Editor’s Note: This SPATH Tale was submitted by the Lovefraud reader whom we’ll call “Ms Love Bombed.”
My involvement with a sociopath lasted five years.
I didn’t know anything about sociopaths until my therapist told me to look up the definition. That is when I realized I was involved with one.
My spath love bombed me the minute we officially met. I had known him only from going to my husband’s softball games.
The first few years, it was only sex with him. He was living with another woman (which I didn’t know for the longest time and he lied to me, saying they were just roommates).
I always said I was his whore. He called me names and verbally, emotionally, and mentally abused me. The physical abuse didn’t come until later.
He kept me from my friends and even my family.
He checked my phone and accused me of cheating on him when in fact, HE was the one cheating. When I would try to break it off, he would call me 50-60 times within an hour and then would show up at either my house or my job. And of course, he love bombed me into coming back and saying everything that I wanted to hear.
Everyone told me I was crazy for staying with him, but I “loved” him and couldn’t see myself without him.
Before I moved 2000 miles away, he had gotten worse if I didn’t answer my phone, account for a bruise on my body, if I wasn’t at his parent’s house at five every day.
I was a nervous wreck. I couldn’t relax and had to justify every move.
I kept a log over the years of all the times he called me. I had pictures from the bruises and all the nasty voicemails he left me. I told my therapist where I kept all of this information just in case I wound up dead.
He told me I was fat, so I lost 24 pounds and almost ended up in an eating disorder clinic. Then he told me I looked like a crack whore.
Again, no winning.
Even after I left, he continued to contact me in any possible way he could and he would say the things he KNEW would trigger me and that I would never be able to get past. To this day, I can hear those words in my ears.
I was diagnosed with PTSD. I have gone through domestic violence counseling, domestic violence group, EMDR therapy, and I am on antidepressants. This is just a glimpse of my life with this spath. I could go on for days with stories, but I think this gives a pretty good glimpse of how my life was for five years and the couple of years after I left him.
I changed my phone number, but he got my number for my job. I have since changed jobs and he has no contact with me.
I ran into him in May when I was visiting and he yelled over to me, WHAT! No hug for me? As if he never did anything to me and we were the best of friends.
The sad part is, I longed for him to hold me.
I am now back to square one trying to put him behind me again. I don’t know if I will ever be the same.
Ms Love Bombed –
I am so sorry for your experience. Please know that you are not alone. So many people who have been targeted by sociopaths have experienced the same things, and felt the same feelings – even after they’ve left.
Wow,that’s a pretty similar to my experience. However, I’m a man and she’s a woman. Coming from a broken home, knowing my father is irresponsible and that my step-dad abused my mother, I had sympathy for the plight of the single mother or abused woman. Boy did this get me in trouble.
Men who care often get trapped by single mothers who use the man’s hero complex against him. The cries poor me, the man comes running to the rescue. She uses lots of sex to hook the guy, uses lies about the kid’s father to make her sound abused. Men seem to buy into this so easily, it’s really pathetic. I did, but the signs were there, I just didn’t recognize them.
The random coldness or indifference to my feelings. The constant beckoning to prove my love for her and the constant accusations of cheating. She would literally tell me other men were telling her I was no good and I would say, “who?” and the names she would give me were people who didn’t know me and that I didn’t know. These were people at the same corporation that we worked at and I had only been working there for a few months, nobody knew me!
Inquiring about her past always left me with questions that when asked were met with the bold, “are you calling me a liar” response. A sure sign she was lying, but for some reason I was blinded. When she would give me an ultimatum about getting married, which by the way started three months into the relationship, I would back off. She would then return to being super nice and would even have her three year old daughter call me. Of course she dialed the number and then gave her daughter the phone.
Needless to say, after we were married ALL the romance stopped. She was never interested in sitting on the couch and watching a film together, no intimacy and even a warm hug and kiss was met with a challenge, like “you just want to have sex” or “stop the kids will see” or “I’m busy”. Now, I’m talking about a sincere hug and kiss to show love and appreciation. Sometimes I did this on purpose to try to warm her up, to make her feel better and some times I did do it to warm her up for intimacy, hopefully, that night. It never worked.
And if I wanted to have sex, I literally had to beg for it. And then of course, if I showed any friendliness to any woman, I was surely cheating on her.
Now after being divorced I see everything more clearly. I see that she was the cheater, I see the people she cheated with and how she setup the events so she could cheat. Even attempting to cause fights so she could leave the house. These were not real fights, they were attempts to get me to respond and as soon as I responded with the slightest frustration, she would accuse me of yelling and leave the house. I would sit there in a lump wondering what was going on and where my young son was that night. She even stood ten feet from me yelling “stop hitting me” in what seemed to be an attempt to get my son, only three, to recall what she said.
Later I realized she was already packed to leave the house. The worst part of all this and much, much more insanity is that to this day, nobody believes me! NOBODY! I’ve been destroyed by divorce and I’d have to say, it got worse when I agreed to go to marriage counseling as she quickly co-opted the counselor.
I don’t know if any men are on here, but love just isn’t worth the pain!
Wow, I really thought you were writing about my ex until you mentioned the part about having to be at his parents’ house at 5 (his parents are divorced and don’t live in the area anyway). Other than that, they are the same person!
That’s what strikes me so much, about how similar they all are in their tactics. Like they have their own rule book.
Good luck and keep smiling!
Interesting about the “love bombing.” Just a couple of nights ago, I finally became not just aware but really aware, angrily aware, painfully aware, that my father has been love bombing me for years to justify those less-often moments when he just erases me. No wonder I fall for spaths! It took my joining a spiritual group and doing ayahuasca-like substances to finally get the memo about what I have been excusing just because this man calling himself my father says, “You are loved” all the time. And yes, “I love you.” And sending me money lately, now that I’m in a tight spot.
NOW HEAR THIS: You are not required to participate in ANY conversation — with siblings, parents, lovers, employers or anybody — that does not lift you up.
Period.
Let the world know RIGHT NOW that that is your new policy. If it doesn’t lift you up, if it wasn’t loving, it wasn’t meant for you. Return to sender.