Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following email from a reader who we’ll call “Rhonda.”
Hello Lovefraud
After having my own epiphany over this past week, concerning my ex sociopathic partner, I was led to your blog and info, as well as others, that outline the description of sociopathy, psychopathy. OMG!
Oh dear, the relevation. 2.5 yrs with someone and only waking up now – that’s me.
My ex fits ALL the descriptors. The theft, the alcoholism, the constant ‘running away’ for days on end, the threats, the lies, the questions answered with more questions, the secrets, the lot!
I have been holed up in my house this past week, over Christmas and New Year unable to go out. I feel I may be suffering from post tramautic stress syndrome. When I read the stories here from others, I knew those individuals all lived what I have lived through, but still find it unbelievable, even though I know all their stories and mine are true.
Please keep up the good work here – I never EVER thought I was capable of being duped – I suppose in retrospect I saw it coming. Its the betrayal that hurts way more than the end of the relationship – I now feel there is something terribly wrong with me, for having been so blind. I don’t have anyone to explain to, how I feel, because one would have to live this, to truly understand. I think my friends would probably think I was lying or as equally unhinged as my ex, if I told them what had gone on.
I guess that is exactly where my ex wanted me to be.
I love the articles and pieces on spirituality. All things happen for a reason and in hindsight, I think I was an accident waiting to happen. I have learned sooooo much.
@rhonda
Welcome to Lovefraud! I don’t think you’re lying! I have found this place (LF) to be a safe place to share your experiences. This is a good place to heal and learn. It takes time to come out of the fog. Try not to beat yourself up so much, you were deceived. Hang in there, it gets better!
Rhonda,
Thanks for your post. I appreciate your epiphany and am so encouraged you came to see the truth of your partner. I was “duped”, too, so I totally understand! I am thankful for all the reading you are doing and how you are seeing things clearer, now. Thanks for sharing your story, it was an encouragement to me.
Rhonda,
You are in the same position as I was when I found the site back in September, after him leaving me for another woman in June last year (following the worse couple of months of my life when I found out he had emptied my bank and he was insisting I was paranoid). This is such a bad place to be and I know exactly how you are feeling. I too had only been with him 2.5 years and married for 1.5 of those years as he swept me off my feet in a whirlwind romance at a time when I was caring for my father in his final months of his life.
He was in the army in Germany and I went over there as soon as my father had died, as he told me he needed to provide a roof ultimately for his 2 children from his previous marriage who were being neglected by their mother due to mental health issues. Once there I got a job and all the bills were placed against my wages and a lot of his wage was unaccounted for. But the credit cards (in my previous name still) were being maxed out and he persuaded me to ask my mother for money from my late fathers estate as we needed it to get straight, but he only allowed me to pay off one card and the rest of the money soon went I dont really know where. The man however, was attentive, loving, and only wanted me until …. I had sold my house to enable him to leave the army and us to relocate in a rented place back in England … and then he changed and started to become distant, go out alone (or so I thought) and started to initiate arguments. When I asked him over this two month period if there was someone else he said I was paranoid and then I checked our bank account (he had kept the card on him and although I had asked for a print out of the account it never happened) as I worked long hours and didnt suspect him to be a thief even if he was possibly having an affair. He had emptied the account of about 8 thousand over 11 weeks (the remainder of what we had left from my house sale), and then it all came out about the new woman and he left me for her. She has 2 children and relies on benefits and he lives with her virtually cost free. He left me with 40K debt to my mother (which of course I can never repay), 26K debt to bank/cards and relieved me of the 40k equity from a property he had nothing to do with that I had saved and worked for over a 20 year period prior to meeting him. All the time though it didnt feel right, and my friends and family told me they didnt trust him (my family do not speak to me for what I did to my mother even to this day). I am now over 6 months down the line from him leaving me and I have found evidence that he had been on dating sites more or less throughout our marriage and do believe that an awful lot of the money was spent on the other women and gambling now and I have shouted from the rooftops about what he has done and what he is to ‘her’ her family, her friends but none of them believe me or even care. No one will understand unless they have it happen to them and of course even when he does leave her he will not be able to wreck her life as much because … in her words ‘I was stupid to allow him the freedom with my money’ and she doesnt have the assets to lose that I had, plus she doesnt even believe me (as he has told her lies about me that pretty much match the lies he told me about his first wife).
