Editor’s note: The following story was sent by a Lovefraud reader whom we’ll call “Carmella.” Read Part 1.
I had been asking questions to the family friend about why the guys were either quitting or getting fired within a few weeks. My guy kept blaming them; they started out great but in his eyes they turned out to be lazy.
The next day is when I spoke to family friends that had worked for him only to be fired or had quit. He was bullying them and had told them what they did together stayed between them, don’t tell me.
They confirmed my suspicions, he had a fling with my old neighbor, was talking to other women on the phone, meeting other woman for lunch and kissing them goodbye etc. All the while telling me he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and that he loved me, he cared about me.
He would tell me there would be time later for us to spend together to grow our relationship, better intimacy, quiet time etc.
He ran when I CONFRONTED HIM. When I didn’t respond to his matter of fact empty apology, he stopped talking to me and told his story as the victim to his 80-year-old boss, blaming me for everything. She fell for 99.9% of it.
This woman is a retired policeman, past assistant to chief of police and he convinced her. She has connected him to many wealthy affluent clients and he has conned them all while living this double life.
The night he had been drinking, I found he had been at a strip club drinking all afternoon with his sales rep from the local building materials store.
He had more serious intentions with my neighbor, as he had stated to one of the workers that once he obtained his license he would be driving her Mercedes.
One of the workers who quit because he couldn’t stand it anymore said that he had stayed behind after they put in new French doors to her patio telling him not to tell me.
The friend said the job was a breeze and that he was rubbing her back and they would be standing very close together when he would come back inside from getting something from the truck.
My guy admitted staying but expressed his disgust with the worker because the job was very difficult and due to him leaving early he had to finish it by himself. So he knew he better tell me he stayed but he lied as to why.
This particular worker stated he was tired of being yelled at and treated like garbage. He stated he was tired of being left to do all the work while he and another worker ran around so he could whore around.
Both workers said he was taking calls from other women calling them baby, sweetheart, and doll. He had begun answering me “what’s up” or yes dear, like I was the elderly woman.
This man is with someone else now just 4 months later, picture on Facebook and surrounded by church going friends. The picture of him and the new female is old and foggy.
I truly believe I was his target for someplace to land, transportation, etc., whatever he could get that he needed. He manipulated me greatly but thank God my gut told me things were not right.
It is devastating to realize someone you loved would do something like this.
There is much more to tell but I do believe he is at least a narcissist if not a sociopath.
I do not know what to do; if he is using all these people, exploiting them; what else will he do?
He has a very extensive background and I was very stupid. I have a kind heart and look for the best in people. He was very aggressive with the attention, the songs, phone calls on my days off and when he was volunteering somewhere. Every opportunity to call and say he loved me over and over.
I would tell him he could not know that yet; it was too soon, but he persisted that he had never felt this way about anyone in his life. He would die without me ”¦ desperation for what he needed.
When he went out shopping he called and called and called. When I was away from him I questioned it all, second guessed myself, because it seemed like the pressure was on to brainwash me to convince me.
If I were to report him, there would be great scandal and he would probably be incarcerated again, pulled out of the work release program.
The problem is that all he does is suspicious. Time spent out working 16 hours a day and they don’t question it, they don’t check to see where he is.
He is posting on Facebook; I am dumbfounded and made the fool.
I hope the female he is with now gets away from him and soon. I am sure he has others in the background, just in case he needs someplace else to go. He was communicating with other women, taking them to lunch and dinner; he was looking for back-ups when this fell apart, as he knew it was on its way.
BUT even though it was crumbling, up to the day I confronted him, he kept saying things like next year this and next year that. He had no intention of next year, only to use me until he was on his feet to move on or found something better.
If someone truly loves you, they don’t just up and run away, close off all contact, have his elderly boss intervene for him as he feared legal action against him. She defended him to a point you would not believe.
She did however, say she told him he was either going to clean up his life or chase women, and if it was the latter she was dropping him.
This guy had me so convinced he was on the straight and narrow.
Last but not least, the work he did on my house voluntarily to impress me ending up being mediocre at best. He left 3 simple projects half completed and with damages, minor but still damaged due to him, I feel, just not giving a damn. These projects should have been done in a couple of weekends. He dragged them out over the summer, some 6 months.
It is very difficult to get over something like this. You feel betrayed, made the fool, humiliated, emotionally heartbroken and shock.
When you are a decent human being who gives people the benefit of the doubt, it is very hard to imagine that people actually act this way with no remorse, no regret, and no sincere apologies of any kind. No attempts to make amends, none.
