UPDATED FOR 2024. Editor’s Note: Lovefraud received the following story from a woman about a “good guy” gone wrong. She went public with her experience in order to draw attention to the terrible problem of domestic violence. The name she uses on Lovefraud is “Tormented.”
In 2008, I divorced my husband of 18 years due to differences that unfortunately we couldn’t work out. We have three amazing children together and remain good friends in spite of our divorce, which has made things much easier for all of us.
Just five months after the divorce, I met a man who charmed me from the very beginning. I thought he was wonderful, and I quickly fell head over heels for him. A former county deputy sheriff, presently working as an Air Marshal and in the Army Reserves for nearly 20 years, he seemed like one of the “good guys” – a really good, down-to-earth person with a lot going for him. In his early 40s, he had never married and had no kids, which I thought was a good thing because I figured he lacked “baggage.” He seemed to love my kids, and when we married six months after we met, it felt natural and right. After all, I was 43, had been married for nearly two decades and knew exactly what I wanted.
What I didn’t realize was the fact that there were glaring red flags all over him. I guess I was either too naive or too trusting or both. For one thing, he had never been in a long-term relationship. And a few months into our marriage I discovered a box filled with photos of him with many, many different women over the years. Also, he had only one close friend. This friend of his attended our wedding, but only because we paid for the airfare and hotel. No other friends or family from his side bothered to attend. And the only wedding gift we received from his side was a $50 gift card to Pier 1 – from that one close friend of his.
Soon after we married, my new husband’s facade began to crack, and lies started to show through. Such as the fact that he had told me and my children that he had a college degree in Criminal Law, when in reality he had only taken a few online classes.
“Honeymoon” in Maui
When the verbal abuse started, I was not only horrified, but ashamed and embarrassed. I couldn’t believe the violent language that so easily flew from his lips, directed straight at me. When we went on our honeymoon to Maui, I ended up catching a flight home by myself two days early. I couldn’t begin to comprehend how a man could possibly yell at his new bride for hours on end, repeatedly calling her a f–king c-nt and scaring her to death while on their honeymoon. And his anger came out of nowhere, for no good reason. One night it was because I didn’t want to eat ice cream with him for dessert.
At this time, I was in between jobs and freelancing to keep some income coming in. I had the opportunity to work on a large, potentially lucrative business deal that I was very excited about. Out of the blue, my husband called up my potential client and accused him of having an affair with me. I was horrified and of course, lost the deal.
It became very apparent that I had made a terrible mistake, and yet I remained in a state of denial for several months as the wonderful man I thought I’d married simply faded away. I no longer recognized my husband through all of the degrading name calling and emotional manipulation. I cried nearly every day of the ten months we were married. My heart was bludgeoned, my self esteem utterly destroyed.
Domestic violence
After the disastrous honeymoon, I insisted on marriage counseling, however our psychologist gave up after only four sessions. She said she was unable to help us work things out unless he received individual counseling first. When she mentioned the words “domestic violence” to me, I was stunned. I had no idea that verbal abuse was considered domestic violence, and I couldn’t believe that I had entered this devastating realm that I’d never imagined would be a part of my life.
Ten months after our wedding, I finally found the courage to ask for a separation. I told him that I needed two months of peace, to think about our relationship and where we should go from there. I realized that another divorce was most likely on the horizon for me, however I still held out hope that he would miraculously change and the abuse would end. I was desperate for that man I fell in love with in the very beginning to reappear. How could that good man have been replaced by this abusive, violent monster who obviously hated me?
Just five days after I asked for the separation, he showed up on my front patio unannounced and forced his way into my home. He had just flown into town, and being an Air Marshal who always wears a gun strapped to his chest, I could tell that he was packing by the bulge under his shirt. He paced through my home, yelling and at times talking irrationally. Twice he said that we should go into the bedroom and have sex, that it would be “good for both of us.” Terrified, I cried and begged him to leave. He yelled at me and said he would leave when he was ready to leave. He continued to pace and yell. Sobbing and shaking uncontrollably, I finally called the police. I had never called 911 before in my life, but I was so frightened that he would physically hurt me or worse. Later, when the police officers removed him from my property and encouraged me to file an Order of Protection against him, I was completely beside myself.
