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.
Dear Silvermoon,
ABSOLUTELY! We are NOT who we would have been if we had not had this experience. Just as a rock that has been tumbled down the mountain side by a glacier, then rolled into the river and tumbled along, we are CHANGED from what we would have been if we had been left on the mountain top.
We have been abbraded by everything from the other stones we touched as we traveled to the water itself, until we are POLISHED into something very fine!
Jesus gave the example of fine silver being refined in the hot fires to remove the impurities, and the challenges that we meet are for us that refining fire. Those challenges are that abbrasion of the stone as it travels down the mountain, polishing and refining us.
Ox,
I really like the word abraded.
It is on my mind this afternoon. A peaceful afternoon in the countryside of PA.
(Hi Buttons!)
The natural beauty of the landscape in this Valley recalls to me all that is serene and bucholic. What is beautiful is unaltered by the behavior of people in this context.
I breath in and out the smell of grass and rivers and flowers and
horses and it is good.
The last time I was here, I was not alone, but accompanied in a dream state by the person who lulled me to sleep in it.
For months I did not dream because prior to his departure, I dreamt about HIM everytime I slept. And it is new to me to be dreaming again. He no longer resident there.
So rested and refined, I am going to a spa on a reckless notion that it is fitting to enjoy such reward on a beautiful day in a beautiful place and wind up polished at the end of it.
Yes OX, once again you ring the bell with a word which is clear and exact.
Best to you!
Dear Silvermoon,
I think in so many ways the encounters we have had with the psychopaths, though so painful at the time, have been beneficial for us in the end.
When a bone is broken in the body, it repairs itself, and in that broken spot is much stronger than it was before the break. I think when the breaks and cracks caused by our encounters with the psychopaths do heal we are stronger and better in many ways than we were before the damage.
It’s interesting that you mention the dreams—lately I have been dreaming about both my biological sons, the P son in prison and my other son that I asked to leave my house, but none of the dreams have been “nightmares” but just dreams. I don’t wake up upset and the dream itself is not distressing, just accepting of how things are.
Last night son C came to my house in my dream, and apparently just for a visit, and I was busy so I very nicely but firmly asked him to leave. No upset, just accepting.
I think we use our dreams to work out problems at night that we have during the day, or to tell us in symbolic ways (usually not too subtle) messages we “see” with our gut but don’t necessarily acknowledge consciously.
My “theme” dreams, as I call them, of me stopping whatever I am doing and “rescuing” something that is “helpless,” while the rest of my life falls apart, were interesting that way. As soon as I finally “got the message” about how enabling I had been, and how I had been distracted from my own journey by assuming responsibility for others, those dreams stopped for the most part.
I think, too, that having the peace and quiet and solitude to think, ruminate and commune with ourselves is very important to our healing. Too many times we have too much “noise” in our lives to be able to examine our feelings, or thoughts and grasp the insights we have been given.
Glad I rang your chimes Silvermoon! Today Ii wish I was in Pennsylvania instead of the south! LOL
Ox,
As my friends on the other side of the “Line” says that that Yankees are like hemeroids…. they are fine if they go back up and stay, but when they come down, there are a real pain in the……
Its better to come visit them…….(tee hee)
“Nora” I understand and applaud your reasons for staying married to him, but I urge you to get a divorce as soon as possible. You are in a vulnerable position legally aren’t you? Doesn’t anything he do financially impact your credit history? Aren’t you ultimately responsible too for his debts as his wife? Maybe I have that wrong, but it seems a very scary position to be in. You need to be sure to take care of yourself first, and if he is determined to hurt other women, he will lie and do it anyway.
Its will be a year in july that I slept with the s, it was july 2009 when the s got the last borrowed money from me, I dont wanna talk or see that person again in my life, I want to forget I ever known that person. But I cant help but hope his life on earth is a life of hell, I found his wife facebook page (he back with her) my yearn for revenage wants to request her to add the person that I made up just to expose that s.o.b but my gut tells me to leave it alone. Sometimes I sit an I think of all I lost by letting that devil in my life all that my kids has lost by me allowing this devil into my world. Things moved so fast before I could blink I thought I was in love. Now that I’ve been celibate for almost I year I know what red flags look like. Now that I’ve let him go why cant I let the need for revenge go??????????
Hi Luv That feeling of needing revenge is normal. It has only been one year for you, give yourself more time, this is a life lesson we will never forget. But your revenge is going no contact and staying no contact. Dont upset yourself by going to facebook, delete your account and stay out of facebook. Glad you are healing and learning about creatures like him..Prison’s are full of people who get revenge, I prefer living a good life without him, now that is revenge to me..
Hi Luv716
I can’t tell you for sure why you can’t let the need for revenge go, but I couldn’t (maybe it will be similar for you). Mainly I wanted justice, and thought there was NO WAY I could ever hope to get it from society that doesn’t understand Spaths. I wanted that bastard to HURT, like he hurt me, and wanted what was stolen from me back (my life!). I knew I wasn’t going to get those things the way I’d like, and I wanted him to PAY till he was dead for his crimes.
The first thing I had to do, to really start letting the need for revenge go, was to tell myself it’s 100% OK to feel complete rage over what my S did. Once I let myself feel okay about having the feelings of rage and wanting to absolutely kill/mame and or shame the S and everyone who ever abused me, I started feeling better. It’s like I just needed to admit it was OK, it was my right to feel exactly the way I did.
If you find it helps you, just sit there with your anger and your rage and say “I have every right in the world to feel like killing this person. I want to beat this person until they’re dead.” (or say whatever it is you’re feeling, really feeling, and tell yourself it is OK). (Just don’t act on the feelings!!). That was the first step for me towards feeling better. Acceptance of these really harsh, horrible negative feelings helped me. I don’t think the feelings would have ever gotten better, unless I accepted them, and honored my right to have them. It was like giving myself the right to feel the anger that I did.
Since then I don’t feel the need for revenge, at least not most days. And I moved on to the next stages of healing, but I don’t want to bore you with all of that.
I know it sounds backwards, but if you resist or reject your feelings (desires for revenge), they can become stronger, and stay with you longer. If you try to let your feelings go without honoring them, they may not be willing to go away.
Hope that helps,
Psyche ((( hugs )))
I know a colleague, who was happily married. She is very pretty, was married to a handsome, smart, professional man and had a child with him. They seemed healthy and well to do. All of a sudden – divorce. And – merely two months later, he is taking his new girlfriend to another city. They split the kid 50% – 50%. Literally – one week with Mom and one week with Dad. She is trying to act as she always did – smiling, grouped, but her eyes are so sad. I just went up to her and really – gave her a hug and shed a tear. Could it be that the whole world had gone insane? that people have someone and continue to look for a “better someone”. Is it like buying a car nowadays?
I was watching this beautiful couple in the restaurant. Obviously, newly hooked up. Both middle aged. both very handsome looking. I could not stop thinking about how long this will last…
At least, the food was good.
Dear Luv, Psyche gave you some GREAT advice. I agree with her 110 %—don’t reject those feelings, you have a RIGHT and it is natural to FEEL THAT WAY when someone has betrayed you! FEEL THOSE FEELINGS!!!! It is OK.
I know you don’t want to feel that angry, mad, wrathful the rest of your life, but there’s no time limit on when you can start to let those feelings go, so in the meantime, just feel them. It is cleansing–for a while, and when you are ready you can let that bitterness go, because HE will STOP being meaningful in your heart! ((((hugs))))