Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following letter from a reader who we’ll call “Nora.” The names in this letter have been changed.
One Saturday, in October 2009, I married someone I thought was the man of my dreams. When this man came into my life last year, I had suffered several losses and was very vulnerable. I thought I had finally met an honorable, loving, understanding, romantic, Christian man. We laughed together, planned our future together, and seemed like the perfect couple. I should have remembered when something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Although I didn’t expect everything would always be rosy, soon after we were married, I discovered that everything I thought I knew about this man was based on lies. He is the complete opposite of who I thought he was and has no concept of the truth or of being in a committed, loving relationship.
From my research since leaving him, I believe this man is a sociopath, and nothing, or no one, is going to change him. He initially presents himself to be a charismatic, romantic, faithful man, but soon the real man begins to emerge – a cheating, abusive, pathological liar. When I started questioning inconsistencies in his stories, he turned everything around to try and make me feel guilty for doubting him, and that worked in the beginning. Even though I was confused as to why I was no longer feeling love from this man, I tried to convince myself that everything would work itself out. When I started to realize this man had duped me, I also started to realize he was incapable of truth or love. The fact that we recited our wedding vows in the presence of God and family meant nothing to him. Everyone, including myself, asks the same question. Why did he marry me so quickly and what did he hope to gain? I don’t think there’s an answer to this question that makes sense.
Met on a dating site
I joined a dating website in July 2009 for the same reasons that most women like me do. I was having another birthday that month and decided I wanted to meet someone to enjoy life with, as I had been living as a single woman for over five years and hadn’t dated until the last year. Since I hadn’t met anyone the usual ways, I thought this would be a good way to pick someone who matched what I was looking for in a man. It didn’t take long to get winks from lots of men, but one man’s profile stood out from the others. We are both over 50 years old, but he is several years younger than me, and I often joked that my first husband was the same age as me and my second husband older, so I was looking for a younger man the next time.
We met for our first date a few weeks later at a public garden near my home. When I got out of my car, he met me with a dozen red roses, the first of many to come. At first, he was very quiet but told me later it was because I took his breath away and he hadn’t expected me to have that affect on him. We went to dinner that night at a nearby restaurant. The evening was perfect and he was everything I had hoped for. We agreed on just about everything and the next two months seemed as if we had been together forever — that we were who the other had been hoping to find.
My mom’s advice was not to rush into anything but he convinced me we should get married, and no one tried to talk me out of getting married so soon because they tell me now I seemed happier than I had been in a long time. I never once felt alarm or noticed anything that appeared to be red flags. If I had taken my mom’s advice and waited, the truth would have eventually come out before making the biggest mistake of my life.
Quick wedding
Soon after we started dating, “Gabe” booked tickets for a day trip excursion out-of-state. When we started talking marriage, it was decided we would get married in an outdoor wedding gazebo with the fall leaves as a backdrop on the same day as the planned trip. We left on Friday, the day before the excursion and wedding ceremony, to obtain our marriage license that he applied for online. He was anxious the entire trip, worrying that we wouldn’t get to the license office before they closed. Our children were meeting us the next day for the wedding ceremony and he said he didn’t want anything to upset our plans. Once we got the license, he relaxed, and the planned excursion the next day and the wedding ceremony that night are still wonderful memories and always will be as are the days leading up to that date.
The next day, we returned home and it was decided we would start moving my furniture and belongings to live in his house. My new husband, appearing to show concern, kept asking me if I was sure that’s what I wanted to do because his house is miles away from everything I am used to. I know now that his “concern” was how he was going to keep me from discovering the truth about his numerous lies. I told him I loved living away from the big city and didn’t mind the longer drive to visit with my children or get to my job. I had been renting my condo for over five years, so he said we would keep it until the first of the year, and then purchase it and rent it out.
Discovering the lies
Turns out, Gabe had not been divorced for three years as he told me. His divorce was final one month before our first date, making him ineligible to remarry sooner than 60 days. No wonder he was a wreck about getting the marriage license. He had lied on the marriage license application stating his last divorce was May 2006.
