How long did it take before you started noticing fitst red flags?

Cloud79 – Lovefraud conducted research on when people first started noticing the traits of disorder. In some cases it was right away. In others, at 3 months or 6 months. Often people didn’t see the traits until they had been involved with a person for a year or longer.

Right after we were married. He wouldn’t talk to me for 3 weeks along with absolutely
no intimacy, just a total change in personality. I would have left but I’d just resigned from my job in another city and my son moved in a year prior (husband’s idea) and needed 2 more years. I’m in my 4th now.
Of course there’s more but this isn’t the place to tell. Funny, my son picked up right away and tried To warn me…we know I didn’t listen and didn’t listen to oggling
other women (always apoligied and said he’d get help etc)

Instantaneously!! My first impression of him, when a mutual friend was in town staying at my home & invited him to my house was “he is a tornado”!

Second time I met him through this same friend “he’s crazy”! Literally crazy!!

YEP!! My gut alarm was dead accurate!!

That’s the hardest part to get over. That I knew who he was instantly. But did not know what the word sociopath really meant. I knew that he was bad news. Yet, I had just moved to a new state for a new job and wanted friends.

I had zero interest in dating him. ZERO. He had a large group of friends & he would invite me along with all of them. He never how ever had his girlfriend along with him. I never really asked why. Just thought maybe she wanted to stay home or had other plans.

After about 6 months he told me that he & his girlfriend had broken up. I again had zero interested in him. He was attempting to get me to want him to ask me out. I held my walls up. Then he started the Loveboming game. Stopping by my house without calling first. Calling my house found 8 to 10 times a day while I was at work!!

I would get home from work & my message machine would be filled. I stopped listing to them. I now believe he never broke up with her. That he had me move in with him because I could pay his bills, and had many many women on the side besides me & then had his girlfriend. So crazy when I look back. Painful too to have wasted my life on an evil persons that I saw who he was instantly.

What I did not realize was they just keep pursuing you to go out with them relentlessly.

I did not want to date him, move in with him or marry him. And once I was married I wanted a divorce almost everyday.

They know how to con people.

Listen to your gut alarm. It is NEVER wrong.

I have read that a human can detect a trust worthy person within 3 SECONDS.

Read the book: The Gift of Fear by Gavin Debecker.

Children are tune in with their all of their sense. They are like animals the react naturally. that is until the children are taught by adults to “get alone with everyone”, “dont leave out other kids”. AHH yes leave out the mean kids!! aka the sociopath kids!!

Steven Hassan author of Freedom of mind states in his book that the most likely time fro you to get sucked into an abusive relationship or cult is during a “life change” such as a new move, change in school, divorce, relationship breakup, empty nest, new job etc etc.

Beware when you have a life change! Listen to your gut alarm!!

I had red flags after a week but we met online so I wrote it off to the entire online scene. I remember one day my entire body was screaming ‘RUN!’ but I could not underhand why so I didn’t. I wanted to know why I should be running. The interesting things is that my guy never messed up his lies, he never contradicted himself with another lie. I know that lies become hard to keep track of after a while but he never messed up. He just consistently lied.

I did the same thing as you, told myself that I am just not with it, I am sure he meant this, not that. I am overreacting….and so on. But our guts and intuition is so accurate so sometimes we have to blindly trust it. The key word for me here is ‘blindly’ because I would have spared myself 2 years of lies and misery if I just ran.

Hello! Pretty instant too. Our first date he basically told me about his life in the past couple years and how crazy it had been. His mom passed away not a year ago, dad a few years ago. He had been living off and on with friends for a few years, and when we met had been staying with people who had free rooms at a casino. Also, he didnt have a car on the road because of a dwi, but did get it back on the road within a few weeks with my help driving him to the DWI. Now I was willing to give him a chance and hope he had a rough patch and would get going but I started noticing other red flags too. He was also going to school to be a dealer and wasn’t currently working at a job.

I had been single for awhile,(I am 36, he was 30, lived on my own for years, good job, and able to take care of myself) and he was the first guy I actually liked in awhile. We had great sexual chemistry and he was so much fun to hang out with. We talked/texted all the time. We ended up sleeping together within a few weeks, and he stayed over that night. Around this time I just felt something was off, and it was like he felt entitled. I also was wondering if he was a moocher. I remember going to use the bathroom in my apt. and came back to the kitchen and he was eating food out of my fridge!!! Without asking. He just seemed like entitled, like what is mine is mine, and what is yours is mine. When called out on it and how i felt a few days later, he just said he wasn’t trying to take advantage of me.

Over the next few weeks just weird comments/things happened. He was very friendly to waitresses, etc. Always calling them honey and being very outgoing. One time he even said on the way out of a resturant she had a nice butt!

Always some kind of family drama or just drama in general. Most conversations revolved around him and what he was doing that day, where he was going, need to get a job, sister was basically going to be homeless, just always something. But he claimed he hated drama.

He did admit to having a lot of anxiety and being depressed etc in the past.

About a month in, his birthday was coming up. He was also taking his test to become a poker dealer. We had decided to hang out after his test, we were going to pick up something, cook some food at my place and hang out for the night. He ended up getting out very late so we just wound up going through a drive through. So after we ordered, I was going to offer to pay half, and I made a comment oh how are we doing this. And he actually said in front of the girl oh your getting it!!! I was like shocked but didnt want to make a scene so I just paid. I had a very bad sign about this, because once again he just made me feel like he was entitled and I should just do it. It made me very angry and he didnt even thank me for it! I also had made him a giant cookie for his belated birthday which he did seem appreciative and thanked me. Huge warning sign was the next morning. He stayed over that night, and I had an appt. in the morning so I went to the appt. and he stayed at my place. When I got back home, I was hungry and made myself a sandwich. I went to wake him up, and he seemed very moody. He made a comment about oh I see you didnt make me a sandwich, your just so used to being alone, and you didnt even want to pick up my birthday dinner last night! It was very hurtful, and I just shut down. I was already upset over the last night, and he seemed to just rub it in my face.

He totally knew what he was doing but because I am a nice person and don’t want to argue I didnt say anything. He knew I was upset as I said barely two words to him and he ended up leaving my apt. Later on I received several text messages from him basically saying that he wasn’t trying to mooch off me, he respects me and would never do that. He also thought making the comment about the turkey sandwich and picking up his “cheap birthday dinner” was funny but obviously wasn’t.

Everything I had been thinking about him he basically texted back to me so in my mind he knows he is manipulating me.

He also was very happy most of the time, but I noticed a few weeks in that he would appear to get moody/grumpy out of nowhere but then it would be gone again.

A couple of weeks, lies lies lies, he covered them all up with what seemed like reasonable answers and persuaded me to stay. Interestingly I also was not interested in him at all at first, he wouldn’t stop trying, little notes, texts, words (that meant nothing). The first 2 months were nothing but lies and red flags, but I was so blinded by his charm, romance, sophistication, I didn’t listen. I didn’t see. As you all know, the romance and charm don’t last. They only come back if they’re narcissistic supply (you) is about to leave. Then it goes away again. Gaslighting.

I knew from the moment I met him. My mind kept repeating “this dude is not right in the head, he’s not right…” but I was at such a low, lonely point in my life that I accepted his invitation to hang out (as friends).It escalated and escalated and now here I am doing No Contact for hopefully the last time.