Order of Protection
I soon discovered that filing an Order of Protection against my husband was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It was devastating to think that I had to go to that extreme measure to keep myself, and my children, safe. Especially when I was trying to keep myself safe from the one person who I thought had my best interests at heart. Someone I had trusted and opened my entire life to. Someone I believed in. To have to cope with the fact that my husband never really loved me at the same time when I was also dealing with having to file an Order of Protection against him was beyond devastating. It was also an extremely lonely place to be.
Read more: Dr. Donald G. Dutton explains that personality disorder is the cause of domestic violence
My Order of Protection case itself ended up being a lengthy, stressful ordeal. Along the way his attorney was very persistent about proposing a settlement since he would have been fired from his Air Marshal position if the Order of Protection remained upheld. In the end, I chose to settle and ended up with an even greater and longer lasting protection through a Court Order attached to our divorce decree, in addition to reimbursement from him for all of my divorce and legal fees. Presently, he can’t even enter the state where I live and can never contact me or my children forever.
Affairs
During this ordeal, I started writing a blog as a way to release the painful feelings I was coping with while also speaking out to help other women going through the same kind of situation. Ironically, my blog has enabled women from his past and present life to find me online.
Horribly enough, I discovered that for most of the time we were together, he was having an affair with a married woman. This woman was shocked to find my blog and to learn of my existence. She emailed me the story of their affair, and I learned that while he was in the process of marrying me, he was simultaneously trying to convince her to leave her husband for him. I have no doubt that there were other women in his life at that time as well. The combination of his vicious abuse and his disgusting betrayal have been horrendous to deal with.
On top of all this, I contracted a sexually transmitted disease from him that has since been resolved through medication. It was discovered while we were married, and yet his response was to call me a f–king wh-re and accuse me of having an affair. He refused to believe that he was carrying an STD, which I’m sure he continues to spread around.
I am speaking out and sharing my story with the hopes that I can reach other women who may be hiding in the shadows with their own stories of abuse. I appeared on local TV news segments, as well as in our state newspaper. It’s terrifying to “come out” publicly with my story, but I’m hoping that by doing this I’ll make it a little easier for the next woman. The only way to eradicate domestic violence is to lean on each other, stand up, speak out and educate. The main thrust of my message is: You are not to blame and you are not alone.
Learn more: Beyond Betrayal: How to recover from the trauma
Lovefraud originally posted this story on Oct. 13, 2010.
10 tips to start dating again after leaving a sociopath
When I read such stories, I am glad that I was only subject to emotional abuse and thankfully short at that. I always wonder why the sociopath’s true nature is revealed mostly to those involved with them. Do they feel they can let down their guard or is there something more?
Good guy gone wrong is the way I see my x-spath. For a long time, I felt that with the right counseling he could even be a good guy. The more and more I learn about sociopaths, the less and less I find this likely.
“And his anger came out of nowhere, for no good reason. One night it was because I didn’t want to eat ice cream with him for dessert.”
I am stunned when I read little things like this which I too experienced. Anger over a pie. “Why did you get that! I told you I don’t like sweets!”
His reaction was so odd, especially being his first time at my place, that I was chilled, having never seen behavior like this.
What I did not realize was that from the moment he entered my apartment, I was getting close to his mask, his being HIV+.
Perhaps in the case of Tormented, not wanting to eat dessert with him touched his control issues? Maybe that was the core of my experience as well. By being at my place, he could not “control” the situation?
Blue eyes
very interesting observations.
Some of you posters blow me away with your insights.
Where were you 25 years ago?
BBE and Sky, I agree with you that To “the world” as a whole, they present an acceptable mask but to those “nearest and dearest” they don’t have to mask themselves they can let, as we used to say, LET IT ALL HANG OUT! Once they are intimately comfortable with a person then the control comes out.
Well, good night folks, I’m turning into a pumpkin!
skylar;
Obviously, my insight came after the fact. I knew there was something very odd about the x-bf, but for about six months I put that to self-esteem issues surrounding his being HIV+, something I discovered online. There were other things about him I discovered, but did not want to believe. All came from his very easily discovered online trail — porn sites and dating websites.
My real insight started with a stare, or I should say an article about “everyday” sociopaths that described certain traits, including the famous “sociopathic stare.”
My x-spath has the stare. I remember it from the first night I met him. Many times, it made me a bit uncomfortable. I took it for deep interest, as many do.
I started doing a bunch of research and every site I visited, every article I read about sociopaths made me think he was. In fact, other than physical violence and criminal behavior, there is not a single trait or charateristic of sociopaths he did not exhibit.
