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.
greenfern,
I agree with Chinagirl and Oxy. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, smells like a duck etc.. It’s a duck my dear.
The records department at the courthouse can tell you if the doc is not real. If the docket number does not match and the clerks are saying there is no record of your bf’s divorce then it is very safe to assume he is not divorced.
“A real man will state his intentions but a boy will play games”.
Something inside of you is demanding to know if he is divorced. And you have evidence that he is not. There’s your answer.
Does your state have a Commission on the Status of Women? It is a state agency. Many do. If so, get yourself there and see someone who specializes in displaced women.
If you have a credit card, go to a motel if you have too. Anything to get away from him. You must be very stealth-no contact is the best way to handle it.
Be careful and try to enlist the help of a TRUSTED friend-someone he does not know!
Get the HELL outta there girl!!
Prayers and hugs!!!!!
Dear Greenfern,
Okay, so you have two cats and no money, is that a reason to stay with this FREAK! Call the humane society and tell them that you NEED to immediately find a foster home for your cats for a little while or a Veterinarian and find out where you can leave the cats without a $15 a day fee each./…it can be done.
Then if necessary go to a shelter, or sleep in your car in a wal mart parking lot. Or go to a KOA near your city/town and rent an RV space for a few nights, they have showers there and if necessary you can sleep in your car. DO NOT STAY with this man.
If your therapist thinks “this is not enough evidence” then get a NEW THERAPIST AS SHE DOES NOT****NOT***** GET WHAT A PSYCHOPATH IS.
Call a church, call the DV shelter, call social services, whatever you have to do to get out of there. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF FIRST!!!!! My prayers for you! (((hugs))))
OxDrover–I don’t want to spend too much time on this forum on this topic but you mentioned you wanted to or are wanting to lose weight…I asked you about hcg diet. So-just wanted to give you info and pass this along. Since I am also a nurse practitioner like you I checked this out and did my research. And decided to try it. For the past 6 years I had been a size 2 (lost weight after divorce) and then hit full blown menopause and gained 35# that I cannot get off. I don’t eat that much and my body is obviously a mess of stress. Since I have gone up to a size 12!!! I have to do something else. I also work out, lift weight. The weight is weird…different….I don’t at all look like I weight this much but a lot of mid section fat and on things….very menaopausal and cortisol type fat.
I started the hcg diet. It is a tad spendy….90$ for 21 days, but I bought enough for 26 days +. I would be happy to send you the diet so you could buy just the hcg if you are interested. I won’t say much more now but I lost 4# already. I friend of mine did it before me. She lost 30# in 6 weeks, maybe less time, and has kept it off since. The idea behind hcg is it resets the hypothalamus and changes metabolism. Everyone I have talked to raves about it. It is healthy but the first 2 days are a kind of fat load. You eat high fat and calorie and it kinda kicks things off, then you are on a 500 cal diet with the hcg tid for the rest of the time, the last 3 days you go off hcg to get rid of it. The hcg uses up all the stored fat and spares muscle and supposedly you aren’t hungry because you are using that stored fat for energy. I was hungry the first day in the middle of the night! Anyway, sorry to use up this space, just wanted to pass it along. I’ll let you know how I do.
Dear Chinagirl,
I hadn’t heard about this particular diet, but the LONG RANGE with the type II diabetes that I have is to CHANGE MY EATING HABITS and “special” diets, or prepared meals (like Jennie Craig) etc don’t help you to change your eating habits and that is the main purpose of the “new food plan” with the type II diabetes.
I was eating “healthY” foods BUT I was eating them one MEAL a day in the evenings, and then continual snacks til bed time….”healthy” snacks, but WAY TOO MANY—and TOO MANY CALORIES.
SLOW and STEADY has been the best success I have had with patients losing weight (Weight Watchers is I think the best commercial program) I too have developed that round the middle fat, which is STRESS INDUCED (there is research that shows even MICE that are stressed, given the SAME diet and exercise as UNstressed mice, will put fat around the middle even if their weight doesn’t change.
In effect, they are turning THEIR OWN muscle mass into fat, and depositing it around the abdomen. With LESS MUSCLE to burn calories, the identical amount of food will become adipose tissue.
So that’s the shape I’m in, I’ve turned some of my own muscle mass into fat…fat doesn’t burn as many calories as muscle (even just resting muscle does burn calories) So….Since this is going to have to be a life time approach, not just a weight loss, I think I am going to stick to the slow and steady. I wish there was a great pill you could buy that would keep you at your ideal weight no matter what you ate, but I think like building muscles lifting weights, I think there’s no special pill to make you look like Mr. (or Ms) Universe you have to do it by the SLOW and STEADY method, so I think taking care of this weight/sugar problem is the same way—slow and steady!
