Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following letter from a reader, who we’ll call Matt.
I am a gay man and a criminal defense attorney. After 22 years in my business I though I had seen it all, heard it all, and knew it all when it came to the bad side of human nature. That was until 15 months ago when I became romantically involved with a sociopath.
Hook, Line and Sinker
July. I met “S” when I was facing 50, flying solo and fearing my own mortality — I had just come from signing my will. I walked into a bar and S homed in on me like a heat-seeking missile. He had a beautiful smile, but I remember how it never reached his eyes — they were laser intense, but flat and unblinking. A few drinks later and big pools of chemistry were forming under S and me. That night, he put the ”˜good’ in good night kiss.
August. S launched a full-blown charm offensive. In one week I was swept up in a whirlwind of romantic dinners and phenomenal sex — he made me feel like I was the best lover on earth.
At the end of the week I went on vacation. While I was checking into the hotel a florist showed up with a beautiful arrangement. I said to the desk clerk “Somebody got lucky.” He looked at the card, handed it over and said “Somebody did.” S had sent the arrangement. I fell for S like the proverbial ton of bricks.
Danger Will Robinson
September. The red flags began to pop all over the place. S refused to take me to parties because his ex would be there. S never left messages on my answering machine or voicemail. S never had me over to his apartment though he lived two blocks away. S was secretive in the extreme. But, I ignored the red flags because S was still showering me with attention and the sex was great.
October. Hindsight being 20/20, I could have walked out when S stood me up for a date. I would have walked out when S confessed that he had only broken up with his ex three weeks before me met, not a year earlier like he originally told me. And I should have walked out when S told me that he had been released from prison three weeks before we met.
But, before I could walk, S hit me hard and fast with the “pity play.” He “came clean” and told me how he got hooked on cocaine after his beloved mother was left brain-dead by a stroke. S was convicted of stealing paychecks from his employer to buy drugs. Then S began to sob and told me he didn’t want to “bring the problems that being an ex-con has to your doorstep because I love you.”
As odd as it sounds, S had been lucky. He was sentenced to a “shock incarceration facility” aka “scared straight boot camp,” instead of prison. S also served 10 months of a one-and-a-half to three year sentence and was then put on probation. Another stroke of luck.
If anyone should know from experience that all criminals and ex-cons lie and play people, it’s me. But, S stirred up the caretaker in me and I vowed to help him rebuild his life.
November. I was so besotted with S I ignored even more red flags. He repeatedly violated his probation by leaving the state without permission of his PO. He conned his group therapy leader into letting him out of his post-release program early. And when S informed me that “From here on in I’m only thinking about number one” — I was a fool not to take him at his word.
S finally introduced me to his “ex.” I now see that he was deliberately pitting the two of us against each other for his own amusement. S also did this to increase my jealousy. And it worked. I opened the financial taps. Each date became more lavish than the last.
December. S no longer wooed me with dinner and flowers. S wasn’t concerned about me or his problems. And why should he be? I had become S’s personal ATM, social director and lawyer. I had become S’s one-man Salvation Army.
Devalue and Discard
January. S chose New Year’s Eve to pick a fight with me for agreeing to spend the holiday with “his” friends without his consent (the fact that he had told them this was fine with him two days earlier escaped him). And I took all the abuse he heaped on me. Why? Because I was determined to win back the man I fell in love with.
February. I should have paid more attention to S’s choice of friends — and lack thereof. I threw him a catered birthday party. Forty of his friends said they would attend. Six showed. I actually hurt for him. It wasn’t until later I realized that this indicated how little his so-called friends and colleagues thought of him.
But I was asleep at the switch when S reestablished his friendship with his college roommate – who was also his “former” drug dealer. The night they reconnected S picked a fight with me in a bar. He stormed out and “broke-up” with me by text message.
S made me crazy that night. I walked around his block for eight hours straight. The next morning S finally let me into his apartment. Then S blamed me for his cashed paycheck being lifted from his back pocket and told me “I need your help to pay my February rent.” I agreed to “lend” him the money and wrote the check then and there for $1,550. Why? Because I was determined to win back the man I fell in love with.