Gabe started to “disappear” and have lame excuses when he returned. He had said he would help pay my rent and car payments to help me with the expenses of two households, but he never gave me a penny. I discovered he was talking to other women online, but didn’t say anything at first. One night I asked who one of them was. He said a friend of his for over 20 years. Turns out, she was someone he had hooked up with in late 2007. He told this woman he was divorced and had an affair with her for several months before she became suspicious and called it off.
The real man
The last week I was there, the real Gabe emerged. I discovered he had changed all of the passwords on the computer and blocked me from using it, but this time, I wasn’t backing down. I knew he was hiding things from me and let him know that’s why I had checked the computer history. I found out he hadn’t paid any of the bills he claimed to have paid for the past two months.Gabe then told me our marriage was a mistake, we wanted different things in life, he realized he never loved me and to pack my things and get out of “his” house.
At first, I refused, thinking we could work it out, but after talking to my mom, something she said clicked in my head, and I suddenly realized what I had to do and started packing.
The day before moving, Gabe and his son moved my furniture to the downstairs garage. I rented a 16-foot truck, and my daughter, son and I loaded my belongings in it and moved out on what should have been our two-month anniversary, back to the condo I was lucky to still have.
More lies
Since leaving him, I have found out the truth about so many of his lies. He isn’t a military hero as he claims. He doesn’t have a Purple Heart Award or a Bronze Medal. He uses a fabricated DD214 and Bachelor of Science diploma as credentials. He never went to college to earn a computer science degree. The university he claims to have received his degree from never heard of him.
The ring – he made a big deal about giving me “his mother’s ring.” He told me he had never felt about anyone the way he did about me, and I was so special, he wanted me to wear it. Turns out, it isn’t even his mother’s ring. He tries to guilt me into returning the ring, saying it’s a family heirloom, and he will pay for a divorce if I return it. Like I’m going to believe another lie of his? There are too many lies to list, but they also include some really insignificant ones that do nothing other than to inflate his image.
Online profiles
I started profiles as his wife in hopes of warning other women about him and not to date him. I made it so anyone searching his name would find my profiles about him instead. He’s been seen dating and I’ve had him bumped from two dating websites after informing them he’s not single as he claims, but still married.
Who found my profiles were other women from his past who he lied to. They have let me know how thankful they are that I exposed him and that it has helped them to understand what they couldn’t before now. We have become informed by sharing and comparing our stories. We’re able to laugh at how he uses the same stories and calls us all “Pretty Lady” and “Bella Principesa.” Our “support group” has drawn us together and we now focus on hopefully sharing our knowledge with others.
Won’t divorce
I can’t get him to divorce me, but that’s one of his MO’s. He tells everyone his wives are the ones who cheated on him and divorced him after leaving him with their debts. He’s the only one who did the cheating. He’s the one who is financially irresponsible and has filed for bankruptcy — a fact he dropped on me after we were married. He had shown me a meticulously kept check register that turned out to be a fake. He refuses to pay for a divorce, so for now, other women are safe from him.
After leaving him and realizing he had not been truthful about his sexual encounters, I went to my doctor to be tested. Thankfully, only one STD test came back positive and it was treated with antibiotics. When I informed him he might need to get tested since he was having sex with other women, his only response was I got infected from improper feminine hygiene. He says ignorant things like that to try and upset me, but I know the truth, and I can hold my head high knowing I did nothing wrong other than to love him and trust him without really knowing anything about him.
I hope others will see there’s no shame in this happening, but I also hope they will read my story and others like it and think as many times as it takes to really get to know a person before making a bad decision while thinking something like this, or worse, can’t happen to them.