Bf broke down and confessed.
I feel angry yet relieved. I am not crazy.
What I thought was happening, was happening.
He has told me that he did begin divorce proceedings and mediation. The evidence did show up for that and added up. He did show canceled checks through his checking account through his bank for mediation.
He said he had stopped mediating because he could no longer afford to have an attorney. He said he is still paying off the attorney and mediation.
I am not blaming this on her, but to give you a background
I have actually met his child’s mother, she is on lithium and she is bipolar. We take care of my bf’c child 75% of the time. We wash her hair, feed her cooked meals, cut her nails because her mother cannot do those things. She still demands that bf pays third of the rent at her place and food and half of transportation costs to birthday parties and presents for the kids friends and half of $50 haircuts for the child. She also wants half of $600 food budget she has for her and her 8 year old child. So she is just as ****ed in the head as bf is.
I also found out that the last draft of marital agreement she added that I am not allowed to be alone with the child, even though she lives with us and we have never had any conflict or I have NEVER said anything bad to her about anything.
He said that he did this because he did not want to loose our relationship, but he could not go on with the proceedings until he was caught up financially. He said he did not want to agree to things that were outrageous, just because he could not afford to retain an attorney. he said he knows that he is a coward and a liar.
He asked me to stay, but he said he understands that I do not want to stay because of what he did.
I am leaving. Just matter of finding a place now.
Ox-I hear you. This diet is a way to jump start and reset the hypothalamus…but obviously the overall way to success is changing behavior. I got into a rut and wasn’t eating well…and couldn’t budge this weight which got be bummed out. so I am wanting to jumpstart to motivate me back into healthy eating, working out consistently again. I just haven’t taken good care of myself in the past four years and I’m now motivated to do so.
Greenfern:
LEAVE…..do NOT get sucked back! He’s ‘admitting’ because he’s caught!
Now with the kind ‘understanding’ that he understands you do not want to stay…….because of what he did. What a GEM!
This is typical suck back behavior……don’t fall for it!
He let you know EXACTLY who he is.
It doesn’t take an attorney to get a divorce! His excuses are NOT VALID….the real issue is……he’s using YOU to keep his wifey on the line…..and vs versa.
He’s got his cake and enjoying every bite!!!!
Greenfern,
I agree with EB. You need to leave. If he loves you AND HE IS WIRED RIGHT, he will do everything it takes to get his act together and get free to be with you. If you have one little inkling that he is spath/narc, get the HELL out of there and don’t look back girl. You are being played big time.
He LIED “to keep you” he says. Wouldn’t you rather have a guy who would be honest to keep you? He sounds fishy and immature. His story just does not sound right.
I am very concerned for his child. Maybe someone needs to call in a report to Child Protective Services. This could be a really good thing for the child and is not always punitive. It can often be very theraputic as far as services the child can receive (therapy, monitoring , childcare, a home care person etc.) as she needs to know the adults in her life (meaning her parents) are being made accountable. Sounds like the child needs all the eyes and ears she can use right now.
I would not do it personally if I were you but have a trusted friend call as it could be a hornet’s nest of trouble if they knew- I would NOT let them know you are doing it. You can do it anonymously but it is better for the investigation if there is a contact person holding the agency’s feet to the fire.
Some motels are pet friendly depending on where you live.
I wish you well!!
I agree, Greenfern…he is back pedaling big time. EB and adamsrib said it-he only admitted it cuz he got caught. He’ll rely on your good heart to say “Oh, thank you for telling me the truth” and maybe staying. Don’t fall for it! (Not that you WOULD say that of course, just that he would think you might).
These guys are something else…pieces of work. UGH.
can you stay with a friend in the meantime while you find a place?
Also if you do as Adamsrib suggested and call child services it is confidential and you can say you don’t want to give your name. They HAVE to investigate..in my state, anyway. Not saying you should do that as i don’t know the entire story.
Be safe!
Greenfern,I live in Washington and have a house that is empty. It’s on 2 acres and its falling apart, but if you are nearby, you are welcome to it.
Wise decission to leave. Do not grow complacent and don’t turn you back on him. When you catch them in theri lies is when they get most angry. They will be EXTRA nice and sweet while plotting their vengeance. I know from experience.