March. I wondered where S’s family was. I remember when a friend of S’s said, “I never understood how S’s family, to a man, turned their backs on him when he was sent to prison,” Now I see that S had burned them so many times they cut S out of their lives. But, I didn’t. Why? Because I was determined to win back the man I fell in love with.
April. I took S to Washington, DC to see the cherry blossoms and to share with him a place that was special to me. S was overly eager to go to church. When we entered the sanctuary I learned the priest was S’s former partner (two exes ago). Shocked, I thought “I can’t believe he’s sandbagging a priest on the altar.” S thought it was hysterical. But, I hung on. Why? Because I was determined to win back the man I fell in love with.
May. S “needed my help” and handed me an envelope. A letter from his landlord threatening eviction. The landlord had rejected April’s rent check because S hadn’t paid February and March. I realized he had lied to me earlier and I had paid January’s rent. But, I didn’t ask any questions and agreed to “lend” him $3,750.
The abrupt personality changes, his constant lack of money. I knew from experience he was using again. But I rationalized it away. If he was using, he couldn’t pass the drug test run by his PO. Right? I ignored the fact that the system can be beat. And I didn’t call him on any of it. Why? Because I was determined to win back the man I fell in love with.
June. Weekend trips. Restaurant checks. Bar bills. Theatre tickets. I paid for it all. He went out of his way to ruin whatever I planned. I was going into debt. I felt more and more empty, more and more abused. I was in a relationship but had never felt more alone.
The more I gave, the more S withheld – Time together. Emotional availability. Sex. Love. And the more emotionally abusive he became. Why did I put up with it? Because I was determined to win back the man I had fallen in love with.
July. Our first anniversary. What was I celebrating? One year of emotional and physical exhaustion from dealing with his never ending dramas? One year of fearing his temper and was walking on eggshells?
S and I celebrated by returning to the “scene of the crime,” the bar where we had met. Over a champagne toast I handed him a ticket to Greece. He handed me an envelope saying “I’m going to need your help again.” Inside was another eviction notice.
This time I finally drew a line in the sand. I told S that I wouldn’t “help” him financially. The most I would do is walk him through the court process so he could represent himself and halt the eviction until we returned from Greece. Period.
The next day I did what I should have done early on — I combed every database I could — public (New York e.courts) and private (Lexis). I uncovered 15 judgments against S for nonpayment of credit cards, car loans, student loans, taxes, rent, and loans from friends and three more pending cases. Then it struck me — his secretiveness, desire to move, avoiding certain places — of the 18 people who sued, how many more hadn’t?
The Brain Fog Starts to Lift
August. I told S this trip to Greece was a chance for us to get back on track. We arrived in Greece. I promptly caught him stealing from a neighbor’s villa. His response? “They’re not going to miss it.” The weird grin on his face when he said it chilled me. Like I was the fool.
I would have put him on the next plane out, but he had the keys to my apartment. So, I spent the next two weeks watching him like a hawk, paying for everything and being made miserable in the process.
September. We returned. I changed my locks. The next day the judge ordered S to pay six months back rent by September 30th or the eviction would proceed. A friend told me that S was cruising bars and turning tricks. I knew there was no getting us back on track. I knew that we had no future together — our values were completely different. I knew I was never going to win back the man I fell in love with — that man was an illusion.
But, I still wasn’t ready to let go. I only curtailed contact, I didn’t cut it. I maintained sporadic contact. Big mistake.
October. Against my better judgment I went with S to his brother’s wedding. That day I went online and learned S had a court date that very morning regarding his eviction, but I didn’t say anything to see how he was going to play this.
Play it he did. The next night. In public. S deserved an Oscar for his performance — crying “how hard I’m trying to go straight,” how “I told my doctor he screwed up our love life with the beta-blockers he put me on,” how “my sister asked me if I was certain ”˜you were the one’ and I told her you were” and the capper, “last night my father told me that before the week is out, I’ll have to go home because he’s disconnecting my mother from life-support and going to let her die.”
That was the moment I finally realized I was being manipulated — no parent — no matter how monstrous, would say something like that at a child’s wedding.
S then asked for my “help” with the rent. I refused. And I realized I had to do something or this was never going to stop.
To Get Rid of a Sociopath, Become a Sociopath
November. I finally realized I needed to get S out of my life to save my own life. I turned off my compassion. My understanding. My love. And my guilt. This one-man Salvation Army declared war on S.
