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.
10 reasons why sociopaths’ lies seem so believable
Here is a great quote from a book I’m reading by Ronda RIch. The book is called “What Southern Women Know (that Every Woman Should)” and it definitely applies to my ex s’path, the emotional predator:
“if you ever meet a manipulative man,run hard and fast, because he can and will be meaner and more evil than a manipulative female. I have only met two manipulative men in my life, but it was like dancing with the devil while the fires of hell licked at my backside.”
I am a southern woman with a whole lot of tomboy mixed in!
I am a southern woman……
Sometimes called “grits” or bulldozers in patent leather pumps…but always. always to be treated like a lady!
Erin, I am excited about all the NEW thoughts and things coming into your life. Wow! What a makeover huh?!
Yes, I think the SPATH really is mean and for no sake other than to be so. I can’t fathom that kind of meaness that serves every blatant insult to a woman under the guise of caring.
Its so confounding sometimes even the truth is hard to believe, but reality has to win and the reality is “it ain’t fittin, it ain’t fittin’ it jes ain’t fittin” and what I think the South in particular has to offer is the old fashioned and overtly conservative community of friends, family and peers, neighbors and church families and more that circles around us to make sure there is no more of that.
He might have fooled me, but he didn’t fool the old ladies one bit and as soon as he was discovered, they closed ranks fast!
So, as bespeaks the tradition of the old ways, not sure who you’re dating? Have lunch with a grandmother from the South and I hope we, who are now older and wiser for what we have been through will become those very mavens for other young women.
No woman should ever have to find herself so isolated as to have no wise and kindred voice in her ear quietly sharing the observations that younger, perhaps more hopeful eyes do not.
There are reasons for the traditions of good manners and among them to protect women from just this kind of thing. I find that being among the community here is a strong stay for me and that it has been good to not have the option to go back, even if the temptation is as real as the lie was.
Even last night, when I felt haunted by the ghost of his promises, I could hold onto the idea that these pillars of strength in my life would simply not have it.
And I know they are right. And I know what is real. I can release the haunting and go on healing because I am connected to women here and there who are as upright and solid as fenceposts along the road to becoming a psychologically made over me with a new story, a bright future and a place in the real world.
Now how cool is that? Pass the biscuits please….:)
Dear Silvermoon,
Being southern to the BONE myself, and have SEEN first hand how community pulls together, unfortunately, one of my worst persecutors is my “egg donor” (the woman I called “mama” until I realized finally that she has all the fake compassion of a “televangerlist” saying “send yer donations sistern an brethern” Translation: “My wife wants an air conditioned dog house and my mistress is gettin’ greedy) LOL
She keeps up the pious front like a mask and the smear campaign has been horrible. But, I’m even learning to not let that bother me too much. Learning to hold my head up even if some folks enjoy the gossip and feelin’ sorry for the poor old woman who’s been “been deserted by her onliest childe.”
So there are two sides to the “community” support, and that guard dog can bite the hand that feeds it or suck up to the one that kicks it the hardest. Just depends in who either makes it afraid first or kicks it’s the hardest, or bribes it with a steak.
ps Silver moon, the biscuitsd got et up at breakfast, but we got cornbread for dinner and supper too.
Ox-My mother is one of those freaks who constantly spout religion and she has been up in my face with that my whole life. She refuses to take resopnsibility for the shit she fed me that helped me become a magnet for these disordered men. She doesn’t understand me at all and she NEVER will. She thinks that I got what I deserved from this man because I disobeyed God’s law and was with someone that was married.
Everytime I talk to her it results in fighting and me in tears. She is toxic in my life and I choose to disregard her. I have a wonderful stepmom who DOES understand me. She fell for the s’path too.
Dear Erin1972,
WE do get what we ALLOW to happen (like the going back to them after they have abused us) but I don’t think it is “God” punishing us so much as “Natural consequences” Just like if you get knee walking drunk and you have a hangover/lose your job/whatever, God doesn’t have to punish us we do it to ourselves.
Knowingly doing things we know are “not wise choices” (and for me that would include hooking up with a married man)are not good judgment. I have exercised POOR JUDGMENT and done things I KNEW WERE STOOPID many times. I am trying right now to STOP doing things I know are wrong or unwise.