I dont know what to tell you but it is a long road when there has been so many lies, so much infedelity, so much financial abuse and emotional abuse and violence at the end of it all. Just take one day at a time, none of this is easy but you will be a very strong person when you do recover and you will know if you ever have the misfortune to meet another sociopathic type. X
Mags!
That is a horrendous story! How are you managing with all that debt….my heart goes out to you.
I have to go bankrupt and asked him for the £750 to do this but he told me to F*off. I have started university (as I was halfway thro uni when I met him and gave it up to go out to him) and we get an attendance bonus in Feb so then I apply to the courts to go bankrupt using that money. Unfortunately the debt is all in my previous name as my cards were mine before I met him. The new woman knows really that he owes me big time money as when he first got with her she stood with him while he told me that as soon as he starts working (he has a license thanks to me funding his course as a security operative to work in Iraq/Afghan) as he wil be earning huge amounts he will start to pay me back until he has repaid me 50K. Obviosuly along the way things got nasty and now he says I will get nothing from him except a divorce. I obviosuly do not believe he would have paid me anyway as looking back over it all I now see how he manipulated me and my mother for money and the way he is lieing about how I treated him during the marriage (in reality I was a lovestruck doormat ) and according to him treated him coldly, even telling him I loved the dog more (which was actually based on me giving him verbal and pushing him away from trying to kick an 8 week old puppy because it poo’d on the mat). The only good thing in my life is that I have a hope of a future career as a medical dietician but I keep getting consumed by all of this and know that I need to try to get it out of my head and apply myself to study because I am now 45 and there’s not much time left to get that sort of qualification. I am focusing on my career now as to me that experience was certainly a lesson learnt and trust will not come easy again.
Just so you understand …. I am able to study despite no money as in the UK the NHS pay for course funds for certain medical courses and even though I will be effectively ‘black listed’ I am still able to get a means tested loan to help with living costs during study as this is automatically deducted from me once I qualify. Each day I still shed tears but without the university and goal for the future I dont know what I would have done and of course knowing that I am not alone in this world reassures me that I am not completely stupid just was taken in by someone without conscience.
Good for you Mags! You will get your qualification and then the world is your oyster! I was a mature student like you. It’s never too late. I’m 49 and have been teaching 6years.
You’re so right ..you were not stupid. You loved him and he took advantage. The rat. You will have the last laugh. You will succeed ….you sound like a very determined woman! To get through all that with your ex AND to keep on studying. That’s tough going.
Towanda girl
Welcome Rhonda. My friends used to say about me: With Adelle it’s not 1,2,3 you’re out it’s 1 your out. I used to say about myself “You have to wake up pretty early in the morning to pull one over me”
Well guess what? He did it! I was Duped! I thought I was one tough cookie! At first we go through the blaming self and what have you. Be encouraged though, you will feel such a freedom once you get to that place of acceptance; My SP tries to twist things and act like he is the victim, one good look at his past and enough said! Do not allow your SP to twist things…yes we were duped but the poem “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou says:
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
IT ALSO SAYS
“Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
When you are a bit more healed; you will examine much and learn lessons from this and YOU WILL RISE!!! Heads up Rhonda, you will never be the same…you will be better because of this experience….what was meant to harm you will make you stronger and wiser! Keep coming back to LF it helps so much to know you are not alone!
Blessings,
Adelle
I never really considered that someone would WANT to deceive me in such ways–and with a sweet, innocent smile on his face at that.
Same here, Dawn.