Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following story from a 67-year-old woman whom we’ll call “Maura.”
Lied, cheated, used me and others. Serial adultery, pornography, probable bisexual behaviors, never used condoms. I didn’t know about the adultery until much later.
He suffered a head injury, and I mistakenly attributed his bad behaviors to that. Violent and aggressive.
Marital fraud; some possessions, like a boat and trailer, “disappeared.” Claimed money and objects were stolen, but never reported thefts to the police.
Nagged and pestered me constantly to buy large items, mostly vehicles, that we couldn’t afford.
Developed “hobbies” that kept him away from home on a regular basis.
Depended on me and would manipulate and pressure me to do things for him that he could do for himself.
Financially irresponsible. Received disability benefits but wanted to work on the sly and not pay taxes. Said (to me) that he was able to work, but refused to get a regular job.
Acted crazy and irritable to nearly everyone, so I didn’t think he really was able to work.
Chronic problem gambling developed. Would tell me he was taking his mother to the casino and giving her money to gamble; later I found out he did take her there, but he was sponging off her. He had income penalties and interest for unreported gambling winnings.
Overdrawing the bank account repeatedly. Often told me he was going to his mother’s house to help her; turned out this was not true.
When encouraged to work on constructive activity, would almost finish it, but quit, or finish it and then ruin it. Would not do any chores except car and lawn care, even though I worked long hours.
I was welcome to join him in activities he liked, but he would not join me in my preferred leisure activities. He would suggest a vacation, but I had to do all the planning and make arrangements.
His behaviors embarrassed me in front of my friends and colleagues, so I gradually stopped seeing them socially. He quarreled and complained about his family, so we stopped socializing with them. He totally alienated his children, and they rejected me along with him.
He refused psychological and medical care for his brain injury, stopped seizure medication without telling me or his doctor, refused marriage counseling. He was supposed to go to gambling counseling; I think he lied. Anyway, he did not stop gambling.
In 2012, his behavior became more bizarre and violent again. He threatened me in a very scary way. I got an order of protection and filed for divorce. He came to the house once and absolutely terrified me, but the order had not been served yet.
The divorce was final in 2013. In 2014, I learned that he had led double life, with a mistress, for nearly 20 years.
I have spoken with her several times. He told her he was married but did not live with his wife (me), who had total control of his substantial money and would “destroy” him if their affair were discovered.
She willingly entered into an adulterous relationship with him, deceiving her family and friends about the fact that he was married. She pressured him and “begged” him to let her “help” him ask me for a divorce. He refused.
She paid for their travel expenses and gave him money for gambling. I don’t know what lie he told her when I kicked him out, but she let him move in with her and live there for free. They were engaged to be married.
Then, her grown son found out that he had been living with his wife (me) up until July 2012. The son told his mother, and she threw my ex out. Then she let him come back after about week.
Then I went to meet her and talk to her. We shared information. She threw him out again. Sadly, she has confided that she feels too old and unattractive to find another man. That is exactly how I felt when I was married to him.
For a while, he was trying to “reconcile” with both of us, and she ended up railing at me (via e-mail) and telling me to “get out of our life”! I thought that was pretty nervy, as she was the interloper, and I no longer communicate with her.
They do not live together, but her only social outlet appears to be regular trips to the casino with him. I both despise her and pity her.
My life has never been better. I am active in my community, have many new friends, have had therapy, and have begun dating.
I receive many compliments, and, after 30 years without a kind word, I cherish each one. I have been told I am gorgeous, a real sweetheart, radiant, cute enough to adopt, have a beautiful smile, younger looking, a knockout, etc.
My talents and abilities are appreciated. I am having the time of my life.
Maura – good for you! I am so glad that after all you’ve endured, that your new life is happy and rewarding.
Today is my 54th birthday!! Maura I want to say ditto ditto to a lot of your story, but especially the very last part!!! God takes care of his own!!!
Donna cannot say Thank You enough!!!xxx
Maura –
Cherish and enjoy your freedom!
The only thing I’d offer, based on my own experience, is that the relief/joy phase may also dangerous for us (those who have been victimized by psychopaths).
Looking back I wish someone had told me this: Be F’ing careful right now! Your now-happy-brain is like a baby bird. You need to protect it in it’s fragile and developing state. There is a distinct possibility that, as you build your new social circle, there is one or more psycho/socio/narcissists in the mix. Remember, the next one (if there is one) will look NOTHING like your ex.
Good advice. Perhaps, I could add a word or two about healing after exposure to sociopaths for most of my life. Thirty years with the guy you describe as sociopathic made me a menace to myself. I let myself go physically, emotionally and financially. I call the wounds I suffered, “apathy”. An indifference to my well being permeated my life from the morning ’till evening. My divorse was a nightmare experience. By the time the dust settled I had squandered away my advantages and surrendered to the belief, “I am the ugliest, stupest, least of anybody, I am worthless!” Everything of value I surrendered including my soul. Without self respect and ashamed of the dilemma I had created for myself, I had to find myself anew!