He has literally disappeared, which to me signifies GUILTY AS SIN.
And remember, to him, everything was my fault. I didn’t treat him good enough, didn’t love him enough, made him feel like s*** and he told all this to his sponsor, the elderly lady and she bought it.
He is amazing at the charismatic and charming personality. A more perfect respectful gentleman I have never met. Go figure, but this too shall pass.
Carmella – It is such a blow to realize that we were nothing but a source of supply for the sociopath. Thank you for sharing your story.
Thank you, Donna. Yes, it was a horrific blow. Thank you for this site. My sister was the first to say she was afraid he was a sociopath. She is a retired nurse from varied areas; one being Psychiatry. There is much more to this story but what I have told about is how he pulled me in and what took place after he had my complete trust. I have learned a lot from your site and from the experience with him. I will rise above all of this; I know my role, my responsibility in this situation. I will not allow it to change the person that I am. I am not perfect but I am a kind, loving, and decent female who believes in helping others and giving them the benefit of the doubt. I know now what to look for to recognize this type of personality.
Thank you again.
Carmella, I know you’re hurting and hating, right now and that’s how it has to be. I don’t think, though, there was as much in this connection that was done by design but rather what would likely happen to a fellow feeling his way back into life on the outside. Could you have known that he had a lot of living to get done (things to fail, things to figure out, things to find out about himself) before he’d ever be sound partner material? Yes, you could have. And yes, you can forgive yourself that wishful naivete so long as you forgive him his, too.
Don’t make the skirt chasing, lying, sexual inadequacies, slipshod work, etc. into reportable crimes, Carmella. That’s exploitation of a high order, girl. Every ex-con out there is a sitting target for anyone feeling scorned. It doesn’t sound like his intentions were to exploit you, he just failed you…As was predictable for the growing he has to do. He has disappeared because you can put him in peril of incarceration again.
If you want to grow from this experience, listen to a letter of gratitude from someone who actually did:
“Before I fucked up, I thought I was a good person. I thought I was noble, and pure, and I thought I did good deeds in the lives of the people I loved. But over the course of years I fucked up. I mistook codependence for partnership. I mistook my craving to be needed and loved for altruism. I mistook the dependence I created in others for strength shared. I mistook my distance and withholding for self-sufficiency.
But I fucked up, and I learned. I am not a good person today. Neither am I a bad person. Instead I am a person who strives to behave like the sort of person I want to be. I try to live as if I am good, knowing that I have failed before. Failure keeps me from the corrosive trap of certainty, and I am grateful for it.”
Sigrid Ellis (From “Dear Sugar, Advice Column #90: The 94 Ways of Saying Thank You” at therumpus.net)
Hope you grab onto this teachable moment.
Several discussions were had between us about what he was going to go through. Although naive, I do have common sense. He is not a VICTIM by any means. His behavior with me is not what will cause him legal repurcussions. He knew what he was doing was wrong otherwise he wouldn’t have lied and wouldn’t have demanded secrecy with his workers.
I have forgiven him but I hold him accountable for his actions. We all must forgive in order to move forward. There are and were many people very willing to help him. He made his choices and continues to do so. I know factually he is still doing the same behavior. I am very grateful that I followed my instincts as this could have turned out much worse. There are other actions outside the whoring around that would be considered fraud with great legal ramifications which I did not go in to. Those are his actions, his choices.
I may have lacked knowledge about some things but I in no way am responsible for his actions. He targeted me to use me for what he needed; I have no doubt about that fact. It is, however, sad that someone with such intelligence and talent chooses to use it in that way. Life is hard for a lot of people and they do not take on the attitude of entitlement nor do they justify using, hurting, and or cheating other people in order to obtain what they need. I own my responsiblity, he does not otherwise he wouldn’t have run away. He would have faced me and discussed his issues. The thing he needs to fear is the ultimate repurcussions of his actions, not me. I have compassion but dare not have pity. He is very aware of his actions. I thank you for your comment though. We all have things in our past that are painful and we all have the ability to overcome them. We can choose to look at them and move forward in a positive, responsible manner or continue to play the victim preying on the compassion of others to get us through. I am, however, empathetic to whatever caused him to beome this way. Sad, I am sure.
You received my opinion most graciously. Thank you. The thrust was really about no harm returned for harm.
Whatever you think or feel about your experience that puts down the stepping stones for healing and engaging in life is the way to go. And that takes time, of course. (Not as much as you may fear, I promise.)