S launched his next attack a few nights later. My phone rang at 11:15 and I was asleep. It was S, talking word salad. Then S moved in for the kill — he told me he had to be in court the next morning and didn’t have all the rent money. He asked if I would take some his jewelry as collateral for a loan.
I didn’t have the money, and started to babble something about taking a cash advance on my credit card when I snapped to and stopped cold. I realized he was manipulating me. I cut him off and told him to go into court with what money he had, the jewelry to show the judge he had something to sell to raise cash and take his chances.
The end came two weeks ago. S called me at 4:45 PM on Friday and told me that the landlord had changed the locks. S said his employer would lend him 10 grand to pay his back rent, but his bank was closed until Monday. S then asked me to lend him 10 grand CASH until Monday. I said “NO.” Then S asked if he could crash at my place. I agreed to one night — I finally decided we were going to have it out once and for all.
S arrived bloated (15 pounds heavier since the last time I saw him — he had already packed on 45 pounds since the start of the year), reeking of alcohol, with dirty matted hair, and smelling sour. I thought was “he’s manipulating you into feeling sorry for him.”
He launched his pity play. “How the person I hate most in this world (employer) came through for me again” (translation — I failed him). S then upped the ante and told me his blood pressure was now 220 over 180, his doctor thought he had diabetes and was afraid he was going to have a stroke. And on. And on. And on.
After four hours I finally told S that I didn’t know what to do for him anymore. I told S that I was sure he was on cocaine and our relationship wasn’t working since my needs weren’t being met in the least. S told me, “I love you and want things to go back to the way they were in the beginning.” I told him “No, you want me to pay your bills while you do whatever you want while I wait for you to call or text me. Those days are over. It’s clear we want different things, so I think its best if we no longer see each other.”
Then came the moment of true irony. I told S that I expected him to pay back the money I lent him. S replied indignantly “I always pay my debts.” I just stood there looking at him and thinking, “We’re standing in my kitchen at 2:30 AM because you have been locked out of your apartment for not paying your rent.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The next morning I asked S if he wanted to take a shower. He refused. It dawned on me what S was up to — S was going to make the rounds, looking like he’d slept on a park bench and hit up everybody he could for cash. And then he was probably going to split.
Aftermath
Having read the stories of other Lovefraud bloggers, how they suffered at the hands of their sociopaths for years on end and ended up financially bankrupt, I know, on an intellectual level, that I got off relatively cheap. However, emotionally and physically, I feel like I’ve been hit by a freight train.
A friend of mine told me I must be incredibly strong to have withstood what S put me through — he said he would have snapped a long time ago. Strong? I don’t think so. If I were strong I never would have allowed S to cannibalize my life like I did. I would have stood up to him long ago. I would have gotten rid of him instead of hanging on.
I’m furious at S for using me and making a mockery of my beliefs and my love. I’m furious at myself for letting S do this to me. My friends and family can’t bear to hear another word about S. I expect to crawl over miles of broken glass on my stomach before they’ll ever listen to me again.
S hasn’t vanished yet. I suspect he’s still working his scam. He has started the smear campaign. Several nights after I ended it S started showing up at places I frequent and events I had bought tickets to. S ended up seated directly opposite me at one event (reserved seating). Once is a coincidence. Three times is stalking.
A psychiatrist I consult with periodically on my cases told me, “Don’t think S is going to go away easy. He knows how good he had it with you. And there’s only one way to beat him — NO CONTACT.” I got the same advice from my detective friend who also told me that I could get a restraining order. But, if anyone should know how worthless they are, it’s me. So, now I am constantly on guard and looking over my shoulder — and maintaining NO CONTACT.
The money I “lent” S? I know it’s gone for good. But S will be held accountable to a higher power — the IRS. I had the good sense to write “LOAN” on every check I wrote to S. And when I was taking care of one of the numerous problems S was too lazy to deal with himself, he gave me his social security number.
My accountant sent the first collection letter today. Two more will go out. And when S doesn’t respond — and he won’t — I’ll report his debt to me as uncollectible. I get the tax loss, S gets nailed for income. Hey, if it was good enough to bring down the sociopath Al Capone, it’s good enough for me to bring down my sociopath — S.
