Lovefraud recently received the letter below from a reader; we’ll call her Andrea.
I was married to a sociopath for 12 years (didn’t know it until we divorced). He had 3 affairs and was a minister for a majority of that time. He messed up a lot of lives. Anyway, I am at my wits end right now because I cannot get him out of my life because we had 2 children. I am so tired of dealing with him. My kids are 12 and 10 now and my ex is doing everything in his power to try and convince my son to go live with him when he’s 14. I see it happening and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I keep notes about everything that happens, but my lawyer tells me that it would be a very hard case if my son wants to go.
I’m also struggling right now because I have something my ex wants. I have some documents from when we were married and owned a business. He needs some proof that another couple we were in business with is not responsible for a loan we had. My ex got the loan in the divorce. I believe he’s trying to bankrupt his business. Anyway, I’m refusing to give him the documents because I am so tired of being bullied by him and lied to. I know this was a stupid thing to do because now he’s furious and is attacking me through emails and bashing me to the kids. But, it seems so unfair that I have to give in to him ALL THE TIME to keep the peace. I am tired of it. He has something I want and I’m holding the documents as a bargaining tool. Do you think this will work with a sociopath? Or am I just asking for it?
A relationship or any type of involvement with a sociopath leaves us with a big ball of turmoil. We discover that everything he or she has ever said to us was a lie, and we are outraged. We learn that we were played like a fool, and we are humiliated. We realize that our love and trust were abused, and we fear that we’ll never love and trust again.
While trying to deal with the emotional shock of the betrayal, we also have to deal with the practical issues of disengaging—divorce, finances, children. As we do this, especially if there are legal proceedings involved, we want to tell the world, or at least the judge, about the sociopath’s wrongdoing. We want to prove that we were honorable, and the sociopath was not. We want to be vindicated.
The sociopath does not experience this emotional turmoil. The sociopath’s only objective is to win. The definition of “winning,” of course, depends on what the sociopath wants. Maybe it’s keeping his or her possessions, such as children. Maybe it’s keeping his or her money by not having to pay child support. Maybe it’s destroying us.
Think strategically
Usually Lovefraud advises our readers to have no contact with sociopaths. Of course, this is not possible when someone, like Andrea, has to co-parent with a sociopath.
My advice to Andrea was to think strategically. There is no point withholding the documents just because she is tired of being bullied. What does she really want? What leverage does she have to get what she wants?
The documents she talks about are leverage. Therefore, Andrea should play this exactly as the sociopath would—using the documents to extract some kind of concession out of him. She needs to evaluate what that might be, and then use her leverage to get it.
However, whatever she demands needs to be something that the sociopath can deliver immediately, not at some time in the future. Sociopaths do not honor agreements, so there is no point in asking for something that will be delivered later, or over a long period of time. It will never happen.
What works?
For sociopaths, it’s all a game, a game that they want to win.
In my case, however, my sociopathic ex-husband, James Montgomery, just quit playing. In our divorce, he fired his attorney, signed papers to represent himself pro se, and then defaulted. He was on to his next scam, and had no use for me. I never interacted with him again.
So I actually don’t have experience in ongoing dealings with a sociopath. Therefore, I ask Lovefraud readers for your input. If you must continue to deal with a sociopath, what works?
Dear Jordan and endthe pain,
Welcome to you both!
Yes, they do use their children to get what they want and the child is the one that suffers.
End the pain, since there is no order HE would have to hire a lawyer to go back and get visitation and I imagine he would have to pay support and back support, so I sincerely DOUBT that he would be able to do that (no job and all) so I also suggest NC –NO CONTACT—don’t answer his mail, e mail, phone calls, texts, or the door. JUST TOTALLY IGNORE. Chances are he will go away, he is just wanting back with YOU not the child.
Jordan, with the history you gave, there is a possibility you can get custody of the child, but also she may try from time to time to get the child back….I have friends in the same situation with you. I can only say I can only imagine how much it must hurt. Good luck. I also suggest you read the information on Dr. Leedom’s blog about raising the “at risk” child. God bless you both and welcome to love fraud, it’s a good place with some good infromation.
My x-sp-husband’s goal was to have an exact replica of himself. He sought out teenagers for friendship when he was in his mid-20’s with the only purpose of teaching them how to be like him. Out of this group of teenagers, who I have got to see grow up in 10 years, he succeeded in “teaching” 5 out of 5, his warped beliefs and actions. These 5 have also passed on the same actions and beliefs to the next generation of THEIR aquaintances. (Truly unbelievable and sick in my opinion).
His ultimate goal was to make my daughter just like him and he succeeded. He did it through precise manipulation and the biggest “front” I have ever experienced.
I can’t stress enough, “Do Not Let This Man Have Your Son!”
