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?
When was my turning point? Like everyone, there were many turning points. When you’re with a spath the turning points come frequently enough that soon you are spinning in the crazy circle they created and you silently agree to keep playing in.
Like many, it wasn’t when he told me that his family loved me-even though they already knew what he was, and treated me unkind. It wasn’t when while my mother was dying from a terminal illness and begging me everyday to leave him (who she clearly saw was a loser).
It wasn’t after he expressed no remorse over her death or for that matter mine, after he had killed my spirit with his verbal abuse, sexual abuse or gaslighting. None of that seemed to matter, until I started to make marriage plans with the crazy! Yes, I had decided that I wanted this lifelong misery to be mines truly and legally.
Mind you, he was only working part time, and the other part of being an actor (oh, the irony). He needed to focus o his “career” goals, which I later found out, included stealing and cashing checks from the money my mother left after her death, sleeping with his “co-stars” male and female in my apt., stealing food and my clothing and shoes and personal items from my home to give to his transient “friends” who I happened to get introduced to in strange ways….oh the nightmare continued for 13 years until one day after weeks of fighting and him never being where he said he was going to be. It was still finally, weeks after the “Going to the barbershop hon,”incident (when I checked and snapped a picture that day-it was closed, gates drawn)that I decided it was him or me. Later, I came to find out he was going for his daily grooming upstairs three blocks (same street, no less!, at one of the young woman’s apartment’s
that he was planning on leaving me for…but I digress
a couple of weeks later, it was my birthday.
Every year, I marked it by doing something nice for myself and vowed to not I involve him. He, didn’t like birthday’s. His, he claimed or anyone elses! Thouh I later came to find that he according to cards from others had many birth days!
He promised me a great birthday this year. He was even going to buy me a present this time…
We headed to the store and he somehow made the experience so unpleasant for me, that I ended up leavin the store, pleading with him to not buy me anything! Yes, pleaded with him, to please forget about getting me anything!
When we got back I to the car, he screamed and yelled at me about me being ungrateful and then when he noticed two girls in another car were watching as tears rolled down my cheeks and I was trying to not break apart, he turned, and asked me to kiss him. He didn’t apologize! He broke character (yes, there were lots of characters inside him, too bad he couldn’t complete just one act of decency in any of them) and asked me to behave and kiss him!
That’s when I realized – he was crazy!
I mean, full tilt, NPS crazy!
My life had become a lifetime movie, and we all know, they don’t always end up with the main victim being okay.
I kissed him as passionately as I could, with tears rollling down my cheek.
I began to drive us back home, no present included – when he asked me if I loved him?!
I told him yes, feeling no, and then stated I was no longer in love with him.
He was shocked, and when he finally asked me what did I feel, now half crazy myself, I responded “I feel like taking a knife and sticking it through your throat.”
it was to be our last car ride together after he got scared and asked to be let off at the light at the exit of the freeway.
Yes, that was the beginning of my turning point, and my free way!
Thank you lovefraud!
Kisses and fame2
Hello all, Wow what an incredible series of posts. And Vocct, I haven’t had time to read your blog yet, but if Oxy says do it then trust me- she knows- when to hold’em and when to fold ’em you might say.
There is something wonderful about the clarity and strength that so many poster’s have, after waking up from the coma…: )
After many years of drip drip then shock and awe then more drip drip of all the behaviors ( except cheating, or so I thought) my moment came when he got all puffed up, proud and excited about about a huge new “deal” he was going to do. Broker a transaction that would lay bare to harvesting and mining 600 thousand acres of Brazilian rainforest.
I immediately retorted, “Not with me as your wife”. and meant it.
No safety net, no out, just jumped off the cliff. It made me feel physically ill to think of food on my families table from that kind of a “deal”, and realizing that he was proud of it well..need I go on? It was the last of many many straws.
Unfortunately, after 4 mos. seperation and 5 weeks NC- I did get sucked back in one last time – ( because he loved me SO much)…only to finally hit the history button on the computer a year later and discover that I wasn’t even his preferred gender, and he had been cruising for sex on line during our entire “reconcilliation” while we wer trying to “save” our blah blah…
Even then, I still had faith that he would act fairly and had some decency as a “family man”…..well…not even close- he has just dropped the mask entirely and it sure is not pretty.
Hen’s comments about sharing some faults in the relationshxxt also resonate with me. Looking at Eckhardt Tolles message about the ego and the egoic mind…and all the trouble it brings upon us. My ego was fiercely identified with having finally found “Mr. Right” the one that knew I was special, the one that chose me above all others, the one that built the whole hologram of the happy nuclear family on steroids.
In short- I had to learn how to let go of the lies that I had been so eager to hear, because they fed the image I had created in my own head of what my “reality” was. He planted the seed, and I fastidiously nurtured and tended it.
Peace and love,
Dear Anitasee,
Ah yes, I loved your analogy of him “planting the seed” makes me think it is the SEED of an artificial plant— and how we nurtured it and just couldn’t understand why it wouldn’t grow, so we just kept on watering it, fertilizing it, and eventually*** hallucinating**** that it was growing! LOL Ah yes, I have SOOOOO BEEN THERE….
This is the most amazing thread! Each story different, yet each story the same. It is like the psychopaths are clones of the same evil being—but we knew that already didn’t we?
Thanks for your post….as always a thought provoking one.
Truly an amazing thread! It’s amazing the things that we, as loving, giving souls will let ourselves be dragged through. I cannot post a turning point story for myself, since we R, and I are obligated to be in contact with Ex spath for at least another 2 years. My stepson is almost 16 right now, so we really have no choice but to maintain at least superficial contact with his egg donor (to use Oxy’s name for those that do not deserve the title of mother).