I moved a distance away, kept some old friends, and made a policy to not date. No men! I realized I had been raised to be a “doormat”. I was a “throw-away” child, a “throw-away” wife, and now, a “throw-away” mother. I have three children. One is a wonderful and ethical employee, husband, and father. My other two are offspring “pychologically” speaking of my psychopathic ex. They do not carry his genes but they do carry his mindset.
These two children, now grown, are no longer part of my life. My life is one of cherished friends and family. I do not tolerate immoral behavior especially when it’s cloaked in the language of individual freedom and choice. Nonsense, descentcy is “descentcy”. I know the difference between being descent and being sociopathic.
My message, keep your boundaries very clearly defined. This has allowed me to find peace and break old habits of self denial! Thanks. Kalina
Funny how psychopaths do that to you. In my thirties I felt like an ugly used up old thing. Now that my father’s view of me is no longer my own I am thriving in my beautiful senior’s building one bedroom apartment / community feeling pretty and pretty useful.
It has been a long journey to this inner peace. I am so very grateful for each new day. Sad how people can destroy lives, which do not belong to them.
It’s good to know that it’s never too late to heal.
For once and for all…let me get the truth out. I really need to say this.The relationship with a sociopath is all fake with them feeling no remorse, no sympathy for the victim and no conscience for anything they have done. Believe me, I was with a sociopath for 37 years. He was a great faker. A very skilled manipulator, incredible liar, thief and deceiver who appeared shy and innocent of any wrong doing. Just wanted to be left alone and live his little simple, sneaking around, druggy life. He needed me as his victim to help him get what he wanted; money and prostitutes…I think they go hand in hand. For at least 2 years he left 2-3 days a week for 10 hours or so each time saying he was going to work and didn’t even have a job, which he lead me to believe he did. …left me to run the business by myself which was very busy and hectic, while he laid in a Detroit motel with his favorite child prostitute; real name Michelle Nelson, going to Belle Isle, gambling casinos, out to eat, the show, strip clubs with her, shopping, giving her hundreds and thousands of dollars and whatever he did when not actively having sex. He used me for money and to have his children to make him appear normal. Since 2007 my business has cleared $880,000 and at beginning of divorce in 2012 when I caught him, he said we have no money when I asked about it; he controlled all the money. Oh yes, he thought he would get everything…expected me to die from breast cancer, which I had a second diagnosis in 2007 and had to have more chemo and radiation….so he would have it all and then he would be the poor widower and I or his children or family would never find out about the $3-$400,000 he stole from the marital assets to build a house with a Jamaican prostitute “Trish; real name Sophia Wint who lived in a 10×10 shack, that he met 10 years ago and bought property and funded her to have built this big house in Negril, Jamaica by sending money grams of $990 a couple times a week so he doesn’t have to give his name as the sender if under $1000…from party stores and CVS stores all in the area he frequents. I have my suspicions he also has a child with this “then” 20 something woman who has a little girl around age 5 now. Nor would I find out about the ‘beginning sexual relationship and affair’ with “then” a 15 or maybe16 year old Redford/Detroit prostitute he has been paying for sexual favors for many years; bought her a car, supported her to live at a motel on his way home, rented her a house in Warren, bought her furniture, etc all with my/our money. He is a criminal pedophile pervert who should be in prison for having sex with a minor. He also thought, what stupidity, that she would go to Nursing school and the both of them would take over my business when I died….nor would I find out that for 20 years that I know of he has been a regular big spender at strip clubs in Melvindale and Lincoln Park paying for sexual favors at a seedy motel you can check into for 3hrs. Oh yes, he will deny…deny…deny all of it. That means it’s not true? Believe me it is 100% true. He is just so good at deceit that no one would ever even believe he is capable of such vile thieving and lying. Now our whole family is destroyed and does he care?..no, not one bit of remorse or guilt does he feel. Hasn’t even talked to his daughter in over 5 years and makes no effort to do so. But he sure has been in contact with his favorite prostitutes. Get ready Katz family…someday you’ll be saying “Guess who’s coming to dinner” only if he has the guts to expose his past second life and let you meet his “sure to come” child from this old soon to be 70 year old horny geezer’s stupid actions with his young prostitute in Detroit/Warren. These whores will get pregnant to have a golden egg that will support them. And he is just sex addicted enough to let that happen. I guess if she is in her 20’s and he’s near 70 and he keeps getting his Levitra prescription, that should work for the rest of his sex addicted life. He has only had one other victim/friend that he used and abused like he did me, a male friend in his entire life that has known him for 40 years…this was ever his only other so called friend. He actually hates people unless he can have sex with them or get money from them; a sociopath. Well he did this friend very badly also by stealing from him, lying and saying horrible things about him to others and this person has said to me..”We will never encounter another person as horrible as he is in our lifetime”. So heads up Nanci..this person did not break the man code because he told me about the Jamaica house after the divorce, because he thought it was horrible that I was expected to give him another $30,000 after all he knew..he saved me from having to give this horrible brother of yours another $30,000 for the equity in the marital home, after he got $50,000 from me on the day of the divorce in 2013 before I knew about the Jamaica house. You say it wasn’t in