UPDATED FOR 2021. Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following letter from a man whom we’ll call “Scott.” Scott was involved with a woman who he now believes is a narcissist or sociopath. We’ll call her “Valerie.”
Valerie had a son and told Scott that he was the father, although he had his doubts. The two split up, but Scott supported the boy for 18 years and was active in his life. Then Scott found out that he was not the boy’s father, and Valerie is now doing everything she can to keep the boy away from Scott.
A father’s tragedy
I claim you as my son. I claim you as only a father can! However, you don’t claim me, the man who raised you.
The first time I saw your face your were born in the hospital. I shared your first minutes holding you. Touching your skin, counting toes and fingers, staring at you. I wanted a son and you came to me, reaching, crying for me.
This was my life’s next greatest achievement, having a son. What a proud dad I was for 18 years. I lived for you, struggled for you, felt pain beyond any measure for you. I worried about you. I felt bad for you and felt guilt for you, because I failed you. I could not control the Narcissist for a mother you had
I could not protect you from lies, manipulation to the nth degree. I could not protect from everything. The bond of a mother to her son. This bond has been broken beyond repair. I could not stop that broken relationship from hurting you and our family. A Narcissistic personality had taken you over
I remember your first day at kindergarten, I used to come to eat lunch with you in elementary school. Your great accomplishments in High School. Basketball, Tennis and a Full scholarship to College. Graduating with honors. I was there I saw the ribbons around your neck.
A lying, deceiving, and manipulating sociopath and narcissist has taken you away. They change the facts, brainwash you to believe them, keep you under their control, until reality is gone. Only to be proven wrong in the harsh light of day and truth. Judgment will come one way or another.
A son was separated from his real father, look up the definition of a father, it does not include sperm donor. Where was the sperm donor while I was fighting for you in court? He could not stand up for you. I stood up for you. If you only knew the truth.
I wonder sometimes do you think of me. The 18 years of memories we had together. The good times we had together? Unfortunately you are now a shell of a person, withdrawn and lonely. This is damage your mother did to you. Don’t let her control you.
How could this happen. How could a bond of years be broken? What happened, how come you choose to not talk? Why? I know why you are under severe amount of stress, controlling influence by intimidation, threats, mental abuse, controlling behavior by the one who you should trust the most.
How come there is silence? You now have Narcissism, it’s a disorder taught to you by your mother, she is to blame, not you.
How come there are no answers? How come you won’t let me talk to you? Where are you? I will wait for you, or always be here.
In a time span of 18 years I gained a son and lost a son, stolen from me under my own eyes. The reasons not even understood by me, or you.
A mother’s job is to nurture, protect, and hold her children, not to push them away, not to push away people who love them. Not to try to sever the ties that bind. Not to be selfish.
What if I did not move to that neighborhood? Would have ever met your mother? I wonder what if— all the time. I wonder if I was stronger, could I have done something better? What if I had more money to fight for you? What if I just went along with it, the emotional manipulation, the controlling person, the one who almost defeated me?
The constant manipulation, the separation of family. The need by one to control over all. Emotional Abuse. The harsh world of a sociopath. Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) is prevalent in my and your life. It’s simply Abuse.
I battled emotionally and legally for you for years, yet all you saw was one side. You did not see the side where I was trying to do the right thing. I tried talking to you but you were being manipulated by a very strong personality that was and still is destroying you. You are lost now. But I can find you, you have only to look for me? As I have always been there.
You are lost in your own world, not sure who to turn to, which family is mine. Who is my dad? What is a dad? What is a father? You know the answer in your heart.
Who can claim me, who stands up for you in the legal system to yell to everyone “I am your father, I am the dad?” No one can take those years away from me. They are proof that I matter. I love you, as my son. You are my son, I molded you”— As best I could. I’m sorry I could not prevent the abuse you have long suffered.
I looked you up online. I saw your life unfolding from afar. I was not a part of it. I was losing connection with you. I lost 2 years now worth of time. I’m getting older now, you have so much time ahead of you. I have not so much time. Life goes by in the flash of a mosquito’s life. Two years, go by in a flash of 6570 days, 157,680 hours, 9,460,800 minutes or 18 years.
I found out you were coming in a time in my life that was a mess. I could not reconcile some glaring truths staring me in the face. I could not trust in her words. I was manipulated in the worst way. I was told that this precious boy is my son. I did not find out till later, you were born of another father.
Learn more: Overcoming children’s genetic risk for externalizing disorders
I was blinded by your smile and my yearning for a son. I did not care to face reality, I had a beautiful daughter and now my life was complete — a son to carry on my name.
Now my name will stop with me.
Minutes go by so fast, so meaningless, so lonely, there is a hole in my heart. It can be surrounded by love but the hole never goes away.
A father’s tragedy.
Lovefraud originally posted this article on January 31, 2015.
