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 …
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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 …
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Sociopaths Count On Getting The Benefit Of The Doubt
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 3: Sociopath Math I can almost hear the collective cacophony. “Onna! That can't be the whole story. There has to be something more to it. There are always two sides.” In an attempt to be fair and to give everyone involved the benefit of the doubt, we tend to discount and dismiss malicious, destructive behavior. Sociopaths count on this. Contrary to the popular saying, there …
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Sociopaths and forced teaming – ‘we’re in this together’
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 link at the bottom of the post. Chapter 2: Please Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain This probably sounds like the beginning of a love story, a second chance for two people moving on after unsuccessful first marriages. That is how I viewed it at the time, but I was wrong. I would not figure it out for twenty years, but the man to whom I was so attracted was, and is, a sociopath. Already, he was …
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The sociopath threw her sobbing into the front yard, but now she’s recovered and performing on stage
Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following letter from a reader whom we'll call "Avril." Names are changed. It's not possible for me to tell my entire story in a short blog, it'd need a whole book, but let me give you a bite-sized round up. This year marks 20 years since the blight entered our lives. I was a 32-year-old divorced mother of two small children, I was on holiday with my mother, my terminally ill father and my little sons. He was a brown-eyed handsome man who was running the bar at the resort. He was utterly charming and his eyes twinkled when he smiled. I had no chance. When I met him, though I was vulnerable I did have my own home, a secure part-time job and a reasonable …
John Robert Charlton arrested for murdering and dismembering woman he met online
John Robert Charlton, 37, of Washington State, has been arrested in the gruesome murder and dismemberment of a woman whom he met online. A Seattle-area homeowner found body parts in his recycling bin, which were later identified as belonging to Ingrid Lyne, 40, a nurse and mother of three children from Renton, Washington. Lyne went with Charlton to a Seattle Mariners baseball game on Friday, April 8. She was reported missing the next morning. Charlton had a lengthy criminal history. In 2006, his parents filed a restraining order against him. They said he told his mother to watch the movie Hannibal, about a serial killer, and to "beware." Grisly details revealed in murder of Renton mom; …
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Victims of Sociopaths and Victim Blamers
Searching for inspiration for this post, I stumbled across some pretty unattractive, “victim blaming” directed to someone who had been involved in a relationship with a person who is likely a sociopath. Victim Blaming I find victim blaming unattractive for humanitarian and moral reasons, but I also find a deep irony in victim blaming—that the person accusing others of naivety and a lack of insight about human behavior, is in fact, themselves, displaying profound naivety and a lack of insight about human behavior. It's as if they are assuming that all people have the same experiences and opportunities, hence if someone is deceived by a sociopath, it can only be due to that person's inherent …
Frightening story of a stalker who wouldn’t quit
A man in the U.K. stalked a woman and her husband for years. The couple decided to move away, and instead of abating, the stalking got worse. Eventually the stalker showed up at their door with a gun. Read the entire outrageous story: The stalker and the woman who refused to give in, on BBC.com. …
Sociopaths Serve Up Double Standards
Double standards are one of the many hallmarks of being in a relationship with a sociopath. Trust me, as a well-educated woman who was taught that she could hold her own with any man, I didn't think I had married someone who viewed me as a puppet and whose only purpose for me was to service his needs. But, as months slipped into years, profound double standards emerged in my relationship with "Paul." Of course, now that I believe Paul is a sociopath, I understand that Paul held these double standards all along. Although he did not display them at first, at some point, they became part of the poisonous air I breathed. Double Standards Deliver Double Benefits For A Sociopath These double …