his name..you bet it wasn’t..part of his lies, but why did he write off the additional $30,000 I owed him after the divorce and after I found out about this house if the house in Jamaica wasn’t his? Because he knew it was and I threatened him with taking him back to court to be charged with fraudulent concealment. And you were in on the whole thing. You carried $10,000 cash down to Jamaica at least once and maybe 2 times to give to this prostitute per his friend…you know exactly who..his only male friend who can’t stand him now. He was sending money grams to this whore for years…every week, thousands of dollars of my money and you took money to Jamaica to give to this prostitute so don’t say I should be arrested for extortion…you are sick and as evil as he is if you think that. Keep feeding and enabling this monster. You know how horrible my life was with this control freak idiot. Past drug busts (3), huge attorney fees, loosing his license as a pharmacist and his addiction where he smokes 10 to 20 joints a day..now I know he also is a pathological liar, a sex addict and a thief which are common of a true sociopath. Our family was forced to live in my mother’s basement 14 years due to his drug busts and him going to prison in the 90’s and had to rent our home out for many years until summer of 2010, when he had another drug bust, but at the same time we had moved back into our home because my business made living in our home financially possible then. I assumed we had a lot of money saved by then. Also, he never one time ever bought me or the children a card or a gift for birthdays, holidays…nothing…ever. He never uttered the words “I love you” to me or the children…EVER. Never hugged us or kissed us…EVER. He treated my now deceased mother horribly. Never spoke to her, snuck around to avoid ever running into her when we lived in her basement…after we moved back to our home he occasionally would drop food off, that I prepared by just sneaking into her house and laying it on the kitchen counter, sneaking out and coming around the block back home and telling me to call her and let her know the food was on the counter. Now she was 89 years old, blind, using a walker and on oxygen. Never did he see if she was even alive in her bedroom, if she needed anything or just to say hello…never. Hurriedly snuck in and out, laying the plate of food on the kitchen counter. And my mother did a lot for him, but she grew to dislike him when she saw the way he was and how he treated me and the kids, yet she always treated him well. Yet he would spend much free time and thousands of dollars on the whores. And if any of you think as a woman, I got a good deal with this divorce..NOT. He demanded alimony or I had to agree to continue letting him work with me and pay him. I got the home after paying him half of the equity in our home and he got half of ownership/interest of my business domain name and website for the business…and the Jamaican house which I didn’t find out about until 8 months after the divorce and all the money that he claimed was gone. What did I get? 1/2 of our home..that is it. Imagine this creep wanting alimony after all he stole and all the vile crap he did to our family and then wanted another $30,000. Now you must think there is 2 sides to this story..well there isn’t. I was a loving, loyal, devoted wife that always made the best of his trouble. I always loved him and defended him and treated him very well, cooked daily for him, kept a clean home and never bitched or badgered him…never. Now all of you may ask how do I know he is a sociopath? That word gets thrown around loosely…. well I went to a psychologist for 7 months to help me deal with this shock, heartbreak and the end of my marriage of 27 years. He would dwell on my x and asked many questions about his behavior. At the end of 7 months he said “I don’t know your x but from what you have told me he is definitely a sociopath.
hannahqt1, I don’t even know where to begin with your horrific story…I am so sorry that you endured this evil evil evil mans hell. What you wrote is shocking even for someone like myself who was married to a socioapth….I can even imagine your pain. I am just shaking my head at his pathetic life style.
I am glad you escaped his evil grips…you deserve so much better.
As they say, the truth shall always prevail. Sociopaths never think their double life while come out in the open..they think they are so smart…they are not. He is not capable of having a healthy life…wait 5 years and you will see he will look 100 years old, will have no money, will live in a seedy flea infested motel. Just read Donna’s story about her ex and where he ended up if you have doubts about your ex’s future.
With regards to your daughter…thank goodness he has abandon her…count your luck stars that he is not in her life to destroy her mind. This is not a man that should be around any young souls especially your daughter. Hopefully he will stay far away from her for the rest of her life.
Teach your daughter how to spot a dangerous man…not just her father. Educate her now…she needs to know the truth about her father (if she is old enough) and teach her how to date a good guy & demand respect not just from her mate but from everyone. These are the lessons we wish our parents would have taught us. Donna’s books Lovefraud, How to spot a dangerous man by Sandra Brown & The sociopath next door by Harvard Professor Dr Martha Stout are good tools to teach her the truth about the evilness on this planet.
For you….my gosh….you have been to the bottom of hell with this evil man…you have crawled out of hell on all fours….so now the sky is the limit for you. I truly wish nothing but the best for you and your family. I am sorry to hear you have lost your mother…that is a hard day.
Keep sharing your truth with everyone. And yes, he is a psychopath!!!
Hugs to you!
Take care
oops “I can’t even imagine your pain” (not can)
You are never too old to be happy! It takes good people probably longer than most to free themselves of the psychopath. Because good people always have a glimmer of hope that one can change. And they forgive.
A psychopath can ruin life. Really ruin it. They can even take life away. But if you are able to be free from one just for a little while. Live the best life you can! <3