I must correct the impression I made if I made one of feeling sorry for him or he a victim. I only feel sorry for him that he’s lost you in his life. He just had/has alot of growing up to do. These guys weren’t real long viewed or resistant to the vagaries of life in the first place. Prison not only doesn’t improve their decision making, it tends to further regress them by the authoritarian nature of it: Someone tells them where to put each foot and their decision practice amounts to coffee black or with sugar.
These are 9 year olds in adult shapes. They have only practice with gab; no other practice with even the routine challenges. Doing the gab well in prison does count for something… That it doesn’t in real life. You take for granted all the challenges/choices you have mastered because you’ve mastered them. It’s understandable that you would have taken adult talk for him being an adult… But he wasn’t. And he won’t be for, at least, 10 years…if ever.
I don’t know any woman whose ever thought it worth it when they wound up playing the “Mama” role for an adult kid. Let’s just say that if they didn’t have a startle reflex before the encounter, they had a big one after a year or so. And you know what? If they were honest, they’d admit they didn’t like how they turned out: Skittish, shrewish, whiney, teeth ground to nubs and leaking all sorts of biterness and resentment. And when their with women free of all that (Because those women weren’t in those conditions that malformed them), it hurts way more than you’ll ever remember of your pain now.
It sounds like you kept some of your boundaries. Good for you. I hope you can count yourself lucky soon that he blew the relationship up relatively quickly, so that you’re not going to be the withered “Mama” in a few years.
viewpoint,
No I did not fall for the mama situation. I agree with you; they do not experience rehab in prison. They, I believe, only learn to adjust to the environment to survive and for a sociopathic personality….a walk in the park and a reinforcement to their ego that they are superior to the system. I believe he did experience great humiliation and embarassment with the proof right before his eyes on the computer of what he had been doing for weeks. He laid low for a week after, staying to himself. I honestly believe he was planning his counter for things he had done in order to place the blame on me. Planning how to move forward, going out to dinner with women he had been talking to in order to find his next place to land, his next victim. And he did within 2 months, he had a new female to go to. I know all these things to be facts. He gradually gets braver and braver about doing things in the open all the while knowing if they are brought to the attention of certain individuals, he would suffer possible serious repurcussions. I believe that get a high from this behavior. I am blessed to have the instincts I do and to have pushed the limit for him to bail. Regardless of the facts, it is still difficult. I have fewer and fewer painful days but there are still those that I feel betrayed, abandoned, cheated, stolen from, violated, and the obious emotional pain from having loved someone who would do this. I am infamous for getting to the bottom of things with the whole truth. I think sometimes that is not necessarily a good thing.
Yes, I will heal from this and probably in a shorter time than most as I had suspicions relatively quickly. The pain subsides, the self beatings are less, more meditation for self love and forgiveness. Ironically, I can forgive him as he is a sick individual but have difficulty forgiving myself for being so stupid even for a short time. So one thing I have finally realized is when my gut instincts tell me noooo, this is not right, I will exit stage left for good. I know I have to look at why I attract these men as the last man I dated for 18 months was a narcissist; the one before him, a womanizer, thought he was God’s gift. We have to start with ourselves, loving who we are and protecting our space so not to be violated. I am ready to move on so bring on the final healing steps to do so. thank you for your response and caring. I am very glad not to have ended up the withered momma from dealing with him. I do worry about his sponsor but she and her church fully support him. I pray for them. He is quite the con, very charismatic.
Carmella, he sounds like a classic card-carrying sociopath. (Well, at least they all should be forced to carry cards or have stamps on their foreheads or something).
Your story brought me back several years to the sociopath for whom I found this site. I will say that normally, I do not tolerate bad behavior from a man. If he repeatedly says he is going to call or show up and then doesn’t, that’s grounds for dismissal. However, this guy had a really good excuse (don’t all sociopaths?). He had a brain injury (so he lied). The army was investigating his (phony) injury, which often required tests and even surgeries to find out how he was injured. He was waiting for his lifetime medical pension. Had I known back then what a sociopath was, I would have questioned his seemingly sincere excuses and bad behaviors. I would have left immediately at the first sign of them. But I did not know what a sociopath was at the time. I am all the wiser now. Everyone on this site is now.
Were there other men in my life for whom I took them back after repeatedly breaking promises or taking me for granted? Yes. It happened both before and even once or twice after the fiasco with the sociopath came crashing down. Believing, as Viewpoint said, that I was a good person in bad company (repeatedly), I had not understood my part in all of these dramas – my part being that I became so dependent on winning the love of the man that I would put up with all kinds of bad behaviors to keep the man in my life. This was my own co-dependence. As I got stronger, I started walking away at the first sign of disrespect. There was one narcissist (from last summer) who snowed me into believing I was really special to him. It took a few months of longing and pining to figure out he was a narcissist and to let go.