I hope and pray for all of us… healing is a long, slow process. It will be so good to be FREE of her!!
Dear Hope2heal,
I do hope that you can, in the meantime while you are forced into having some “contact” with this PERSON, start to gain a knowledge that will allow you to find some PEACE in SPITE of this woman’s antics and the continual drama that surrounds her.
I’ll tell you a little story, maybe it will help. My son and I have a beloved friend who is 62 but in VERY poor health. He is married to a DRAMA QUEEN woman that both of us DETEST, but in order to see our friend and to visit with him we MUST HAVE SOME ASSOCIATION WITH HER. It used to GALL my BUTT, CHAP ME COMPLETELY every time I had to even THINK about being in her presence just so my son and I could spend an evening with her husband once in a while. It almost got to the point it wasn’t worth it to see him.
WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM HERE? Her???? Actually NOT HER.
The problem was MY ATTITUDE ABOUT HER. Hummmmmm now, let’s see….I can’t do jack sheet about her or how she acts or what she says or does…BUT I HAVE TOTAL CONTROL OVER HOW I RESPOND. So I decided that I would NOT LET HER IRRITATE ME. I will not let her snide remarks get to me, I will not let the nasty way she treats her husband get to me (he is after all an adult, it is HIS PROBLEM) and though your step son is only 16 how he reacts to her is HIS PROBLEM not yours. He has choices. How he behaves is his choice too.
You can’t control her and you can’t control him, and you can’t keep her from being a biatch to him, or him responding like a dysfunctional teenager….but you HAVE TOTAL CONTROL OVER HOW YOU RESPOND.
Now, actually I can talk to the drama queen on the phone or be around her and NOT BE THE LEAST BIT IRRITATED because of CHANGING MY ATTITUDE TOWARD HER. I do NOT****NOT**** CARE what she says or how she acts because I do NOT care about her or what she thinks or feels. She is simply NADA TO ME.
I don’t hate her, I don’t despise her…I just don’t ANYTHING her. I have reached the nirvana of indifference to her. The opposite of love is not hate, it is INDIFFERENCE.
Become INDIFFERENT TO THE WOMAN….take away the power she has to irritate you and make you angry and frustrated. RECOVER YOUR POWER!!!!! Recover yourself! God bless.
God bless you Oxy!
I really don’t hate Ex. However, I DO hate the things she has done to my dear R, and continues to try to do now. She, on the other hand, absolutely HATES me. I believe that is due to the support and encouragement that I give R. She does not like the fact that she cannot control him anymore.
Indifference… boy, that’s a tough one. I’m not sure how to get to that point. All I can say is, I will try. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being here (((OXY)))
Dear HtoH, If it is to early for indifference, what I find helpful is to remember to NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY- no matter what they do or say. Because it is never about us. It is only about them.
in sympathy tho’ I agree it is very difficult to get away from their drama.
I am about to go for one more round in court- trying to collect on my judgement, and sometimes have to ask myself- am I still addicted? or is this strictly business? After 9 months of waiting (skeptically) for him to come through on promises to my sons and to me that he was just about to pay…well you all know the story. So here I go..like a dog with a bone once again.
letting him sail off into the sunset without another knock out punch is just to unbearable, as blissful as the time off from fighting have been.
I need more than NC..I need a some justice and the satisfaction of screwing with his head for a change.
Dear Hope2heal,
Yea, indifference is one of those things we must CONTINUALLY work on, it may get there and then you may lose it. LOL But as long as you work on it, you can make progress and not let them control you. As long as they have the POWER to “make” you mad, sad, etc. they have control over you. We can take back that control.
Since you have NO NICE EXPECTATIONS for her (in other words you don’t trust her to do what is right) she isn’t going to “disappoint” you.
How much we are wounded by a particular act is mostly I think dependent upon what we EXPECT from that relationship. If a stranger unknown to you robs your house, you are pithed of course, but you are not devastated that someone you loved betrayed you and robbed you. So, when you EXPECT someone to be a liar, betrayer, arse, etc. you get what you expect and are not surprised or gobsmacked at what happens.
I admit the closer someone is to you or yours, and when they are hurting someone else you love, it is TOUGH but you can do it. Work on it, don’t beat yourself up if you lose it from time to time, that is to be expected. Each time you get there, and then lose it, it is EASIER to get it back I think. Even from those that at one time you trusted or loved….Just keep on working at it! Only a couple more years! (((hugs))))
Dear Anita,
I hope you get your money but if you don’t at least you tried! Sometimes that’s enough. (((hugs)))
Like most, I was in denial for a very long time. It was only after we were married, moved into together that I realized first that he was a liar – but I didn’t understand he was a bad person, or know of his criminal record (that was much later, by accident).
The “awakening” point for me was when I got my engagement/wedding ring appraised. I had thought, “At least, I have this I can sell for cash.” Ha! He had the last laugh there too. It was fake of course, this supposed $25K ring.
The unfortunate, intangible “tool of the trade” these cons have is the remarkable ability of the brain to “see” things as the con would have us believe – and as we wish to believe (i.e., denial). Our brain can’t find logic in many of the lies because it believes this person to have integrity, to care, cherish us. So, the many, many red flags that come up (the tarnished “14K gold” ring, bounced checks, stories changing) are just dismissed because the truth is too illogical, unbelievable for our brains/us.
The brains uncanny ability to “adapt” like this, is also why we need to find forgiveness for ourselves. We, the conned, are not stupid people (as we often beat ourselves up for being); We are good people who want to see, believe the good in others. Our brains have been taught to do this. This is how we learned to trust.
As I often say now: Only a con can cheat a con – not an honest person.