Still, his subconcious pity play always left me giving him the benefit of doubt and it is a very powerful pity play that I never succinctly stated: he is mid-30s, HIV+ and both his parents died of cancer before they were 50.
Since I was facing open heart surgery, I was still emotionally connected with health issues and several times I considered reaching out. I did not because of what I learned here.
Oxdrover, and others, were particularly helpful in getting me to see the light. Still, I needed subtle actions, not traits described by a psychologist, to convince me.
I was not physically abused. I was not financially scammed. I was simply manipulated then dumped at a very bad time in my life.
This is why little things such as the ice cream story are so important. Its like the light bulb turning on.
As I think Oxdrover has stated, this is our AA. We need to share and we need to be reminded. Otherwise, we might go back to the bottle…
Sky, you asked “where were you 25 years ago?” Well, 25 years ago I was being scammed by a psychopath, and 15 years before that I was being abused by a psychopath and guess what, I was warned to get away from both of them and I DID NOT LISTEN because I was NOT READY TO RECEIVE THAT TRUTH. So I realize now that no matter who had warned me or how, I WOULD NOT HAVE LISTENED.
That actually is comforting to know that there was no way to get me to SEE because I WAS BLINDED by my own opinions of what was going on.
I WAS LIKE A TEEN-AGED KID BEING CAUTIONED TO DRIVE SLOWLY—- “I can handle it why are you telling me that chit! I’m a perfect driver, I will never have a wreck”
My own arrogance that I KNEW BEST, I wasn’t going to listen to someone else who obviously couldn’t handle it like I COULD….gosh, just saying that was my opinion then embarrasses me now. LOL Ah, yes….actually I remember a night when I was about 19 and I was “holding court” at a place called “Barnie’s beanery in Hollywood CA with some friends of my sperm donor’s about Viet Nam and how wars were fought for mom and apple pie and the American way…” and My late husband was there and I remember the GRIN on his face. Very indulgent of a child who didn’t know her butt from second base, and years later, embarrassed I asked him “why did you put up with me back then when I KNEW EVERYTHING?”
He laughed and he said “Yea, you didn’t know your butt from second base, but you were so CUTE about it!” (boy, then I really DID want to crawl under the table! But I figured, huh! he was just a dirty old man even back then! LOL)
So, I must admit that no matter who had warned me about how my P kid was a psychopath, or who had warned me my P sperm donor was a psychopath, I wouldn’t have listened, and knowing now that I wouldn’t have listened then, I realize even if I had been warned, it wasn’t time for me to get the lesson yet and when it WAS time, I got it. So no sense beating myself up for not listening to a warning I never got, and wouldn’t have listened to if I had…when the time is right, we get it. Not before.
Just like a drunk isn’t going to “get it and quit” before they hit their own version of bottom. We can’t reach them prior to that personal level of pain. Only when they reach it, that personal level of hell can we reach out a supporting hand to them and they will reach back and take it!
Oxy and Blue Eyes.
Well 25 years ago, I had met this man and was not yet in love. I had 2 other boyfriends and they all knew each other. But none of it was serious. But I did notice that the P LIED ALL THE TIME. I can’t even remember the what the lies were, but they were preposterous, obvious and stupid. I had never met anyone who lied so much, so I decided to research this. It was 1984, I was 17 and there was no internet, so I headed to the library after work. The only book that popped up was Dr. Scott Peck’s “People of the Lie” and I read it with fascination from cover to cover. BUT I didn’t make the connection because it kept talking about HUMAN EVIL. Being raised a Catholic I thought I would recognize EVIL if I saw it. Right? I mean, it would be EVIL and SCARY, Right? It would be icky and slimy Right? It wouldn’t smile, spend money on me and bring me flowers. When we speak of evil we tend to think it is PURE EVIL and therefore easy to spot. We don’t think that it hides under a facade. This is the problem with stories we tell children. The evil villian always LOOKS THE PART. BS. That is not true for young, evil people. Perhaps as they age, their evil begins to reflect on their faces, but before that, they are like Lucifer: beautiful, shining, charasmatic. All the things that an infant is. The story of Lucifer is perhaps the best story to describe the sociopathic mindset. He was a favorite angel of God (authority), he became prideful and envious. He wanted to usurp God’s authority. (they want authority over reality – which is why they lie so much).