Hi Nora,
I am not sure if it is the same as where you are but in Australia if they refuse to sign, like mine did too you can have an affidavit written by the person that serves him the papers to say he refused to sign and that is enough for the court to grant a divorce. We will love to hear more from you and good luck with everything! Much strength to you… 🙂
I am absolutely in awe of you guys ability to express yourselves. Im just back one week from a trip to Scotland, and i think that psychologically, what I was doing, was saying “Goodbye”. To what? maybe to everything. I even had afternoon tea with the couple who bought my parents house, the house iwas born in in 1939, and that I lived in every day till I left to take up a teaching post in Singapore, with the British forces overseas. I was 23 then. I met my ex husband there,[little did I know he wasan alcoholic,} and had my two daughters there.So, “Goodbye, house, goodbye, street, good bye memories, goodbye, dead Mum and Dad, goodbye, little brothers who have turne d into pompous chauvinistic p–ks.
Saw my old school pals, girls Ive known since the age of 5 . were all now 70 plus. Goodbye to them too. Goodbye to friend Bob, dying of liver cancer, 6 months left to live.I used this trip to build up my courage for the ultimate goodbye, goodbye to my two spath daughters, and probably also goodbye to my 3 Grandkids, as I havent seen them all togethe since 8th Dec.,2008. I have to find a way to let go of everyone and everything, WITHOUT any BITTERNESS.And say Hello to life,asa free.,happy, intelligent sensitive, caring, artistic worth while person, who has been very nearly DESTROYED by the spaths in my life. NO MORE of that. Goodbye to all that, hello , new, better life, welcome, I can taste the fresh air of my new life, and it feels good!
Love to all of you amazing, caring and fantastic friends on LF. We are on our way, and were doin OK!! Lots of Love, Mama gem.XX
Parting and sweet sorrow or just parting? I wonder how many of us see things that aren’t there in the aftermath? I wonder what is really true about what I know and didn’t know I didn’t know before?
Fog. It feels like a fog comes as part of the evolution and in order to work though this phase after all the initial shocks, there is compelling work to make decisions that are not going to reverse easily.
I do not trust well now- not even the relationships of a lifetime. The ones I turned to after the SPATH.
Its weird. I can observe it it, but I do not at all feel grounded.
Hello new life? I think this is what you describe Gem with much more certainty than I have now. On the days when it feels like walking on broken glass I envy that in others.
But the world is an uncertain place.
It can wait a day for conclusions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y25stK5ymlA
bluejay, by all means, LAUGH! It’s good for the soul and a great way to release stress. I laugh a lot! I think laughter is one of the best medicines around. It gets rid of tension, stress and even if just for a moment, gets us out of ourselves and focused on something else. Yes, what he did was very serious but his reactions were positively comical! There is certainly no offense taken here. I always laugh about his one exuse whenever I caught him doing some werid, kinky things with other people he had met online. “I have an inquisitive mind.” NO, you have a twisted, perverted outlook on life and people. THIS is a line I would use to explain the behavior of a child, not an adult! One of the best lately is the ad he placed on a dating site with part of his description saying he needed to find somene new because he had been in an abusive relationship (meaning with me) and he wanted a REAL woman. I’m paraphrasing here. THIS from a person who knows nothing about reality at all? roflmao! At one time, this would have just killed me. Today, though, knowing what I know, it’s just plain funny to me! Yeah, like he’s going to attract any healthy women with that line…I think not!
Hugs and laughter,
Cat
Dear Gem,
Since my farm is my “home”—childhood home, emotional home, etc. it was difficult to let go, but I was able to come back, but I also realize NOW that it is just A PLACE and I said goodbye to it, and I don’t feel the way I did about it, the way I have always felt about it.
I lived in other towns during the winter where my dad taught school, but we came here every weekend, every holiday and I was here all summer every summer. We moved towns every few years for better jobs for dad until I left home, and then my folks moved again, so this was always THE home.
Now it is just a place to live. I like it okay, but no longer feel the comfort of the community around about embracing me, I’ve said my goodbye back when the BLACK cloud of emotion hung over the place, then just hung over my egg donor’s house, and then over my son C’s house and there was the emotional smell of rot around my house.
