do think this Spath is at the end of his rope, he just keeps cutting it shorter and shorter. It kind of makes me giggle when I talk to the most recent victims (the all somehow keep finding my family for support) and we start connecting the dots and handing it over to the authorities. Now the authorities are just calling us directly, LOL , for insight on this Spath!! I want to see him locked away… but I am afraid that he will then get out in just a few years… the longer he runs the longer we don’t have to deal with him and my precious baby is safe. Hang in there everyone.
Hugs and Strength!!
Issie
PS: Anyone know how to write and pass a law to CHANGE the Family Court System?? Ours is REDICULOUS!
The turning point was after all the times he had apologized for things he had done, and after I had spent HOURS and HOURS explaining how he had hurt me,,,,during one phone conversation when I said I needed more than an apology, I needed him to give me about $2000 for all my therapy bills because of the healing I had to do after he was so cruel OR spend that much on therapy for himself (that was before I knew he couldn’t be helpedl….he suddenly shifted gears (since now $$$$ were involved, though he was a mega millionaire) and said “But I don’t think I ever WAS cruel to you.”
I felt like an electric current had shot through the phone. I dropped it, picked it up, hung up and never spoke to him or saw him again. And every time I thought about doing so, I got diarrhea, and even started feeling like I was going to pass out. My body literally said to me “I won’t let you see him again.”
.
MiaAnnetteSowell –
“When I saw the pictures of myself and knowing what a strong woman I once was, I was devastated. It made me realize what he had reduced me to. ”
This reminds me of and brings me to the Superspath (husband number 3, he of 4 years ago this week) and the turning point there.
The first spath (husband number 2) had left me with undiagnosed PTSD (evetually diagnosed about two years in). I had no idea why I wasn’t getting any better and why I felt so jaded and bitter, even 2 years later, when I thought that I should have been well and truly “over” it.
After a couple of years on my own I wound up with a nice man who was 12 years older than me. My love for him was not the romantic, passionate, “falling in love” type of feeling (despite his best efforts to make it that way for me, and despite the fact that it was that way for him); for me, it was a grateful feeling of security and safety, of being treated well and regarded highly – and knowing beyond doubt that he would never cheat on me (and he never did). I had given up on the fairytale; it had only ever brought me grief. My first fairytale husband had beaten me for years before I left him and my second had spathed me. I was not about to fall for any lines again; I would choose sensibly next time (or so I thought).
Sadly, after we had already moved in together, I discovered that the third guy was an alcoholic. His drinking impacted very badly on our relationship and when he went on to lose his license for drunk driving and refused to acknowledge that he had a problem, I left him. I told him that if he would face his addiction and get the help he needed to stop drinking, I would come “home”. He never did, so I never relented and went back.
By then I was thoroughly wary of relationships and was certainly not looking for one. In fact, my special joke when people asked about my relationship status was that I was “holding out for an elderly millionaire” – and preferably one with a dicky heart! It was only a joke (I am not remotely materialistic) but it did usually manage to convey my general disillusionment with the whole “love thing”- and stop others from trying to “set me up”.
One friend, however, was not so easily put off. I was invited to her family home for dinner and at the last moment, discovered that a male friend of theirs was also going to be there. I was not remotely interested in that man when I met him. In fact, I should have stuck with my first impressions, because I found him smooth, arrogant, unattractive and sleazy. I went to work the next day with nary a thought of him.
He turned up at my work that day with a red rose for me and invited me for a drink after work. Egged on by my workmates, I thought to myself that it couldn’t hurt. After all I wasn’t interested in him.
You all know how the “love-bombing” goes and how it borders on stalking, so I won’t give a blow by blow account. Two months after meeting he got me into bed (this was the fastest that I had ever agreed to be intimate with anyone; in fact, I had been a virgin when I married the first time and didn’t sleep with my second husband until we had been married either). You all know also, about the Oxytocin and the bonding that come from sex.
It was all over for me – no more protesting. Within another three months he was living at my house.
Was his alleged suicide attempt just before he moved in with me my turning point? Embarrassingly, no – that just made me more determined to look after him and to keep him happy.
Was it the allegations of sexual harrassment brought against him by two female employees? No – I stood by my man.
What about the continual problems he had at work with other colleagues? No – they just couldn’t see what a decent man he was (excuse me while I barf…)
Was it that he was under suspicion about money that kept going missing from his workplace? No – it must have been one of the other staff members. After all, he was the manager there and he would bring home the day’s receipts and till-rolls and I would help him trawl through them, looking for discrepencies or clues.