I did not know the extremes as to what he was doing to my daughter. He was telling her, in exact detail, how to misbehave, so I would just throw in the towel and let her live with her dad. After 3 years of daily nightmares with her, and a custody dispute in which I won… I did exactly that. My reasoning, I thought if he knew what was going on, by having her live with him, he could straighten out her behavior. Truth is, he already knew what she was doing because he instructed her! Hard to believe a father would tell his daughter to have sex, do drugs, skip school, lie, steal….BUT HE DID! and she was 13!
The things I see now in retrospect, appear to me daily, because there were so many lies and manipulations and calculations on his part and my only focus was on my daughter’s behavior. I knew it was coming from him, but I couldn’t figure it out. Keeping a journal of any contacts with him, and my daughter, I was able to pinpoint what he was telling her, how he went about doing it and how it corresponded to my daughter’s behavior. He did most of it by telephone. My gut was telling me he was instructing her, but I couldn’t prove it and she wasn’t talking.
My daughter is now refusing all contact with him but I feel in my heart, he could easily pull her back in. All I can do, with the help of others, is to keep reinforcing no contact.
I too had to deal with a sociopath and him attempting to get custody of my child and attempting not to pay child support.
What I have found in dealings with him are a few things.
First of all, they feed off of fear. Once you stop fearing them and stand up to them emotionally and legally, they will begin to act differently. They are used to you being afraid of them and they are used to you not adhering to the boundaries you say you are going to set. When you say you are going to do something, stick to it. Plan everything you are going to do strategically and intelligently. Try to use logic instead of emotions when you plan your course of action.
After you have done all this, use all the advantages you have, witnesses, documents, emails, their former criminal records, etc, against them. Keep everything organized and know exactly what you are going to say when you deal with them.
Usually, if you disengage from the fear and “dance of anger” with them and begin to handle them strategically instead of emotionally, THEY WILL SELF-DESTRUCT in front of everybody. When I say in front of everybody, I mean everybody (Judges, Police officers, family, friends, new spouses, girlfriends, etc). They are not good at keeping their cool when You keep yours. And they don’t fare well when they aren’t pushing anyone’s buttons.
This is what I experienced, however, it’s just my opinion.
Hope this helps….
I was married to a sociopath for 10 years, and, like many other women, did not realize what sociopathy was until after I googled his symptoms after leaving the domestic violence in 2000, along with my daughter, then 9. Three and a half long years after having no direct contact with him, yet suffering at the hands of his lies (he started identity fraud using my SS# and signed my name on his IRS) and horrendous legal battles with a corrupt court system in one state, (he had several family attorneys), and my trying to hold life up in the home state I’d moved to with our child (with his help and permission), he kidnapped our daughter at the age of 12, while on visitation in another state. It was the worst thing I’d ever feared, he’d threatened it over and over again, and it finally happened.
To make things worse, he had managed to coerce her over time by gifts and by demeaning me as a mother; his own son from his first marriage joined in the fray, while also coercing her to stay with his father and to attend concerts with his punk band, which was rising to world fame. Completely powerless to do anything, (and also with no money), and not willing to put myself back in the fire of abuse, (because I instinctively knew that the reason he did these things was to get ME back into what to him was a game), I let her go, because there was nothing I could do to fight him, or to protect her from her own decisions anymore. She had become abusive to me, and had turned into a “goth,” mimicking the band’s style and dress, and so it was the hardest thing I ever did, but I did let her go completely.
For several years, I developed PTSD, isolated myself a bit, and mourned her as dead (as I knew his propensity for violence, and her burgeoning propensity for suicidal ideation). I told her I would always be there for her, but that I could not put myself back into the violence or let her decision lead me to ruin the only life I’d started to try to save her life and soul from the consciousless behaviors he believed in. At the same time, I feared the loss, not only of her life, but of her beautiful soul. All I knew is that my job was to heal myself, to walk on, and create and protect a soft place for her to fall, someday. I knew that she would prefer getting to know the mother that was healthy and strong and free of abuse, than to come back to the mother that cowered in fear and continuously broke down in tears of utter loss.
For three years, I heard nothing from her, until a therapist called me from NJ and told me that she’d just gotten out of the hospital after a third attempted suicide. The therapist set up one short weekend in which I could see her. I was frightened to see that she was depressed, very thin, and still goth. She had used all manner of drugs, gotten into all kinds of trouble, and I knew also that the abuse had continued. She went away, and I heard nothing from her for more than two years. Finally, she started coming to visit, for a weekend here, a vacation there.
At long last, I’d found a new life, a wonderful partner, and the freedom to begin something new and beautiful and healing, without this kind of sociopathy attached.