If someone had explained it to me in this way, I would have gotten it. I wasn’t tied to him yet – That took time. I was looking for an explanation, none was available.
Furthermore, if my PARENTS –who overheard him SAY that he was only doing nice things for me because there was a lot of money at stake — had TOLD me what they overheard – I would have put all the evidence together. I would have understood that the nice stuff was JUST MORE LIES. I would never have understood MALICE as his motive – because that motive is completely beyond my understanding – but I would have put his motive down to money, which is a universal one. I would have dumped his ass in one year, not 25.
Granted, being raised by N’s I’m sure I would have ended up with another one, but I don’t think it would have been as evil as this one.
My brother is an evil sociopath who lives in my parents’ basement and my brother-in-law is a rapist, but even they have interests outside of evil. When they watch TV they laugh at the comedy (when they get it). So I can tell that at those moments they are not thinking about being evil. My exP NEVER did that. He HATED comedy – it angered him to hear me laugh. He didn’t drink – almost never. He never did anything without the ulterior motive of ultimately incorporating the act into a con. Like you said Oxy, the S can’t even eat an ice cream cone without an ulterior motive. I love that line – because for this Spath, it’s accurately true.
If something good comes out of all of our suffering, it is that we come here to LF, and describe what we know and then we listen to each other and take the message out where ever we go and tell more people until the parasites have no more hosts left.
Good guys don’t go bad.
Bad guys pretend to be good guys but can’t keep it up because it’s not their true nature.
It’s always horrible to read another story of one of these Masters of the lie. Never fails to amaze me just how many of these stories there are. I used to think I was the only one who had met someone from another planet. I think it’s really sad so many of these individuals are out there inflicting their very own brand of frightening behaviour on another person. They move on and leave a trail of devastation behind them. Shocking.
LJ
Well said ellejay!
‘Good guys don’t go bad.
Bad guys pretend to be good guys but can’t keep it up because it’s not their true nature. ‘
ellejay;
I second one_step!
Given their numbers and general lack of stability, my guess is that most experience a sociopath at some point in their life. Not all are badly affected. These are the ones able to see through the mask, have boundries and don’t ignore red flags.
In ten minutes I saw three red flags — smoker, heavy drinker, incompatible profession (flight attendant). In the course of conversation over the next couple of hours, I saw two more and ignored them for the charm and his ability to explain away each of the red flags: just started smoking and drinking again after quitting, became a flight attendant only to travel for a couple of years then go back to a normal job…
What I know now is that his explaining away should have been even more of a red flag — its mirroring.
For example, he led me to believe that he had only become a flight attendant in the past couple year when it was more like a half-dozen…
Dear BBE,
Lots of people are flight attendants and are good people
Lots of people smoke and are still good people.
Lots of people drink (even heavily) and are still good people.
So I would say that not even all three of these things in one person would necessarily be a red flag. But, that said…
The Mirroring though I think is definitely a red flag. His “explaining” these things “away” like you might object to them, THAT to me is a BIG red flag.
Anything that you had found “objectionable” that he did, I think he would have “explained” away if he could have, or minimized it in some way. They try to present themselves as whatever it is that they THINK WE WANT TO SEE.
I smoked for decades and I knew that people objected to this…so I was POLITE and didn’t smoke in their presence, in their homes, cars, etc. but I didn’t apologize for doing it on “my own time.” I didn’t try to “explain” it away or minimize it. It was what it was. If people were over at MY house who objected to smoke, I didn’t even smoke in my OWN HOME when they were there, but it was out of COURTESY, not because I was trying to “mirror” them or pretend I was something I wasn’t.
The “mirroring” is something that the psychopath does that I think is SUBTLE, but at the same time, is something, IF YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS, you can pretty easily pick up. After you’ve seen it and experienced it a time or two it is pretty easy to pick up I think. It is that “OH, you’re my BESTEST FRIEND and I’m just like your dream” (instantly) thing that sets off the red flares!
When I meet someone and they INSTANTLY put in an “application” to be my “best friend” and tell me just how wonderful I am, It is a RED FLARE and makes me take notice of “there may be a predator in the area” pretty quickly!
I like compliments as much as the next person, but TOO MANY OF THEM TOO SOON and I get jumpy! I’ve used that technique to catch animals that I knew would not want to be caught up!
Hereeeee kitty, kitty, wanna bowl of nice juicy milk? Hereeeee kitty kitty! (don’t pay any attention to this flea spray behind my back)