Puzzle and Healing Heart–
I think about the karma and cosmic “lessons” I learned from this also. I also wonder how it all works for the x. I think they took the challenge of a brain that isn’t quite right or a childhood that shaped them a certain way. But I think they then had a choice on how to respond to those challenges. Do they make choices that are helpful and considerate of others? Or do they take action that is selfish and hurts others? (We all know the answer to that one!!)
My x was different from many of the x’s described here. When I met him in college, I don’t think he was evil, (probably just “some” bad, which I was blind to). Over the years he gradually got worse and then in last few years, he got alot worse, faster.
HH: Another thing I did to try to recover was to separate out the emotional vs. facts. If I took away how I once loved the guy and looked soley at the evil things he did to me…especially the worse of insults, I quickly wake-up / snap out of the fantasy I was in thinking he really loved me and he would someday realize that and stop hurting me.
I re-wind in my mind the day I simply asked him to stop at the cleaners and he went into a psycho fit and accused me of going there by myself behind his back. He grabbed me by the throat, spit in my face and called me a Whore. Now that’s true love, isn’t it?? I remember the way I felt that time…intimidated, devalued, angry. I never want to go through that again.
Peace.
Hi Pearl:
I think they all have their own system. Mine was to completely isolate and dominate. The abuse escalated each time I stood my ground and stepped out of the box to claim a piece of independence. The more he couldn’t control, the crazier he got. So, I guess it’s how the victim reacts as to the level of abuse he/she gets. Maybe if he found a victim who was totally submissive, that victim wouldn’t suffer as much.
My ex tells every victim in the first 6 months he loves them and wants to marry them and be with them for the rest of their lives. Then he isolates and dominates.
He was with me 2 years and never filed the divorce from the ex because he really had no intentions on marrying me. The poor wife wanted to move on and found someone but he wouldn’t let her out of the divorce using that as an excuse not to marry me….all the while he had another woman waiting int he wings for when he left me. So all at the same time he had a wife, a fiancee and a girlfriend. He was married to #1, had his name on the deed to my condo (#2) and was also sleeping with current #3.
He really is finally divorced now. He’s out of my life too. I wonder if he is only with #3 now or if he has a #4 or #5. Anyone want to take a guess??
HH: Another thing that helped me recover immensly was talking to the ex…the one before me. She validated that I wasn’t the crazy one. She was also abused and then discarded. She was extremely supportive and let me know what she went through healing. It took her almost 2 years to get over him. Boy was my ex in shock when he found out the 2 of us talked. His game was exposed. I was able to use blackmail to get him to sign the deed to my condo back over to my name by threatening to contact the current woman and bring her into our loop if he did not. Now he was dangling on a string…with no car and no roof over his head other than that lady’s soooooo he signed 2 days later.
To this day, I do believe in devine intervention and He was leading me all the way to take the steps I took. Just think, the ex could have been bitter and not wanted to speak with me. She was an angel. She is extremely faithful in God. When I told her about the dilema with the deed and how I was worried that even she being the legal wife could be entitled to my property, right away, she let me know she would never ever do anything like that. Her and I actually became friends and are going to hook up in a few weeks for lunch. Imagine that.
I see them as all the same
except for Intelegence ! They do the same thing more or less to each Victim!
1. Mirror the Victims Qualities and Love back to the Victim
# 1 is the Hook and you can see what the Bait is!
2. The Mind-Screw. This is where the problems that are developing are somehow the Victims fault! ( for me, if I only love him enough he will learn to love me!?)
3. Isolation. From your friends and family, more control!
4. Slippage. This is where the mask slips , It’s difficult to live a lie constantly. Now the Victim Sees the true depth of the Preformance, and the shell of that person! No Concience, no Love , No Mercy!
5. Disposal. either the Victim or the PSY/SOC separate! when the PSY/Soc leaves ,the victim feels abandond!???When the Victim Gets rid of the PSY/SOC ,the victim feels abandond!???