Mental health counselor learns about psychopaths the hard way
Scott – what a heartbreaking story. I can’t imagine the depth of the pain you’re experiencing. I hope you’re able to reconnect with your son. Because he is still your son.
This letter is truly heartbreaking and I share the pain and grieve you are going through as My psychopath mother has broken so many relationships for me and my family.
My sister and two brothers are the ones who are most important to me and she has manipulated, schemed, abused and seperated us all our lives.
My elder sister who i was closest to was always the person she would manipulate the most while abusing her beyond belief.
She allowed our elder male cousins to sexually abuse her while babysitting then later parentifying her by making her responsible for the care of our twin baby brothers she had from a fling and completely robbing her of a normal childhood and youth.
My sister as always been aware something is wrong with her but she made excuses for her never ending abuse claiming that she (my mother) had a bad upbringing and had it tough!
It hurts me so bad that my sister throughout her life has allowed her to continue to separate us many times, sometimes for years on end which has left me feeling confused and lonely.
My mother hates me, she has hated me for as long as I can remember. She would bully me call me names and get other family members to do it too.
She hated the relationship I had with my father who I would cling to for protection as a child when she went into one of her psychotic rages. I went everywhere with him and would follow him around the house when he was at home and when he was at work she would fly into one of her rages hitting me with her shoe and fists While I screamed and if people saw her in this frenzy they would stand there in shock not daring to intervene.
My dad was terrified of her, she controlled and manipulated him and the rest of us with her physical rages and screaming fits for years.
When a paedophile in our neighbourhood had been sexually abusing me around age 7 the police raided his home and found photographs of me and other children but because our heads were cut out of the images the police relied on my evidence but Years later I found out my mother had him released claiming I lied.
I was in disbelief that she allowed a paedophile to be released back on our street when he lived with his daughter same age as me.
My dad started to lose all his hair due to alopecia and when he started getting larger bald patches he started wearing a wig and my mother would pull it off his head and throw it across the room in front of others for fun then during one of her rages she pulled it from his head and threw it on the open fire in our house.
He was a good looking man and she took pleasure in humiliating him and would kill his spirit whenever he was having fun or a good time.
He could never please her or make her happy and when they separated when I was 10 after 12 years of marriage she made sure she punished him by taking him for every cent, claiming the house and every asset then prevented him from contact to us his children when he came to collect us for the weekend.
Me and my siblings were used as a weapon to hurt him while she continued to make his life a misery and smeared his name and reputation to everyone.
She just wouldn’t stop with her constant lies and abuse towards him when he came to get us every weekend & when he couldn’t take it anymore and stopped visiting us she then turned her anger and hatred towards us kids! She would stand there smirking while telling us he didn’t love us anymore while we sat and cried. She made my life a misery telling me and everyone in the family I was evil “just like my dad” and I was the Devils child.
She eventually threw me out of the house aged 11 in 2 foot deep snow wearing just a dress I will never forget that day as it was minus temperatures and she wouldn’t give me a coat.
When she didn’t let me back in she told me to go to my dads.
I had a unstable childhood resulting in many homes and never knowing who or where I belonged.
My dad lived with another psychopath to no surprise who took him for his money then left him.
She shown extreme jealousy stopping Contact to my siblings for over a year and when she found out I’d been to see them she sent me back to live with my mother who continued with her rages and beat me and my elder sister around our head and body with her fists dislocating my elder sisters shoulder and caused her to have epileptic seizures for years.
My sister is now 38 and has been brainwashed completely by my evil mother. I haven’t seen her or my brothers for 8 years while my mother continues to triangulate, manipulate and have complete mind control over them convincing them all I’m the problem.
My sister has battled cervical cancer twice and has lost all her hair to alopecia and wears a wig just like my dad did.
My dad has battled throat cancer and suffered a heart attack two years ago. He hasn’t had any contact with me or any of us for around 20 years. He got married again to a woman who I suspect is a narcissist or borderline and she controls every angle of his life, taking all his money, refusing him a mobile phone or a computer and other than going to work he rarely leaves the house.
Someone told me recently he looks really old and frail. He is just 55 years old. I miss my family so much and I would give anything in my life to see them. I’m terrified that they will die while in the presence of a psychopath. Psychopaths do not love, my mother has never felt love for me or anyone I know that. I pray every day that God will help me.
