Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following email from a man whom we’ll call “Roger.” He says his girlfriend was seeing two men at once, deceiving both of them and living a double life.
UPDATED FOR 2024: First off this is a man’s story and I hope it will help other men who have had to deal with sociopathic women. No offense women but most stories here are written by women!
So I met my X-fiancee about 3 years at a job function. She was beautiful, sweet, caring, attractive — just seemed like an extremely “genuine” person at the time. We would constantly email each other all day and the more we conversed, the more I was realizing how similar we both were in every way. We were both divorced, had no kids, same aspirations in terms of careers, liked the same activities, food, travel etc.
Well I tried taking her out several times and on several occasions, I was either shot down or got a last minute phone call with a last minute almost cliche-like excuse, “I have to help a friend,” etc. You know when your being sold out. We hung out a few times, but since I wasn’t getting her to reciprocate any type of affection towards me, I wound up in a relationship with another very nice girl and she wound up dating other guys.
So we remained great friends and spoke on the phone and text often. She was very easy to talk to and very observant, so I would go to her for relationship issues and I thought her intentions were good! Key word “thought.”
Even though we had a little attraction when we first met, we never dated, kissed, nothing. I noticed she would always throw out little comments like “make sure your using protection with her.” I once confronted her and asked why, why did she care? She told me because if we were to wind up together she wouldn’t want me to give her something.
I have to admit I was comparing my at the time current girlfriend to her constantly, and when she said that it brought back all the feelings that I had for her. So fast forward about a year, I am no longer with my then girlfriend and am taking a 13 hr road trip. Being bored I text her to let her know I was going to be driving for a while. Make a long story short, we texted almost the entire 13 hr trip and the more we spoke the more I realized I was falling for her.
Passion
I for the first time told her I wish she was here so I could kiss her and she responded with “me too.” She then told me she always had cared but the timing was never right. Well for the next few days we were hot and heavy texting about passionate romantic endeavors, how great it would be to date as we are almost best friends and get along so well. Well when I got back 4 days later I told her I needed to come see her. I needed to finally kiss her and see her. So I came over late at night at first she seemed a little nervous. But soon were passionately kissing and next thing I know I am throwing her onto her bed. The passion was extremely intense but she withheld from having sex with me.
After that night came the distance, lack of texts, not answering phone calls etc. Granted we weren’t dating, but we were friends for 1-1/2 yrs. We told one another we were going to date, had an extremely passionate night together, and now she has disappeared.
So come March we are hot and heavy texting and talking again, more and more about sex and how she liked the way I touched her. She basically was working me to death. I told her if she wanted to know how sex was to come over and be with me already. So she came over one morning (which was odd), like 7:30 to be exact. Walked in like nothing and we engaged in passionate sex for the first time. After we were done everything seemed fine. We took a shower together.
No response
She left and again no texts, no answering calls for 3 days. I was heartbroken. I tried soo hard to be with this girl and I couldn’t get a read on her. I knew she had been dating a guy on and off for 3 years or so and I asked if it had anything to do with him. She admitted she still talked to him. But the way she said it made it seem like they were just friends at this point.
Well, 3 months after that the texting and calling was on again, this time more than ever. Now I am picking her up from her work for lunch, and to mess around in her car. I couldn’t take it anymore. I told her that if her feelings for me were real, than why are we not dating?? My X wanted me back and I told her this wasn’t going to continue, as my X was a sweet girl with a great future, and I wasn’t going to put my life on hold anymore for a once a week romantic escapade.
Two days later she told me she wanted to come over; she had something to tell me. She came over and told me she called things off with her X and she wanted me! I didn’t understand. She told me they just talked?? She said she had gone to get the remaining items from his house and she told him that they would not see each other anymore at all. She said he didn’t take it well, but I figured so much as she is an extremely attractive woman.