6. Healing. This is where the Victim changes into THE VICTOR because they have Learnd that evil does exist and is alive and well ! And When You know how They Work! It Does’nt work on you anymore! LOVE JJ
So many times I reading these posts and think “he/she is dating my ex S, it’s the same guy!” And then I realize you aren’t, its just that these guys are so damned alike! I wish we could corrall all the young women and men in the world and teach them a course on what a sociopath is and how they operate. Nah, you know what, I wouldn’t have believed. It’s unfathomable. And the relationship felt so damned good in the beginning that I didn’t listen to anybody who offered up some warnings. They didn’t know him like I did. HA!!! Yes, he reflected back perfect love, the amazing “connected” sex, the fun,the laughter. It’s all just so incredibly intoxicating and then BAM it turns into the biggest f–ing nightmare.
And you are right Iwonder, we think about talk about them obsessively because we are so shocked that such creatures exist, that their game is so good, and then so absurb, and that we fell for it.
I still feel sad, betrayed, enraged, at my ex. I still wonder how he could love me so much (he didn’t) and then abuse and betray me so terribly. I guess it will never make sense to me. I just have to accept that he is a monster. I feel sick when I think about how he seemed to hate me at the end. Would find any reason to yell at me, swear at me, look at me with such disdain, all the while he was behaving like a monster and I was NOT lying, cheating, stealing, betraying.
I offered to support mine, too – I offered to support him and his children if he decided to go back to school. Good god, thank goodness he’s too lazy and too preoccupied with women to actually apply himself to a noble profession. I still can’t get over that I took him, and his children (with the ex-wife, he had them part-time) into my home, and he never showed any appreciation (at times said I was lucky that he brought love into my cold princess home – he said it was an ice castle until he came long. It wasn’t. It became a slaughterhouse when he did).
Pearl, do you really think they have a choice? I read one of SG posts from a ways back in which she said that she thought he was trying, at times, but just couldn’t help his nature. Sometimes I think that is true for my exS, and in moments of clarity he would admit he’s ruined his life and his relationships by cheating everybody. Those were only moments of clarity, however.
Also, Pearl, I think mine got worse over time. It looked like his track record got uglier and uglier and more audacious over the years. Do they get worse?
Iwonder – our guys are so much alike its amazing. I know they are different dudes, but they are the same breed of monster. It’s remarkable. And scary that there is a whole breed of them out there.
i remember so well how my ex was, married 18 years, . i truly am lucky she didn’t try to kill me while i was sleeping, i thank god i am away from her, she did the crying thing to get you to feel sorry for her, our sons and i fell for it more than once, sociopaths are so devious it’s scary!, our sons want nothing to do with her at all, she is still with the ex con, who will be her downfall, i’m sure, i actually feel sorry for her, but that’s also what they want you to do. i have a restraining order on her and just 2 months ago she tried to get a handgun again! 2 yrs in a row, a 55 yr old woman needs a gun?…..guarding the drugs i believe… she doesn’t know she has a grandson and her son is in the navy, how sad that a person misses out on so much in her kids life……..it seems like i read a lot about men sociopaths, i hope people know woman are sociopaths too!……………and remember , what goes around, comes around
Matt, thank you so much for the excellent recounting of your story. The way you told it really showed the process of a sociopathic seduction and exploitation. And hooray for you for becoming so clear in your own mind about what was going on and ending it.
I’m sure it didn’t feel so cut-and-dried when it was going on. And I know we all sympathize with how flummoxed you feel now, especially about your own behavior.
I particularly love how you boiled it down to sex and the pity ploy. Maybe I should say romance, rather than sex. You kept repeating “trying to win back the man I fell in love with.” But that combination of sex and positive attention is lethal in a way that one or the other wouldn’t be. When I look back at my own experience, it almost funny now (almost) when I realize how many bad decisions I made in a post-orgasmic fog.
I’ve been thinking about this issue, after I discovered a short story last week at http://www.pindeldyboz.com/ddusers.htm. You can read it and convert the social and economic circumstances of the players to whatever yours were during your unfortunate liaison. That’s what I did. And it might as well have been my story. It doesn’t say in the story why that orgasm was so important, but any of us who have been manipulated through sex can figure it out.
You sound like your training in dispassionate logic is serving you well right now. Even though it’s harder to do, when your own feelings are involved. But in my mind, it’s essential to recovery to identify exactly where we started to veer off the path of self-respect.
