By O.N. Ward Every week, a chapter of my book, "Husband, Liar, Sociopath: How He Lied, Why I Fell For It & The Painful Lessons Learned" (available via Amazon.com, just click on the title or book cover) will be published here on Lovefraud. To read prior chapters, please see the links at the bottom of the post. Chapter 12: What Just Happened? Paul and I arrived back in Minneapolis late on a Saturday and spent a leisurely Sunday together. Both of us needed to return to work on Monday morning. I had not worked the entire vacation or even checked in with the office. My co-workers and team leader knew I was on my honeymoon and that I would not be in touch. Still, before I left, I had been w …
The high cost of rape – in pain and dollars
Editor's note: The following article was written by the Lovefraud reader, "Jennifer in NYC." The New York Times OP-ED article, “What One Rape Cost Our Family” (Friday, June 24, 2016), by the California-based, freelance journalist, Laura Hilgers, chronicles the years of devastation her family faced after her daughter was raped by a fellow student while attending a college in Washington D.C. . A freshman at the time, her daughter, Willa, waited one year before she reported the crime. However, during this time she developed “...post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks, depression, and an an addiction to alcohol. And while she chose not to file criminal charges—out of fear of being traum …
Sociopaths: Masters Of Using Cognitive Dissonance
By O.N. Ward Every week, a chapter of my book, "Husband, Liar, Sociopath: How He Lied, Why I Fell For It & The Painful Lessons Learned" (available via Amazon.com, just click on the title or book cover) will be published here on Lovefraud. To read prior chapters, please see the links at the bottom of the post. Chapter 11: The Honeymooners We spent our honeymoon hiking, horseback riding, wine tasting, and sleeping in. I had wanted to go on a particular hike, but we never did. Finally, I told Paul that I was concerned that we were leaving without going on the one hike to which I had so looked forward. Paul looked at me, incredulous. With his loving eyes engaging mine and his voice g …
Sociopaths: Once You’re Hooked, You Are The One Making All The Compromises
By O.N. Ward Every week, a chapter of my book, "Husband, Liar, Sociopath: How He Lied, Why I Fell For It & The Painful Lessons Learned" (available via Amazon.com, just click on the title or book cover) will be published here on Lovefraud. To read prior chapters, please see the links at the bottom of the post. Chapter 8: I Will Follow Him Deeply in love, or so I thought, Paul and I agreed to coordinate our job search so we could stay together after business school. In early January, Paul received his first job offer—to work for a niche consulting firm in Minneapolis. I wanted to stay on the East coast, closer to family in Vermont. I hoped to work in public relations after getting my MBA, b …
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Donna Andersen explains why we don’t know about sociopaths on Mental Health News Radio
Donna Andersen was recently interviewed by Kristin Sunata Walker of Mental Health News Radio. They had an in-depth conversation about why we don't know about sociopaths, why we fall for the exploiters, and how good can come from the experience. Here's the blog post Here's the interview on Blog Talk Radio …
Donna Andersen explains why we don’t know about sociopaths on Mental Health News RadioRead More
Catfishing – sociopathic behavior, or a phase?
I was recently interviewed for an online magazine article called Confessions of a catfish. When I communicated with the author, Aris Apostolopoulos, I had no idea that he was going to admit that he, himself, once engaged in catfishing. Quite a few Lovefraud readers have told me about their experiences being catfished. This means they met someone online who fabricated a complete false identity, including a fake name, fake history, fake friends and fake crises. Target almost died One woman contacted me in 2012, before the word "catfishing" had entered the lexicon, to tell me her story. She was involved with a person for almost three years, entirely on the phone and social media. …
Sociopaths Assume We’ll Use Old Frameworks To Process New Information
By O.N. Ward Every week, a chapter of my book, "Husband, Liar, Sociopath: How He Lied, Why I Fell For It & The Painful Lessons Learned" (available via Amazon.com, just click on the title or book cover) will be published here on Lovefraud. To read prior chapters, please see the links at the bottom of the post. Chapter 7: What's In It For Me? Another Red Flag Missed Against the vast, sparkling sea of emotionally and intellectually fulfilling time spent together studying, attending classes, working out, sharing dinners, and looking for jobs, the ripples that appeared in my relationship with Paul hardly registered. No person or relationship is perfect, so of course there would be d …
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Count the psychopaths in ‘Hell on Wheels’
Gunslingers, industrialists, cowboys and Indians, Yankees, rebels, carpetbaggers, immigrants, Mormons, freed slaves, settlers and whores Hell on Wheels, the AMC television show about building the transcontinental railway after the Civil War, has them all. The final season begins next month. What will happen to the hero, Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount), a former Confederate officer who became the construction "boss man"? Hell on Wheels first aired in 2011, but my husband, Terry, and I found it later on Netflix. We are totally addicted. We can't wait to see how all the story lines will play out. What confrontations will Bohannon face before that final golden spike is driven into the …
Sociopaths Use Love To Blind Us To Their Nefarious Intent
By O.N. Ward Every week, a chapter of my book, "Husband, Liar, Sociopath: How He Lied, Why I Fell For It & The Painful Lessons Learned" (available via Amazon.com, just click on the title or book cover) will be published here on Lovefraud. To read prior chapters, please see the links at the bottom of the post. Chapter 6: Love Blinds—Really! If Paul had become annoyed with me for disappointing or inconveniencing him on our first, second, or even third date, I probably would have decided he was a selfish jerk and ended any meaningful involvement with him. So why did this small red flag go unheeded when it occurred on New Year's Eve, a year into our relationship? Because his annoyance and se …
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Subtle Sociopath “Tells”– Lacking Empathy Even When You’re Ill
By O.N. Ward Every week, a chapter of my book, "Husband, Liar, Sociopath: How He Lied, Why I Fell For It & The Painful Lessons Learned" (available via Amazon.com, just click on the title or book cover) will be published here on Lovefraud. To read prior chapters, please see the links at the bottom of the post. Chapter 5: Make Your Own Damn Sandwich! I did not extrapolate or act upon these seemingly small moments of dissonance, but I had a friend who did exactly that in one of her relationships. Her decision to trust her instincts and to generalize from one small selfish act to what married life with her fiancé would be like may have saved her from a disastrous marriage, perhaps to a soc …
Subtle Sociopath “Tells”– Lacking Empathy Even When You’re IllRead More