Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following story from a reader whom we’ll call “Gale.”
I was a widow for 5 years. After being married for 43 years, my husband died of cancer.
I did not like being alone and therefore I was vulnerable, to say the least. I enjoyed being a wife & mother, and sharing, loving & caring for my family.
I met my psycho on the internet, thru a dating web site. Had I trusted my intuition, I would have run.
There were many red flags. I did not ignore, but was charmingly convinced I was not being fair, but judgmental.
I considered myself to be the 3rd wife, but after several years of marriage, one of his daughters convinced me I was more like number 8. She ran the names of the previous wives off in front of my husband, and he never denied the facts.
He started dating his daughter’s best friend. He even had the nerve to try and convince me we should rent her our spare bedroom for $300 a month.
On Fathers Day of 2011, he had a big party at our home, with his girlfriend & his children. He threw me out of the house & I had to spend the entire day in the garage.
I was in a state of shock. I guess I could have called the police, but I don’t know if they could have helped.
He left me & went to Florida with her. Since, this experience, I have discovered there are more like 11 women he has done this to.
His mother will be 100 years old, and when I told her of my experience with him, stating I cannot lock him in the closet to make him behave, she stated he has lived this way his entire life.
I have questioned, why did his family not warn me? But then he would have convinced me they were spreading rumors.
This man is going to be 78 years old. He is crippled and deformed from having syphilis, chlamydia & other sexually transmitted diseases. He presents himself as a Romeo; he is blind to his real image.
His reason for his behavior his mother was out every night and his father said women were no good.
He takes no responsibility for himself, stating that he was sorry he started the affair, but could not stop. He was driven like a demon who had no control over himself.
I consider him to be a very pathetic individual. In fact he is lacking all the qualities that makes a human a human. He is nothing more than a driven animal, a mindless robot, programmed to do evil.
I do not believe people are born this way. We all have choices and I believe that after choosing darkness you step into the abyss where there is no returning to the light of this world.
It’s been an experience I would never have chosen, but it has taught me that when these psychos reveal who they are, have nothing to do with them.
They are not sick as the world usually states. They are truly EVIL.
Hi Gale,
Sorry you had to encounter this after 43 years of marriage and five years of being alone. Who can ever be prepared against this type of stealth attack? And, yet there are spaths lurking under the radar everywhere getting away with murder.
You are right, no one is born like this. A person may have the propensity to be selfish and cruel, but this sort of behavior is forged one lie at a time, one evil deed after another one. Spaths are given choices to do right, but they purposely, determinedly choose to do wrong, to hurt, to deceive, to behave in selfish harmful ways. They choose evil. They prefer it.
There are many people who have suffered abuse in childhood who might be so-called “justified” in hurting others, but they CHOOSE not to. They choose kindness, mercy, goodness, forgiveness, unselfishness. It is always a choice: qood or evil, right or wrong, kind or mean.
But, just as with habit-building and character forging, there comes a time when the scales have been tipped so far to the side of evil that it becomes who the spaths are. By that time, they could not do good if their very lives depended upon it. By that time they so enjoy their lives of evil that they actually relish it and all the games and frauds and cheats — and, all at everyone else’s expense.
I agree that for the sake of the victims — the prey — it is best to get away from the spaths and go “No Contact.” But, for the sake of other to-be-prey, it is beneficial to expose the spaths as much as one can. There are still laws in the land. The lawless spaths don’t always get away with everything. They just want us to think they are untouchable and invincible. Just more of their lies.
Rape victims, too often, avoid the legal system as they are re-victimized. But, by accusing the rapists, at least the predators can be entered into the system and the abuse documented. If the victim can garner enough support, it is good for her to fight the battle. Rolling over dead as a bloody victim (as we were taught) is not good for one’s self-confidence; and, it permits the monster to continue getting away with murder.
In the same way, soul-rapists need to be held accountable. Generally, they have done enough lawless things, that they can be charged with something. Theft? Tax evasion? Transgressed court orders?
Too often the monsters continue to victimize the victims by proxy by the endless memories and general lack of closure. That is NOT victory. These monsters need to be put out of commission. Closure can come from exposing the spaths. They need to be exposed. Just as Donna Anderson has done with the LOVE FRAUD site.
There is growing evidence that sociopaths/ psychopaths/ narcissists, whatever you want to call them, ARE born that way.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-is-2020/201304/understanding-the-sociopath-cause-motivation-relationship
Specifically paragraph 6 and beyond.
http://whatisapsychopath.blogspot.com/2011/10/psyschopaths-are-born-not-made.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150127212158.htm
That last link was taken from an article here on Lovefraud (Brain science Part 3: Psychopathic brains and punishment).
There are numerous other studies (look them up) showing their brain patterns differ from ours. The growing consensus among professionals is that these people are born that way and a bad childhood can make it that much worse (i.e. maybe the difference between the nasty sociopaths we’ve all dealt with here and a serial killer).
My ex-P was one of 5 children, all close in age raised by both parents; the other 4 had the same upbringing as he did and they are all normal. His father is a P I believe (it’s also known to be hereditary).
The myth that these monsters could be decent people if only they tried harder to behave and that they are the way they are because of a bad upbringing is patently false and, worse, hinders the efforts of those trying to educate the public about sociopathy.
It is true that people are born with a genetic predisposition towards antisocial personality disorder / psychopathy. Whether the genetic predisposition “expresses” – turns into the disorder – is influenced by the child’s environment and/or parenting.
If one or both of the parents is a sociopath, the at-risk child may get the type of parenting that enables the disorder to flourish. However, it is also possible to parent the child so that the disorder does not develop, although this can be very difficult. In some cases, the genetic risk is so strong that it cannot be overcome.