UPDATED FOR 2024. Editor’s note: This story was submitted by the Lovefraud reader who we’ll call “Margie.” She was still in love with the jerk she met — even after learning he was a criminal.
One night I went to a bar by myself (but always knew someone there). I sat at the bar next to this lady I knew and started talking to her. Well Steve (my ex-sociopath—not his real name) was sitting next to her talking to her. I thought he was kind of cute so started flirting. He actually said to me that night, “I think I like you better,” like he had his sights on my friend first. He bought me a flower and all my drinks the rest of the night. Well that should have been my first and only red flag to run, but I didn’t! But stupid, naive me (never dealing with a sociopath before that is) fell for his good looks, as he was 6’1″, blond and blue eyes and had a football player’s body!
Well he told me he had to catch a bus in the morning to Fargo, ND to his mother’s house that he could not miss. I had NO idea he was just let out of prison! Well we proceeded to drink and get totally drunk that night and ended up at my cozy apartment that I lived in alone. The next morning we overslept and he missed his bus (which he should not have because he was to report to Fargo, ND to set up his parole!) and he wasn’t overly upset about it.
Read more: “Personality disorder” as an excuse for criminal behavior
So he stayed on at my house…the first couple of days I thought nothing of it but then I wondered, well, if you are not worried about getting to Fargo, why aren’t you finding a job then?! And at first he was so attentive — he would open the door for me — carry the groceries — cook and clean for me — etc — but was on the computer playing poker and needed his beer constantly like he hadn’t had it in years (which he hadn’t and I didn’t know that — yet!).
Well — finally — my snoopiness (detectiveness) got the best of me and I looked through his belongings in my car trunk. I found parole papers! And I thought — Oh my god! But I was already in Love (lust) with the jerk! So I thought, okay — he loves me — we can make this work — so what if he is on parole.
Stranded
So for awhile, I went to work at my waitress job and picked up beer daily and we drank daily. I relaxed while he sat on the computer playing poker and smoking his cigs and drinking his beer. (He was also emailing many other women I found out later after only being at my place a week!) We then took a weekend trip to North Dakota that turned into a week long trip of me being stranded with no money up there and having to pawn off my 1/3 carat diamond ring to get gas to get home with. Then there was the matter of having to straighten out the bad checks mess he had conned me into writing for beer, food, etc — while in North Dakota (Not to mention the two bar tables he conned out of a bar owner, one of which has his pic on it when he worked there in college)!
And let me add, while he was wooing me at the bar when I met him, he had told me things like he had been a professional football player in Canada. He said he was a college graduate from Jamestown, ND (which was true when I talked to his ex-wife on the phone once), and many, many other lies of great magnitude!
Anyway, we get back from ND and things resume — I am job hunting cause I lost my job at due to us not being able to make it back from being stranded up there! I get a waitress job at Denny’s restaurant then and keep working and coming home with beer (what an enabler I was for god’s sake!) and drinking. All the while he is wooing me with comments like, “I will love you till the end of the earth,” and still cooking for me, etc.
Drums up a story
Then one weekend he drums up the story that they called him from his old professional football team in Canada and they wanted him back and that he had to leave for the weekend (which was Labor Day weekend) for tryouts again. Well as stupid as I was, I believed him (sort of) BUT was beginning to wonder at this point. Well he said some woman was coming to pick him up for this trip — and that is when I KNEW something was not right! My gut said check into this! So anyhow, I had also bought him bottles of vodka besides the beer — he asked me to go get him a little bottle before he left. He claimed he really didn’t want to leave me. Well he even got to the point of being teary-eyed (which was probably all a act now that I think about it) when he was saying goodbye. He packed my 4 man tent with him, which I don’t know why, but he had a lie for that too! This all happened about 2 years ago so it’s getting a bit fuzzy now trying to recall everything.
But, I was alone — he was gone — I had my computer. I had been married to a computer network engineer and was not totally computer illiterate and had a college education (B.S. in Psychology with a Criminal Justice minor). I started pulling up web pages he had been too and somehow was able to recover his password by using my credit card to pay for a website he had been too. By luck it was the same password he had used for hotmail and yahoo and everything! Jackpot!
I read everything in and out and figured out where he went! He met a woman from Narcotics Anonymous in Iowa and went to a church camp retreat with her that Labor Day weekend! Well as good as I am with my detectiveness (lol), I called Narcotics Anonymous and got her phone number (cell even!) and called her and him up! I called and harassed them ALL weekend to the point she said she was going to call her lawyer — and I said DO IT! Cause I knew I had him! He was running from the law — but she had bought in to all his lies and was treating me like crap! Well I even called the cops to go get him arrested at this camp — but do you think the cops believed me! HELL NO — DO THEY EVER! So I guess I had to drop it at this point.
But about a month later I got a call from her and she said — “Okay — I believe you now. He just took off to get some stuff of his in North Dakota and he never came back with the rental car so I filed grand theft charges. Well I gave her all the info she needed to find him but told her she better drop the grand theft charges cause she might be liable somehow for letting him take the car that was in her name! She must have listened cause I never heard he was charged with that, but all my work paid off and he went back to prison for 8 months for being AWOL!
Still in love with the jerk
But it doesn’t end here — I was still in love with the jerk! I wrote to him in prison (90 miles away) and we started corresponding to the point I was hooked again. I sent him stuff, money, letters, and visited faithfully like any good woman (blindly in love) would do! I went as far as finding a house close to the prison when he got work release so he could come visit me every chance he got! Then when he got out of work release, he moved in with me for a bit but was determined to find his own place. That I thought was a dead giveaway — he did not care for me after all.