It was this past November that my daughter ran away from her father; she was 17. She had been lashing out in so many ways at her father and half-brother, and they were both ganging up on her to try to control her; last November, when she came up for a visit, she started revealing an unspeakable forms of abuse, not only from her father, but now also at the hands of her 30 year old half-brother. She was down to 90 lbs., was using heroin and other drugs to mute her pain, admitted to being truant for over 22 days in her school, was in withdrawal and was vomiting. and she’d cut her legs to shreds as a way to mute the suffering. She revealed a aspect of the abuse that led me to have to make an awful decision. I didn’t know what her father would do, but I knew I would not send her back to NJ, not over my dead body. With the help and negotiation of two therapists, our family therapist here (with my new husband), and my ex’s therapist (and daughter’s), we managed to secure a deal for her to stay here, without using lawyers, and we notified CPS of the situation. I couldn’t figure out why the ex was being so uncharacteristically cooperative until I realized that the NJ school had started a CPS investigation months ago, so it was purely fortuitous that we didn’t have to go to court. Since then, the ex backed off completely, and soon after my daughter left him, he very quickly met and remarried a woman from another country who barely speaks any English. (As my mother always said, “The truth always eventually comes out, but sometimes you have to wait a long time for all the “dead bodies” to float to the surface”) – these words are very wise, and so very true!
My daughter is now 18, (YAY- no more control by the ex in the courts!), has had a rough transition, with severe anxiety and PTSD. She sometimes acts verbally abusive, but we have held fast to the idea that she does this as a response to the PTSD and not as a perpetrator, yet. We hold fast to our boundaries, and slowly, she is responding like a flower, starting to grow again into the light. She was hospitalized for 8 days, and is now on some medications that help her regulate her emotional responses, but she is also realizing that she no longer needs to abuse or lash out, as my husband and I are by nature peaceful and respectful human beings.
I know how hard it is for so many of us, especially where children are involved. There are no easy answers, and all of it is excruciatingly painful, whether we decide to fight back, or play “belly up.” For me, playing belly up seemed to work better over a long period of time, because, as my friend once said, “if you do what you always did, you’re gonna get what you always got.” In addition, the more we keep our own lives as sacred, with as many private things kept as unknown to the sociopath, the more empowerment we find in our own lives. The more we let go of the fact that we’re powerless, the less power he will have. (The person least invested in an outcome is always the one with the most power). In addition, children have minds and wills of their own, and eventually, coercion is a powerful tool in the hands of the sociopath, and so our kids need to sometimes take that path to find out who they are on their own terms, not on ours, even if it means that they choose to stay with the sociopath for awhile, as awful and hard as it is for us to let them do it. The most important thing I ever did when leaving the ex (and I can only say that it worked because my daughter is still alive in spite of the worst thing happening), is to sever the relationship completely with the sociopath, in parenting, in any type of business communication, or verbal communication. I held fast to the Great Wall of China I put up between us in 2000, to protect our lives and sanity (even as he broke the restraining order several times and was arrested twice in our own state, used many scare tactics including hiring people to send us death threats). I knew even that I was risking our lives by doing this, but I felt the risk was worth it, even if the outcome might be the loss of my own life. I always held the faith that I deserved a better life, and that to act fearlessly, as if he didn’t exist, even if he took my own child, or tried to kill me, would be the only tools I could use to keep a safe haven for me and for her, should she freely choose later to come home and heal. I wish everyone the best of luck, wherever you happen to sit.
Never lose the faith in your own instinct. Never judge yourself or let anyone else judge your decisions, because we are the only ones that are dealing with things that many others cannot understand. Try to always remember that when the airplane loses oxygen, we’re supposed to put the masks on ourselves before our children first. When dealing with a sociopath, this mask represents our sacred, private lives, which the children need as their soft place to fall, no matter how long they are lost or gone.
Thanks for the forum, and for providing this website- it has been a beacon of hope and an invaluable resource.
Peace. Hope. Joy to all.
Diana
Dear endthepain,
I am sorry for your pain. Take solace in the fact that he would have to take it back to court for visitation with your son.
Let the S know in a casual matter of fact way(BUT FIRM) that legally you can not give him visitation unless it is court ordered. AND in the event that it is, he will have support payment to keep up, medical insurance, half of all medical bills from this point on, college provisions, etc etc.
BEEF IT UP.
THis ALONE may be enuf for MR. I-Wanna-Play-Daddy to slither under his rock that some other woman is probally paying for anyway.
FACT is You MUST NOT ALLOW ANTYTHING that isn’t court ordered- suppose he takes child out of state against your wishes or any # of herific scenerios.
BE prepared -they are relentless in forcing you to respond. YOU decide N/C and be “relentless” with Your decision.