(Banging my head on a wall now….)
Was it the fact that within a two-month period, his car was “broken into” three times (all necessitating insurance claims to fix the damage) – including one time when mountains of paperwork from the shop he worked at had supposedly been in the car and “went misssing” after the break in – allegedly taken by the thieves (at the same time that money was missing from the shop). (I know, I know, I know, I know, I know….)
Was in the fact that neither of his sisters were on speaking terms with him? No – they were just screwed up bitches.
Was it that his ex-wife had taken the drastic step of removing her two children (one of which was also his child) from their schools, removing her elderly mother from the house she had lived in for most of her life, putting them all on a plane and relocating to another state, thousands of miles from the spath? No – She was just a nutcase drug-addicted bitch who only did that to spite him and to prevent his rightful contact with his little boy.
Was it the fact that they would argue on the telephone, where he would remain calm and polite and she would shriek so loudly into the phone at the spath that I could hear her from across the room? No – she was a whack-job. He wished she would just move on.
I won’t bore you with any more but I will say that, to my great shame, it wasn’t even after discovering a myriad lies or a thousand “girlfriends”.
It wasn’t when he made threats against me.
It wasn’t when he physically abused me.
It wasn’t when he left me.
It wasn’t when he sent his son back to live with the woman I had always been told was a dangerous, abusive drug addict and liar.
It wasn’t when he began to slander me to all of my friends and family.
And it wasn’t when he repeatedly lied in court about me – I thought he really believed the awful things he said because he had some sort of mental illness – and I just wanted to help him to get better and turn back into something like the “wonderful man I had met and fallen in love with”.
It was one day in October 2008 – over 18 months after he left.
I was sorting out some photographs that had all wound up jumbled in a box together and in no particular order. As I worked, I pulled out a photo that had been taken of me the previous year. I put it in the correct pile and picked up the next photo from the box at random. And gasped so loudly that I heard myself do it.
The second photo had been taken several months before I had met the Superspath. In it, my eyes shone, my skin glowed and I looked alive, happy and vibrant – even though I must have been sad because I had ended my relationship with the alcoholic around the time it had been taken. My body was relaxed. I looked pretty.
The first photo showed a woman who was so broken that the sadness and hopelessness seeped out of her dull and tired eyes. Her skin was grey and stretched tightly across her face. Her hair was limp and brittle-looking. She was smiling but only her mouth was in on it – and even then, unconvincingly. Her face was thin and drawn. She looked like one breath in her direction would crack her into a million pieces. She looked – even though it was a still shot – like she was shaking; and she probably was.
And she was me – after only seven years with the Superspath.
I had aged twenty years in seven.
I pinned those photographs to my bedroom wall and left them there until I no longer needed reminding that HE had done that to me. And I divorced him.
I have spent the last two and a half years since finding those pictures, trying to get back to “me” again. Although I have PTSD again AND had Chronic Fatigue syndrome for most of 2008 AND was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia a year ago AND have not been able to work for almost a year because of pain and fatigue – I STILL LOOK BETTER than I did in that photo.
My spath started dating other women and actually set up dates in our home. I find it very odd that “most” these women (all from match.com ofcourse!) ignored the fact that he already had a girlfriend living with him and clearly sleeping with him!
I’d warn these gals but only ONE actually apologized and admitted that she should have listened to ME and not him! She left this monologue on my answering machine. I taped it and even played it for other women and they still didn’t wonder why a guy who was clearly already involved with someone and living with her was “dating” other women he met at match.com
I tried to warn women directly at match.com- but women complained and match.com abruptly discontinued my account and kept my 50 bucks membership- twice! Match.com should be ashamed! Ashamed!