Perfect relationship
So now we began our relationship and things went almost text book perfect. I mean dating a girl that was basically your best friend, knows everything about you including past relationships, no lies—it was great. I was truly in love, and she made sure she told me how much she loved me, and appreciated my love for her and her family. Our families met we travelled and hung out almost every day together!
Read more articles about female sociopaths
Several months down the road we found out she was pregnant. We were both extremely happy. She was living with her family at the time so I told her I would get us our own place so we can live together throughout the pregnancy. We moved in together got engaged and were living a beautiful life.
Doesn’t love me
Six weeks ago, when she was 5 months pregnant, she woke up out of the blue and told me straight faced that she didn’t love me and she doesn’t think she ever did!! My heart dropped to the floor. We are having twins, and I thought that maybe the pregnancy has caused her to be hormonal. She is usually tactful with her words and chooses wisely, but she was cold, crass and unsympathetic. I begged her to go to counseling, anything, but to end this, as she is pregnant with my twins.
After about a week of her staying at her girlfriend’s house and hardly any communication, she told me she was ready to talk. She wouldn’t even see me in person so she called. She told me that nothing has changed and that now she is considering moving in with her X-boyfriend!!!??? I was shocked, hurt, appalled just about every emotion went thru my body.
I asked her why would he want to take you in knowing that you’re pregnant with another mans kids? She wouldn’t answer just basically said that he is.
I was devastated. I had thought that maybe she could have left me for another man, but the likelihood of that since she is 5 months pregnant, and showing, is very unlikely.
The other boyfriend
Two weeks later I get a text from the boyfriend asking if we can talk? I knew I was going to have to speak with him since if they do work out, I would have to trust him with my kids. So I called him just to talk about his plans and to know that my kids are in good hands, but he insisted that we talk about my and her past.
He explained that he knew things that I didn’t, and he was sure I knew a lot that he didn’t! I was confused and wasn’t sure if he was trying to hurt me. He then explained to me that he has been with her this whole time!!!! And that he just recently found out about me!
We spoke for 6 hours and figured out that she was deceiving both of us and living a double life. I found out 3 days before she left me she went to see him and told him she was pregnant. He didn’t ask, cause he thought she was only with him and he was excited that he was going to be a dad again. Then as the days went by she told him that she casually dated a guy, used a different name for the guy too! And that they only had sex twice and that the condom broke and they were most likely the other guy’s kids.
Being that this guy was so brainwashed and in love with her at the time, he didn’t care, and tried to look past it and told her that since he had a vasectomy, he understood she wanted kids and he couldn’t give her any. But he then began catching her in other small lies that finally built up to him reaching out to me and us figuring out everything.
Confrontation
We confronted her about everything, down to the details and she admits to everything, but in such calm way it’s hauntingly scary!
After he found out that he had been deceived, he kicked her out and she went to live with her girlfriend. I have now been going to a therapist and they believe she is a sociopath, as do I after doing the countless hours of research on the subject. I mean here is a girl pregnant with twins, living a double life with two men, not going to be able to work in less than 90 days, and she lost everything and she acts as if nothing has happened!
I have poured my eyes out to her asking her if she realizes what she has done to me, my family, our unborn children etc., and she has nothing to say—no remorse, no sympathy, no apologies at all!
I am still going to the OBGYN visits for the babies’ sake, but every time I see her It makes it harder on me, as I still love her. After knowing what she is, and just how far capable she is, I know I could never be with a person like this, but the pain of being in love is not something that goes away overnight!
I have tried to understand what she was going through, but the more I pry into her head the more walls go up. She actually tries to believe a much more diluted version of the truth. Whenever I see her, she acts as if we are just friends now, and as if this happened years ago!!!! This was only 5 weeks ago!
Calm and relaxed
Me and the other guy forced her to take an STD check, which came back all good (thank heaven), and next she will have to take a paternity test once the kids are born. The most chilling parts of all of this Is that she is so calm and relaxed about everything. It almost seems as if this is normal day to day for her.