He was saying his parole officer told him he had to do this and that. But a lot of it did not make sense to me since the other people I was talking to about this said differently. I had many more doubts in my mind at this time! So he got his own little apartment and then I moved from my house to an apartment closer to his. We hung out and drank a lot more, but there were times he wanted me to leave. Geez — I am not that stupid when someone is trying to ditch me!
Married in 3 weeks
Anyway, my suspicions grew and I would check up on him all the time. And then he started to be more distant. Then one day around the end of October around Halloween — he all of a sudden quit coming over, quit calling, an absolute no show! No word from him ever again — he would not answer my phone calls and he was never home. I then found out later he met a woman on singlesnet online and married her within 3 weeks of meeting her! Well I then followed him home after work one night and figured out where he now lived and then saw him and her together and figured out what she drove. I then figured out where she worked and followed her home from work one day and told her this whole exact story! That is when she said, “Thanks — I think.” But I did have many emails and phone calls from his family during this duration and even his own mother and daughter said I was better off without him! If that isn’t a sociopath — I don’t know what is!
Learn more: EFT Tapping to break your addiction to a sociopath
Lovefraud originally posted this story on Feb. 17, 2010.
Not really enjoying the process…wishing there was rapid detox. 🙂
I do KNOW he is rewriting history and he is where I know no one except his family…I know his family believes him but that does not bother me and the truth is that I will never come across any of these other people, so…
it was funny when my lawyer said he asked his sister if they “were talking about the same girl” – he knows me pretty well by now…he should – I emotionally vomited on the guy…LOL.
But I do see it is necessary to move forward and be healthy.
I think my biggest obstacle right now is to try to get into his head and try to figure out what he is thinking and how he is going to act next…NC makes this harder and I think that is what I find frustrating. As long as he was calling and emailing, I had an idea. Now, I have none. But NC is what I wanted and why I didn’t take his calls and answer his emails.
I hope I feel better about this once the divorce goes through and then I can address these other issues.
Thanks again. I do believe all this writing and reading is part of the process and moving me further along every day…
Myboys, Have you read Kathleen Hawks excellant articles about the stages of healing in the archives.
They help so much in understanding ourselves and where we are in our healing. They explain why we feel what we do.
Going NC was the right thing to do. Don’t doubt that. If you feel confused about why he’s still on your mind, multiply that by 100, and that’s where you would be if you hadn’t cut off all contact.
Take it one day at a time, and read, read, read.
EB and some of the others are more informed than I am with the legal, divorce side of it.
But, I would urge you to be patient with yourself and know that it does get better.
Just got home from Emergency Room all day…woke up and couldn’t even walk. Pain…like an attack.
Ran tests…liver was a bit enlarged…fluid around ovary…possible kidney stone? Nothing showed except the fluid.
They wrote a script for vicadin and ant-inausea. Ugh…
I still feel nauseas and out of it from the morphine…and most of the nurses were wonderful..but one was being nasty…
I asked her why I u being so rude?I am in pain? She got rude again.l..I asked her where she was giving me the new pain med and anti nausea stuff…in the IV?
She said…”Where do you WANT me to put it?”
So..my heart started beating fast…had a panic attack and told her to please go away from me right now…and get your supervisor.
She did and I was hysterical crying and the supervisor was nasty.
I am writing a letter to the administrator when I feel better.
Aren’t nurses supposed to have “empathy”?
I am never going to that Hospital again.
He discharged me with no answersl…
Any nurses or doctors out there?
No answers? Then the reason you are not at YOUR DOCTOR”S OFFICE RIGHT NOW IS WHAT????
You need to keep going with this. You need to know what is the problem. I don’t care if they play nice or not.
Get the answers!
Where are the test results? What was the name of the DOC? Call back the hospital and ask him to tell you what is the matter with you and how to follow up. Don’t wait, call them and get answers now.
Do you have a family DOC? Call their office and have the answering service put you through so you can tellyour Doctor who did the tests and where they are and have him or her call you back with information.
Or go to a critical care out patient facility and connect with a doc that way. Or call 911 and tell them to send an ambulance and take you to another hospital.
This doesn’t sound right. I’m betting the whole story isn’t here, but this isn’t a medical advice hotline either. 2b, go find a medical resource you can work with and find out what is going on.
tobe-I am SO SORRY you got treated that way. This is why I hate being a nurse so much. Many of them are downright nasty. I would call the hospital and ask for the doc who was assigned to you and find out what they think is wrong. Where is your pain darlin?
just woke up pain is in my upper stomach betw ribs and radiating to my back …very severe in back
the doctor looked 18yrs old he told me to go home and take pain meds..vicoden and i didn’t get the script filled
the nausea is awful and I wont go back to that idiot or place
he told me there is no answer and this happens
??????????????????
tobe, I am so sorry to hear you are feeling so bad, I agree with the advice silvermoon gave above!! Hope you find someone who can help you right away!!!!!
tobe – is there any reason you aren’t going to the hospital? (i was so sick once, i couldn’t understand that i needed to go. is it like that?)
FROM THE SOUND OF IT YOU NEED MEDICAL ATTENTION!
NOW GET YOUR BUTT TO THE HOSPITAL GIRL!
TOBE, good idea to get a diagnosis from a medical professional … then it’s a choice how you deal with it….sounds like severe anxiety to me…I’m not a medical professional though….breathe in through the nostrils 5 counts and out 5 counts — I always forget to breathe when stressed to the max -drink a chamomile tea or any relaxing tea….go do emerg if you need to…your symptoms dont sound like a heart attack…but the symptoms are not easily identified sometimes….
I tried to post a pic … wasn’t really revealing..just an awesome pic of my daughter…I’ll try to figure out….