It is generational.Â
In 2014 my brother died, after just having turned 50.Â
My mother had kidnapped my younger siblings from Canada to Germany… very long story. My mother and brother were the extent of my sister’s family until visibly pregnant she married the boy on the other side of her back yard fence. Although my sister was born in Canada my multilingual mother did not teach/allow the sister or brother to speak English, the official language of the country of their birth.Â
5 months after my brother’s death my sister started communicating with me for the first time (after hunting me down for my mother because of our brother’s death via Facebook) using Babalon translator and Facebook messenger. Seems my mother replaced her dead son with the son my sister had in order to escape my mother’s clutches. That is a trait have noticed in sociopaths, people can be replaced in the blink of an eye.  My mother betrayed the years of being the main influence in my sister’s life, in a heartbeat, to steal her grandchild from his mother.Â
My sister’s personality coming through messenger is of a fearful hurt woman who clings to her husband and other child. Her oldest son quit his job and my sister said has replaced that with being the ‘butler’ for my mother. He moved in with his grandmother and quit work knowing he is now the only one on his aging grandmother’s will. The aging sociopath who purchased him an expensive vehicle and pays all his expenses.
The betrayal my sister faced at the hands of my mother is the only reason sisters are communicating today, after a lifetime of brainwashing. My sister’s oldest socio son no longer speaks with her.
The now dead brother also abandoned 2 children years ago when he came from Germany to get close to my father as a gift of being the father’s only son. Father purchased my brother a house in Canada to keep him here without the knowledge that the brother was here under his mother’s instructions. Father and son were too much alike so the stepmother was the total beneficiary.
After my brother died my mother contacted me to help her get possession of the house my father purchased for my brother because I live in the same province and country as the property. Mother knew that under Canadian law my brother’s estranged children were the legal beneficiaries yet did not notify them that their father was dead. My mother thought she could manipulate me to find a loophole to take advantage of the fact that by living in Germany they would not get the property if they were unaware of their estranged father’s death.
Speaking with her by phone, after many years of being below contempt to communicate with, left a feeling as if I had enmeshed with the devil, felt soiled and dirty just by voice contact. Even though I am now savvy to the sociopath’s cruelty and charms she was still able to send me into a PTSD downward spiral.
My sister is brokenhearted. I believe sociopathy runs in our family and have often wondered how my parents/brother can be related to me, what the parents and I have in common. Seems my sister’s other son has been spared the curse and her husband is not a sociopath either. There are some who have the misfortune of being born the mutants into a family of psychopaths who never stop. I believe my sister and I have that in common.
Canuck,
You are a really strong person. You and your sister against all odds have defeated the forces of evil.
It’s the wisdom and humanity of people on this website what keeps me from going insane. My mother still affects me to this day although I haven’t seen her in 10 years. I will never forget how she always made me feel, although I convinced myself I’d put up a resistance to her wrath I still fear she will always bring me down.
When you spoke about the conversation you had with your mother you explained it to a tee, that for me just sums it up!
I began weekly psychotherapy sessions 5 weeks ago after my determination and fear I will ever be like her.
I am literally terrified as I watched her throughout my life claim full mind control of those in my family. I still suffer terrible PTSD and I take medication for anxiety and panic attacks which I’m learning through my therapist what triggers these.
I was brainwashed by her projection of me to beleive I was defective in some way. I have found the psychotherapy sessions extremely painful as I now See how her words hold no real value.
I couldn’t even look at myself in photographs as I believed I was really ugly. I lacked that much self confidence i learned never to trust anyone who paid me a compliment.
It’s only over the last 10 years When I went no contact I discovered my unknown talents and much to my mothers dismay I became a model. Without even realising it I began to succeed at everything she said I wouldn’t.
My son who is nearly 17 still has contact and knows I don’t see her but doesn’t understand why.
I told him I would explain one day when he’s older.
She distorted my sense of reality for years and I’m sure it’s her never ending hatred of me and lots of things in life that will keep her going long into old age.
I just read in my email the comment (that was deleted for identifying his name) from Scott’s ex partner Valerie. I could barely read the email let alone make sense of it. She clearly was drunk or under influence of some substance. She made all those wild allegations yet she allowed her children to witness such violence?
I am a mother myself and I would take a bullet for my kids. I have always gave my best when caring for my children. When I read the accusations she made against this man, if these were true then why did none of this matter to her when she let him care for her children?
I’d like to ask her why she has never loved her children enough to get help for her drink problem? I have made mistakes and I am far from perfect but I would never let my children come to any harm.
I have known many alcoholics in my time and they drink because they have a personality disorder hence the reason why they never get help to deal with the root cause of their addictions- this is sad.
My mother has had a drink problem long before I was born. She is a sociopath who drowned Herself in drink.
She was never there emotionally my sister and myself were the ones who cared for my younger brothers. We missed out on our childhood because of our self centred mother.
Valerie mentioned Scott was shaking in the court house- well it is clear he isn’t the sociopath because sociopaths don’t suffer anxiety nor fear.
I feel for her 20 year old son, to think this is his mother and he is supposed to have respect for her- beggars belief.
Scott, will continue to live. The pain will not stop but decrease overtime. The child may or may not come back. The child has this disease like his mother. You exist, and therefore matter. You are allowed to hold onto the truth.