The point of my story is I never in a million years would have seen this coming. My friends, family everyone is shocked. She was the most loveable, outgoing, sensitive, sweet girl I had ever met, and everyone saw this in her. I have to let go of her, but unfortunately I still have to deal with this person for the sake of my children. I recently learned that her mom has sociopathic behavior, and believe her behavior stems from her mom’s. My only goal is to ensure now that my kids get all the love and support from me!
I don’t know if this story can help anyone, but if it helps just one person reading this, I have done my part!
Learn more: Beyond Betrayal — How to recover from the trauma
Lovefraud originally posted this article on March 16, 2012.
When you discover the appalling truth, do not confront the sociopath
skylar
Roger,
You are exactly right about not wasting time imagining what she could be doing. We aren’t suggesting that at all. What we are saying is that all spaths lie, all the time. And we have all had the same experience that in hindsight, there were clues in abundance. The spaths fogged up our vision with contradictory evidence. These are props that they place, just so, to make us ASSUME certain things about them. These assumptions are called “Frame Control”. They make us overlook other, contradictory, clues about the truth.
I’m not saying your spath is using drugs. I still don’t think that my spath used drugs except for cigs and coffee. He was too much of a control freak and didn’t use drugs that would make him lose control.
Keep your eyes wide open for all the cues and be aware that she may be using frame control to manipulate your perceptions.
skylar
Athena,
Haha! when he turned to leave, did he momentarily disappear into a single line? That’s what cardboard cutouts do.
😆
Witty,
yes, strong conflict of beliefs ARE a red flag. Unfortunately for me, the red flags were so unsettling that I squashed them immediately. I hold the world’s record for fastest time between seeing the truth and moving it directly into denial.
I’m efficient that way.
🙁
witsend
Oxy,
….I think sometimes denial can be a healthy response. (temporarily) Under circumstances when something is tramatic, so awful it seems sureal, or just something that takes a bit of time to process….
But denial isn’t always our friend or healthy. Especially if it is a way of life.
I sometimes joke about this when it comes to my MIL. She is living in Denial USA…. Or 333 Denial Avenue, Denial USA. 1-800 DENIAL*
She has never moved, or changed her phone number for over 20 year that I have known her…lol. Stll living on denial st….
skylar
Oxy,
I’m not sure that your response to the emergency situation is actually denial. In fact, it sounds like facing reality.
I’m reading a pretty good book “The Power of Now” right now about that and it says that when you are in an emergency situation, you don’t have any problems.
I’ll quote:
This has been my experience as well. And it is, I think, what Gavin DeBecker describes in “The Gift of Fear”.
witsend
Skylar,
I think that in some traumatic situtations something else kicks in…
Especially if you witness something that just seems to awful to be true.
Judging from my experience anyways I found that when I walked into something that was so sureal to me it was almost as if I could feel my brain short circuiting. (for lack of better word) My brain did seem to freeze up so to speak.
But I had an out of body experience. For sure….
Probably what your author calls: “something infinitely more powerful takes over”.
Hard to articulate these things but amazing to actually experience.
Ox Drover
Sky, I am talking about that thing that when we are say told of a sudden, unexpected death of someone we love, we immediately think “that can’t be true, I just saw him this morning, it must be a mistake” That denial phase can last from minutes to a life time. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her research on the grief process lists this as the first stage of grief….and short term it is VERY BENEFICIAL, but long term, very unhealthy because if we don’t acknowledge a “problem” or something happening, there is no way we can ACT.
Another example. You are driving down the road and your car starts to make a funny sound and smoke. You are broke and far from home and so you say (denial) “Oh, no, it probably isn’t anything, it will at least wait to get home.” then the car continues to smoke and choke and you don’t pull over because you say to yourself (again, denial) “there can’t be anything worng with it, I can’t afford to get a mechanic, it will be okay.” Then of course the car dies. The mechanic says, “well, I’m sorry, if you had pulled over when it first started to smoke, a couple of quarts of oil would have fixed it, but since you kept on driving it, the engine is ruined.” The thing is by not acknowledging that there was something WRONG you didn’t ACT and the situation got only worse as you drove along.