Your impulse to help wasn’t necessarily wrong. Your happy response to the attention and sex wasn’t necessarily wrong. Both of those things can work out well with someone who is compassionate and responsible. But at some point you stopped taking care of yourself, giving him greater importance in your life than your own wellbeing.
Relationships with sociopaths are a slippery slope. We treat ourselves badly, and lose a little bit of respect for ourselves. We become a little more dependent on the other person for our self-esteem. And then it becomes easier to disregard our own needs in favor of theirs. And our internal dysfunction snowballs.
The lucky ones of us, those who read and participate in LoveFraud, finally get to a breaking point. The stresses on our internal logic finally become so pronounced and painful that we wake up. To something. In my case, I woke up to the point that I was sick all the time, depressed, considering suicide. I knew it was related to him, but I hadn’t gotten to the point of consciously understanding that I had invited a monster into my life. Other people wake up to the fact that they have been loving an illusion, a character manufactured by someone whose goal is simply to exploit us or to get their emotional kicks by dismantling our self-respect.
We’re the lucky ones, because we’re awake and determined to recover our lives and our emotional health. I don’t know what percentage of us aren’t so lucky. But I know first-hand of one permanent (as far as I know) emotional collapse and one suicide.
Finally, I just want to say how glad I was to see you write “To Get Rid of a Sociopath, Become a Sociopath.” It’s something that I had to do, and it was hard for me, against every rule I lived by. But in truth, it was the only thing that worked. I had to harden myself to his sad stories, recognize that everything he said was a ploy, and make up my mind to take back control of my life, no matter what it cost him. I lived with guilt for months, and the fact that he’d forced me to act like him was one more thing added to the list of grievances I had against him.
But later, I began to realize that maybe it was the gift of this relationship, to open my mind to the idea that there were more life strategies available to me than just being a “good and generous person,” as my sociopath used to call me. Not that I intended to become sociopathic all the time, but that it’s the right strategy under certain circumstances. It was a very freeing thing for me, and made me a lot more confident about facing life’s challenges.
Perhaps you too will find a gift in what seems like a universally rotten experience. I hope so. Thanks again for a wonderfully lucid and touching account of your experience.
modelman360: You don’t have to explain the female anti-social personalities to me … I worked with them for over 24 years … they made the male versions of the anti-social personalities look like they were amateurs.
Peace.
Khatalyst:
Thanks so much for your post. The combination of sex/romance and positive attention was so addictive in my case. I truly believe the S made a conscious choice, once he knew he had me hooked, to set out to bleed me dry. And the decisions I made in between getting hooked and unhooked were all attempts to stop the bleeding. I now look at those decisions in the cold hard light of day and think “whatever were you thinking?”
You said “Relationships with sociopaths are a slippery slope. We treat ourselves badly, and lose a little bit of respect for ourselves. We become a little more dependent on the other person for our self-esteem. And then it becomes easier to disregard our own needs in favor of theirs. And our internal dysfunction snowballs.”
True but sad, sad but true. Other bloggers have commented where they had to get out when they realized they couldn’t take one more moment of disrespect. In my case I think the defining moment was when I realized I could not tolerate the disrespect from my S COUPLED WITH the lack of respect for myself for having let things get to that point.
When you mentioned you lived with guilt for months, I could so relate. On an intellectual level I am fine with my decision to go after him for the money he owes me. And yet, there is this nagging guilt for holding him accountable because I realize that he is a pathetic loser who is barely scraping by and whose life is in a downward spiral.
Like you, people call me a “good and generous person.” I’ve since learned that a healthy amount of self interest is critical for one’s survival. Last night I was having this discussion with a friend who is in the midst of a divorce. All she wanted from her husband was 1/2 of this past year’s tax return — and she needs the money to pay the rent since she is out of work.
He’s been singing the “business is off, I don’t have the money” blues. She went back to their apartment yesterday to get a few things and found he had just purchased a 60 inch flat screen. She was furious. I told her point blank “Good. I’m glad you’re over the guilt. This is about survival. You need a roof over your head. A roof costs money. Now do what you have to do to ensure that.”
I think I’m starting to see the gift in all this. I’ve let people get away with way too much in my life. If I come out of this with some healthy boundaries, and some solid self esteem, I know I’ll be able to survive whatever comes next.