As so many have said on LF over the years, it starts out being about “them”, the sociopath, but ends up being about us. What are we not seeing inside of ourselves? For me, I thought I had healed so much of my painful past. At least I had healed enough to have a happy and healthy lifestyle that involves lots of laughing, dancing, and general fun. But with men, there was still this big black cloud. My relationships with men still had an aura of drama – abandonment, co-dependency – of longing and pining for someone I couldn’t have. Or maybe I could have had them but didn’t know how because I was so guarded myself. Relationships with men continued not to be easy, and so I started to avoid them. While I did that, I focused on my own life and my continued healing – meditating and bringing in as much joy as I could handle – praying a lot, even though I’m not religious, eating well, exercising, and taking time to go inside. When I’d feel triggered by something, I’d go home, sit down, and just feel the pain and open up to it, instead of dreading and avoiding it. And I cultivated joy whenever I could. The more joy I was able to allow, the more my inner child felt permission to show her pain – the pain of a biological father who had pretty much thrown her to the wolves to deal with a narcissistic mother and abusive stepfather. This is the core of my issues with men. Not that I haven’t known this before, but for once, I began to FEEL it. In random moments after an especially joyful night out dancing with my friends, I’d be sitting in my car listening to music and letting the music sink into my soul. Then I would find myself back in my adolescence, feeling all of the innocence, fear, confusion, bitterness, and pain of finally realizing my father wasn’t going to come around to save me. My response to all of the overwhelming feelings when I was 14 was to put up a big wall. The wall was composed partly of fear of rejection, partly of shame for having something wrong with me that would make men mistreat and abandon me, and partly of wishful thinking, that some day my prince would come along and save me. In my mind, I still longed and wished for some fantasy man to sweep me off my feet. It never happened. The times I thought it had happened, reality crashed down around me. And I’m pretty sure it never will happen in the way I’d always hoped it would.
Shortly after those feelings surfaced, I started having dreams that I as an adult went back to visit my old high school and take the bus I used to take to my old middle school. It’s as if as an adult, I’m finally ready to handle all of those painful feelings from my past. My first inclination – the habit – is to shut them all down again. But I have invited them in. I live with them as I paint my cabinets and go off to work or dance class. They are a part of me I disowned years ago. Whatever we disown we recreate over and over again in our lives until we finally own it.
At the same time, I am noticing that my happily married friends have husbands who are truly kind to their wives. My Zumba instructor’s husband also became a Zumba instructor and helps his wife with her Zumba studio. He had never even danced before. I was asking him last night if Zumba had changed his life or if he felt he found his calling. “Not really,” he replied. “I do it to make her happy.” And a big teary-eyed smile came over his face because it truly WAS his goal in life to make her happy. His teary-eyed smile made gave me a teary-eyed smile because I had hope that I too would one day find a man who wanted to make me happy and not keep me waiting for phone calls or wondering who else he is seeing.
But for now, I’m good being by myself and being on this path of healing and self-discovery. It’s kind of sad that I’ve had to be on this path for 54 years, but I’m grateful to at least know I am on a path and the path leads somewhere. I’m not just floundering through life depressed and putting on a smile all the time. I understand my place in the universe – where I’ve come from, why I’m here, and where I’m going. There is a deeper layer to life than just going to work, owning things, consuming things, and doing stuff.
Lately, with the latest insights and feelings coming out, I have started feeling some excitement about where my life is going and the choices I have, to do something really exciting in the final 20 or 30 years of my life. I am working on putting myself in a position where I can do some of the things I’ve only dreamed of – like maybe traveling for 6 months and even moving to another country. Or staying here and living in a community of conscious people in a nice living space, having dance parties and pool parties and creating a very positive mecca for like-minded people – the family I never had. I think about these things all the time, even though I just bought a condo and I’m still remodeling it. Every time I peel off a layer of pain, the veil between me and my goals gets thinner and thinner. Possibilities are endless when we start to free ourselves.
As for a man, I do feel that there is love coming in my life from a man. But I’m not actively seeking it. I am just living my life. But when I meet someone worthy, I will do my best to let love in. And I will have zero tolerance for disrespect because this does not fit with my new vision.
Blessings to all,
Star
Star,
Thank you for sharing your story and for your kind comments.
I wish you many blessings and peace. I feel it is so hard to find understanding of these situations because we can’t ever imagine treating anyone the way they do especially someone you love. But it seems sociopaths are incapable of love.
God speed and may the universe bring you the man you deserve so much.