I am cautious but feel relatively safe here now, but know if I outlive my egg donor, I will have to reassess the situation and decide to move or not (depending on if P son gets any money or not) then sell out (most likely) and go somewhere else. But also I am getting older and many yof the “toys” I have (big girl’s toys) I’m shedding myself of as I really won’t be using them much if any more so will pass them on to others or sell them. But that’s okay, it is as it should be.
The emotional connections we had to people we THOUGHT loved us are just part of the baggage we must shed and realize it was counterfit on their parts and we are better off realizing that, and taking our losses. The GENUINE things we have, the REAL things we have, the love of those that love us back, and our love for ourselves and them, that is REAL and that is what we must focus on, not continually focus on the “loss” of something that was COUNTERFIT TO BEGIN WITH.
I met this guy about a month ago, we been talking briefly on the phone an texting. Red flags is showing, we haven’t been on a date he calls me around 11 or 12 midnight on the weekends asking where I’m hanging so he can come there, thats not dating to me, he if states it should matter as long as I get to see you. (bs) ok then he text me today asking me what I wore to work, my response was u really need to get to know me its not cool the way you coming at me, he said i dont have imagination (bs) i think it was a sexual innuendo, do u guys think I’m over cautious, when I mention it to him he got defensive those are the beginning of red flags or am I over reacting
Outlier, I understand that too. I love all of my siblings so much! As the oldest, I was really in the mode of wanting to protect them, but I couldn’t. They had to learn on their own. It HURTS to watch someone such as one of these types hurting the people you love. I have given it to God so many times. And He has taken care of it. I found it very difficult to attend family functions and at one point, didn’t attend them at all. I am so glad you connected with your brother as you did. I don’t think, as children, that we realize that family connection until we are fully grown. It’s a precious link that we have to others in life. I know there are those on here who are dealing with children who are P/N/A’s and my heart goes out to them as it does to you with your sister. Once we KNOW what they really are, it is such a struggle to separate.
When I tried to tell my family what my ex was really all about, I was accused of lying because I was “jealous”. HUH? I had to just let it go, as I said and sit back.
At some point, I came to believe that each of us is intelligent and also intuitive at least to a degree. I told myself a 1,000 times over that sooner or later they would see and they did. I felt horrible for the pain they went through when they finally got it, but I understood it too. I had been there as well. If ANYONE understood what they were feeling, it was me. Someday, you too, will be in that position. We never want to see our loved ones hurt, but it seems as though pain is the only way to go when we finally see these people for what they really are.
A new baby! We just had one in our family and he’s a joy! Babies are a sign that life goes on no matter what happens. I look at a new baby as a sign of that very thing; LIFE.
Dear Luv,
How did you MEET this guy? If on the internet, tell him you are not interested in meething him. I THINK is WAY TOO dangerous a way to meet guys! You have no idea who he really is. Sounds like him calling you that late every time is ODD (waiting til the wife goes to sleep?) and wants you to tell him where you are going so he can meet you there? ODD!
Then wants to know whawt you are WEARING????
Dump this guy and meet someone in real life, not off the internet where they can be WHO KNOWS WHAT!!!!
luv716, Nope! I don’t think you’re being overly cautious at all. He’s only calling you at 11 or 12 at night? Where is he the rest of the time? And asking what you are wearing? That gives me the creeps. I would lose this guy fast. This is all just in my humble opinion.
Luv716, I agree with OxD and Cat – there is “something wrong” with all of this. He sounds like he’s already in a relationship and is 100% predatory.
Online dating? You hear about “good” matches and successful stories in the advertisements. What you DON’T hear about are the 40 horror stories for every one success. There is no eye contact. There is no interaction. There is nothing upon which to base a “relationship” other than profile information which, as we all know, can be completely fabricated to suit a predator’s needs.
NO CONTACT with the spathhole.