Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following story from a reader whom we’ll call “Gianna.”
The first sociopath I met was most likely my ex husband. He did not show guilt nor remorse for his constant infidelity and apathy towards me for the 2 years that we were together. Finally when he found someone new, he agreed to an annulment, but it proved favourable to him because now he had a reason to do so because he got the girl pregnant and he could blame me for the annulment because in the years we were apart, I also had a relationship. And the full blame on the annulment was directed at me instead of him.
For the relationship I had immediately after my ex husband, he showed all the signs of instant adoration, overwhelming attention, constant presence and constant communication that I didn’t have from my ex husband, and I was smitten because I never had that and I thought he was too good to be true and that I’m so lucky for all this effusive attention. Little did I know that this was what “love bombing” was, and Donna and others are completely right that sociopaths do this to get the target smitten immediately.
So I moved in with him shortly after that, and then a few weeks from then, I immediately noticed that something was amiss with him. He constantly needed to control me, to go with me wherever I went, and if for some reason, I needed to go alone and he couldn’t go, he would be so irate and accuse me of meeting another man behind his back. And this constant need for him to hover around me became such a big control factor that made me realize that he wanted to control me.
Then he was also constantly asking me how much money I made and then also constantly borrowing money whenever he knew that I was going to make a deal, which he would always know because he also insisted on being always with me wherever I went, with a client or not, as I was in sales. He also never let me have any time alone, even going to the salon was not easy for me.
On top of that, he would have violent temper tantrums if I tried to reason with him.
Eventually he was able to borrow a substantial amount of money from my client who he smooth talked and managed to convince because he was so persuasive, as sociopaths I learned are like that.
And he also never showed affection when we’re together just the two of us, very very, rare and if I did initiate it, he would respond with irritation. He always had this fake smile plastered on his face in public for all to see, but when we’re just alone together, he was sullen, always sneakily by himself “working on something” but when I would ask what, he would immediately cover it. He would pretend he’s working. When I asked him what he did to the money that he borrowed, he said he tried but it’s all lost in his “investment.” Fortunately, he already left when he was able to get money from one of the people he “smooth talked.”
The next one came immediately after this one. He also lavished me with 1000% attention, affection but the difference was, he didn’t try to control me. I could still do my thing, I could be engrossed in my language studying and he didn’t mind, and he showed full support in whatever I wanted.
But eventually I also realized he kept asking me for money and the more I gave, the more he asked until I realized he depended on me for everything. This would have been fine if he really loved me, but I found out that he was still keeping another woman hanging on to him, the mother of his two kids whom he “claimed” to be separated with already.
He said it was just the kids he couldn’t leave but I also found out he was still having sex with the mother and also portraying a “husband and wife” relationship with her, such that the girl thinks that I am the mistress. So then after that girl started harassing, I separated with him, but after a month, he came back again and promised that he had already separated with her. I believed and was deceived again.
I thought that this time things would be different. But months into our new, second-wind relationship, he started to be less attentive, he still borrows money and still depended on me 100% financially, but then something has changed, again, and this time the girl is back, again, and is now doing her harassment in full force, slandering me in social media, sending malicious sms texts about me to the people in the contacts list.
Apparently, the guy gave her the phone that he used to send texts to me and the girl of course managed to read all messages that the guy and I exchanged over the course of many months since he came back. This leads me to think that the guy really wanted to make the girl jealous and wanted to create all this drama, because he wanted two girls to be fighting over him, it sends his ego to heaven, makes him feel like such a Big Man.
When I wanted to find closure finally, i went to his place and found the girl there, and realised that they were having sex or just had sex, and when I asked, he never denied. And then I realized what we had was all a big lie, and there was no remorse, no guilt and nothing afterwards from him that was real.
Help for Overcoming the Trauma of Facing the Abuser in Court
Gianna,
You are in good company here. I too was with multiples of these types, and each one presented just a bit different than the others’. Took some time, and the help of LF, to figure out the more common traits that they all possessed, and how to listen to my guts more than what I was ‘hearing and seeing’.
That’s why comparisons are not a workable strategy for who is a sociopath/disordered. Intial presentation can vary quite a bit.
Some are very soft spoken and kind appearing, loving animals, the earth, their parents (my grandfather who was a sexual predator was this type…salt of the earth guy). Or they can be loud, boisterous, pompous, self inflating, party animals. They can also be intellectuals, garbage men, nurses, psychiatrists…..
They adapt to their environments, and their vision and presentation of themselves in maximized to take advantage of that milieu.
But bottom line, no matter the presentation, they all look for our emotional reactions to them from the very start. And sometimes subtley (sometimes forcefully) they all begin to provoke us to react more and more strongly to them as time goes on. At some point (and this point is different from person to person) they will all take negative reactions over positive ones, needing a ‘stronger’ sense of power that our hurt, anger, disappointment, and depression provides them.
Somewhere along the line of our relating to them our ‘love’ bores them, and is not enough ‘payment’ for their company. That is when they let it rip: causing fights, setting us up for humiliation, revealing their worst behaviors.
They are just piles of poop camouflaged as decorated cakes. Each looks different until you cut into it. Then they all stink.
I’ve been involved in several psychopath relationships; now that I’ve been able to look back on them. First, was an abusive, controlling marriage of 29 years. Following divorce from HIM, I moved to a small town..let myself be suckered and conned into dealings with a contractor (who IS a psychopath) and who ripped me off of money for home remodeling/repairs that I couldn’t afford to lose); my next psychopath relationship was related to the above crooked contractor..their attempts to rip me off were foiled by my saying NO to an overpriced car, that these ‘friends’ tried to sell me. They were outraged when I backed out. So, I’ve been involved with at least 3 psychopaths..it hurts to learn this stuff, not just once, but over and over again.