Roger75
I have come to grips with the reality of her being rather quicly i believe. I did not know what a sociopath was or that she was one until my therapist pointed it out to me and i wound up on this forum and doing hours of research on my own. I know understand how i was so easily manipulated and see the red flags that I never chose to see. Now everytime i see her it feels like im conducting a cast study as i know 100% of whatever comes out of her mouth is a lie and i try to envision what seed she is planting or how many moves she is looking ahead in this “game of chess” she is playing. I am being amicable as i notice as long as i play along she doesn’t bother me, or pay me much attention. I do have hard days but i feel everyday i am making progress. The hardest parts is over which was not knowing why she left me in the first place, it drove me crazy she could leave me high and dry with nowhere to live 5 months pregnant. But i now know she is not hormonal or irrational she makes calculated decisions well in advance I just had no reason to look into the signs in hindsight! I am strong enough and educated now so there is no more playing me for a sucker! Karma is a fuc&in bitch! She will get hers!
Roger75
Staind “King of all excuses”
This song seems to fit in my life right about now!
You
I trusted your intentions, a trust you took advantage of
Now you
Are sitting in the hole that you dug around yourself
You’ve lied so much you think it’s true
Do you know what the truth is?
How does someone get to be like you?
The king of all excuses
Is she
Your partner in deception or caught inside the web you’ve spun?
Did you
Forget that you were family, the damage you have done
You’ve lied so much you think it’s true
Do you know what the truth is?
How does someone get to be like you?
The king of all excuses
I trusted you
I trusted in you
This time
You’re gonna get it
All the things you’ve done coming back to you
This time
You’re gonna feel it
You’re conscience slowly suffocating you
In time
You will regret it
Say goodbye to all the things you’ve gotten used to
Life will find a way to bring this karma to you
Life will find a way to bring this karma to you
You’ve lied so much you think it’s true
Do you know what the truth is?
How does someone get to be like you?
The king of all excuses
Everything must come full circle
It kills me that I feel this hurtful
I wonder what your children think of you
The king of all excuses
witsend
Roger,
I think that all the warnings here are just coming from the perspective that “you ain’t seen nothing yet”. Not meant to dismiss what you do already know/ or learned in such a short period of time…
But if these are your twins and this woman is someone that you will be having to share custody with and have in your life (in some capacity) for the next 18 years or so….
You will be in for some jaw dropping (to say the least) experiences. Your children will mean nothing to her. She will own them such as you own a car but will not nurture them as would a normal mother.
It is really almost impossible to conceive some of these things. But if she is a spath you will see things that you will not believe.
One day at a time!
Ox Drover
Roger, may I suggest that you get a copy of Donna’s book RED FLAGS of LOVEFRAUD….and “The Sociopath next door” is another good one for you to read. EDUCATING yourself about these people will help you stay safe in the future and IF those children are yours then it will help you deal with her for the next 18 years without out A) killing her or B) killing yourself or C) going completely crazy! LOL
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER and it isn’t easy learning about these people. Also, there is a big genetic component to this disorder, it is NOT just how someone is raised, but those kids will have 2 strokes against them, her for a mother and her DNA and number two, her being in their lives. She will keep them in chaos and is incapable of nurturing those children. She will be involved with this man then that man, moving constantly etc. utter chaos. So you will have to do double duty to these children from the get go (assuming they are yours) and the X will be around your neck like an albatros for the next 18 years (or more)
I suggest that you go to Dr. Leedom’s web blog/site and get her book “Just like his father” her web site is linked here on LF as “Parenting the at risk child”
Good luck and God bless.