But the VERY last straw…. at match.com he found a gal who was a nurse with substance abuse problems, depression and was on the rebound. He proposed to her on the SECOND date (at our house) and she ACCEPTED. 3 months later they got married in a budget ceremony in his DRIVEWAY. Another former girlfriend of his and I drove past his house on the day of the ceremony and we tried to get a good look but were chased away by goons his sister had hired to keep (me) unwanted rubberneckers away. The ceremony was maybe 40 feet from the street- a public street that is. We were chased by cops and this freaked out the other former girlfriend- so we ended up not seeing anything. Later he filed a report with the cops that I had hidden up in a tree with a camera and a 300mm telephoto lens and taken NUDE pictures of he and his now drunken bride. He used snapshots HE HAD SNAPPED HIMSELF (and there was no nudeness- his bride was in her gown) as “EVIDENCE”!!! Only in Shelton Connecticut would a police dept not see through this lie. After all- all they had to do was interview the bride as to the reality of these accusations! But the investigator didn’t bother and he even ADDED MORE LIES to the story!!! What was even worse was that the State Prosecutor in Derby CT BELIEVED the whole ridiculous story and I was arrested. IT WAS FRONT PAGE NEWS- it was Valentines Day and it made a great lead story. The day after- I had reporters and news trucks IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE!!!!
It’s been a long time since I have posted, but this thread really strikes a chord. Especially the comment above by breckgirl who posted the Dickinson poem and said of herself: “maybe it is my ability to hope that ultimately did me in.” This is exactly what has been doing me in.
For me as soon as I discovered his cheating I was done, or so I thought. I spent over three decades in heartache in an abusive, lonely marriage because I believed divorce was only an option in cases of adultery. But when I found his profiles on sleezy sexual hookup sites (and more revelations were to follow) the shock led me to file for divorce immediately. But here I am three years later still not divorced.
And it has been a very very difficult three years resisting his desperate attempts to hold on to me (that is when he wasn’t in the throes of a new first love and angrily pushing me away). Alternately, I have been off and on seriously considering reconciliation, even after more girlfriends, lies, abuse and false charges against me. IF ONLY he would come clean, and tell the truth I knew he wasn’t telling, and admit and seek help for whatever personality disorder drives his craziness, then we could work towards possible reconciliation. But no such luck. TRUTH stood in the way–he wouldn’t tell it and give me reason to believe in his sincerity and true repentance, and I wouldn’t let go of it as my one condition.
You see I have been holding on for dear life to the TRUTH this entire time. And it is only this that has kept my head above water even when my emotions were drowning.
It is finally over between us as I think he intends to marry his present girlfriend (if we ever get divorced). And I pushed him away by holding out this condition. And now I find myself grieving (and longing) all over again and blaming myself even though I know better. But I could have had him back on his terms of course, but I wanted him to do it for once in our life on my terms. But he would not.
And yet I still have that horrible hope hanging on within me and keeping me in bondage to him as if to a cult. How to get beyond this. Obviously we are not together and haven’t been for three years but there is always that what if and if only, that I want free of………..
I have very often found renewed strength and confidence to stay the course by reading on here.
It was so beautiful to read the poster above who shared about her parents love and her father’s tears, and her ultimate deliverance.
It makes me think of my own parents who have been the best support one could have through all of this sort of experience. I am only hoping that they can yet see me delivered and on the other side of all the pain this has caused our entire family and feel a real sense of relief from the grief of seeing me go through this–that they could see some happiness. Like Jacob, who thought his days were done and his beloved son Joseph was long lost, only to find him alive and very well, and to gain a whole new beginning.
I hope the parents who started this discussion will see their prayers and love for their daughter realized as well.
Dear Vooct,
I’m not sure what country you live in but I would suggest that you get a “escape bag” secretly together with a couple of changes of clothes your tooth brush, birth certificfate, any legal papers you need or have, and go to a shelter with your kids. Do not let your husband know you plan to leave and then LEAVE FOR YOUR LIFE!
Goo0d luck and God bless.
Jeeze, this thread is incredible. All of the posts. Regarding Vocct’s post and link, WOW…Oxy is right on! I am no expert, but after reading what I had… without a doubt, do it, now!
I second Ox…
Good Luck and God Bless.
Vooct,
Oxy is right. Your situation is Beyond Spathdom. I read some of your blog…have you tried a keylogger detector? Here is one I used that is easy and free, for windows XP. Do a google search for more recent systems.
http://dewasoft.com/privacy/kldetector.htm
I have to read up on the MITM…..never heard of it.
Take good care!
New Winter,
No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I misread your post and didn’t see the “he”. I don’t know how I missed that, I must’ve been reading for too long last night…:(
Anyway, I’m sorry about what you had to endure. I guess you can never truly know someone and what’s going on in their head. The most important thing is that you’re not with him anymore. I’m happy to hear that you were able to pick yourself up and build from there.
And yes, I agree with other posters on here, this thread IS incredible.