OXY is right, he wants YOU- to suck the life from you. You owe your energy to you and your son, this S is a thief.Don’t give him any thought. You are in CONTROL here.
NEVER appear scared or weak- Demons such as this feed off of it. KEEP firm boundaries. .
In case he tries to Guilt trip you: I know what it is like to yearn for the dad (if he were REAL) to participate in your sons life. I’ve been in a heartbreaking situation with my own son (he is now 20)where his dad was in and out of his life over a period of 12 yrs. He caused so much trauma emotionally for my son that is still a factor, I WISH my son had never even knew him. My son has the same sentiment.
The pain of a dysfunctional father who withheld affection at a whim was almost more than my son or I could take. The heartache seemed unbearable that his SO CALLED BIO-father made me feel guilty for not allowing contact SO I caved in. Every situation is different,
Just pray that God will protect and guide you and He will.
Jordon- Best of luck to you as well. Oxy gave you great advice. Be strong and study these posts. Peace to you.
Question…. Can a child of divorce make the legal decision of which parent they wish to live with at 14?? In all states? What states?
My ex convinced my 13 y/o that he can move when he is 14. I told him that it would take the family court judge to make an order to do so. Our custody order is very specific about not splitting up our children, and my ex was denied her motion to move my children with her out of state.
Outside of taking me back to court, does my ex have a leg to stand on in getting my oldest to move?
AKA Bob:
it varies from State to State. Some States view a child at 14 as having the capacity to make this decision. Other’s don’t. I’d check out your State Attorney General’s Office and see if they have rendered any opinions on this. If they haven’t, I’d submit a written inquiry. You also might want to contact a few of the children’s law advocacy groups in your state. A lot of law schools have child advocacy clinics, so they might be able to hep you out too.
The problem you’re going to have is how are you going to stop your kid from making this move, short of tying him down? The agreement may say the kids aren’t supposed to be separated, but short of chaining him to a radiator, you’re in for a tough ride. Any chance of your moving even further away to get the ex further away from the kids?
Just a thought off the top of my head – without having the time this morning to read all the great responses – what I read is:
“I have some documents from when we were married and owned a business.
He needs some proof that another couple we were in business with is not responsible for a loan we had.
My ex got the loan in the divorce. I believe he’s trying to bankrupt his business. ”
While the language isn’t absolutely clear as to whether or not the other couples’ names were on that loan, and this couple bought them out, OR that the other couple never were on the loan for the business….
Why can she not arrange to have the documents handed over to the other couple/former business partners – to be relayed to him.
IF the other couple’s names are on it, having signed OFF of it, they’d have every right to have those documents in their OWN records – and out “poster” today would rightfully be able to say, it’s out of her hands.
As I see it, that would take the onus off of our “poster,” and would also put the responsibility right back upon the P/S/N to go to the originating bank (the one that made the loan, to get the copies he needs) AND it would take the wind out of the P/S/N’s sails. All she would have to say is either: 1. I can’t find them, or 2. I don’t have them any more.
Just a thought or two – perhaps more thorough reading later in the day.
~cheers all~
Thank you for the responses!! The amount of pain you endure when dealing with this type of person is unimaginable unless you have lived it..when he is gone..I feel peace…and I intend on keeping this peace as long as possible. He has been ordered to pay a set amount of support..I already lowered it once..he voluntarily left his job in Oct when he came back last as he believed I was going to take care of him..I did for a short period of time..then told him to get out..he is n ow behind in support and without a job..he seesm intent on getting it reduced so far has had no luck..my fear comes from what he will do as far as desperation to lower the support..he has no money and is not even bothering to look for work..uses the economy to his advantage so to speak..so any ideas as far as the suppoirt aspect?? do I just let it go let the courts deal with him..I intend to keep up no contact..it has been quiet for over a wek but pattern shows calm before the storm so Im prepared.
I would just go NC with him, keep him out of your life as much as possible, not answer any calls or the door. If he is behind in his support, you have a certain amount of clout to have him ARRESTED for back support that is unpaid. I would be willing to tell him, “Look, go away or I will have you arrested for not paying your support. If you leave me and our child alone I will not push for that and you will not go to jail, but if you push to see me or our baby I will push for support to the max”
Then nothing after that. They usually will be willing to forego the “visits” for the non pushing of the support….if he knows you are SERIOUS….and I would be. I know it is your decision and you know him and what he is likely to do, but just something for you to think about. He does NOT want to see the baby, he is just using the baby to try to hook you back again to support HIM. If he goes years without support or visitation, you might be able to have his rights terminated (matt would have more info on that) That was how my parents got my P-sperm donor’s parental rights terminated because he nver visited me or paid support, so I was labeled and “abandoned child” and my step father was allowed to adopt me.
Good luck.