Since 2 of my close friends have been killed by drunk drivers, you can only imagine how I feel about people who drink (any) and drive—crucificition for FIRST OFFENSE–let their bnodies hang for the crows to eat—so my P-now-X-BF comes here very high on vodka and I STRONGLY suspect this, the next day I find a vodka bottle in his car, so what do I do? KICK HIM TO THE CURB? Nope, didn’t do that, so instead I TALK to him and he PROMISES NOT TO DO IT AGAIN…then RINSE AND REPEAT, another promise to break! I did what I knew was wrong, I kept on in a relationship with a liar and a secret drinker who got behind the wheel of a car drunk. Pretty stoopid on MY part! I violated MY morals cause I didn’t want to lose him. LOSE WHAT? A PSYCHPATH!
I suggest you distance yourself from your egg donor if not NC then stay away as much as you can and let yourself calm down. Then make the decision about a relationshihp with her or not.
Ok OX,
I’ll raise you a red eye gravy and a side of okra;)
And I do understand that, but I also know the wise eyes and the traditions of good manners which are exactly about the protection that would guard the unspsecting about manipulative men.
We all have to be strong enough to recognize and suspend relations with the disturbed.
And in the old Southern Gene pools, we have more than a fair share of crazy. But the beauty of the traditions of having more than one person approve the match and being politely deferential to folks who just ought to be treated that way are indeed the cornerstones of good manners.
In fact it is consistent with the best advice at Lovefraud. So I advocate the safety inherent in them, the slower pace and the common sense behind it all.
I’ll be the first to take it square that I fell hard and fast. Thought I’d make a best judgement on my own and defy the conventions of getting approval over time, the deference of the community around me and I am paying the harsh price for it.
Erin, the conventional wisdom that says if its married to another woman, don’t touch it would have protected you too. You didn’t deserve what you got, but you did defy the conventions that would have protected you.
Point being that and this is very Southern, if it doesn’t play by the rules, it probrably is going to be trouble.
The things that these mothers did and do is not right. Does not play to the light of any social inspection and that is why the worst of what they have done had to be accomplished behind closed doors and beyond the light of day. Don’t think I didn’t have a monsterous set of parents. I did. But, I;m not a child anymore and I have to see my choices and actions in the light of adulthood.
Now, the work of healing me is mine. It involves me being able to recognize what was missing or weak that set me up and learn to take care of myself differently. I observe that there are wise eyes and cooler heads around that when I observe the rules of behavior, give very clear signals and information and going forward, I find tremendous value in them.
What the traditions can call up and do call to is exactly the persons we become by learning the truth here and in the work to discover what we can be to ourselves to overcome the pain and misunderstanding of the world of relationships between human beings that lurks with in us.
But, by my estimation, that’s what makes us “true Grits” and women of enough strength to mentor the generations forward to learn first what is the right because the common senses we missed and the gene pools that abused us are lessons that I hope others are in no hurry to find out the way I did.
Its not about ENDURE, its about PREVAIL.
PEACE Y’all 🙂
Thanks, shabby, for your welcome! It’s been a long, hard road, but I’m back from hell.
I’ve learned to be more wary of people, and although a very nice guy is interested in me I’ve told him right up front that I’m not ready for anything beyond friendship and I don’t know if I ever will be again. My cats and I are purrfectly happy and feeling safe again in our little home, and I LOVE it! 🙂
I was NOT out to hook up with a married man. My ex was my friend and I was fool enough to trust him. He LIED to me to get me with him. I am aware that it was wrong and I have to deal with that but I DO place a larger portion of the blame on him. I wasn’t aware of the flaws that I have that made me such prey for these people. This man knew what he did was wrong. He did it to three other younger women before me and I didn’t find out until he threw me out like trash. He just thinks that the rules don’t apply to him. He truly believes he can do what ever he wants and he always gets away with it!
As for mother-I don’t want her in my life. She has four younger kids that she has thinking she’s a saint. Let her be intheir lives instead of being a constant source of stress for me.
Dear Silvermoon,
Oh, I absolutely understand where you are coming from on the “good manners” and “good sense”—every time I have viiolated the REAL GOOD MANNERS or lost my COOL it has been a disaster!
I just finished Fanny Flagg’s book “Can’t wait to get to heaven” (she wrote Friend Green Tomatoes) There is a great deal of wisdom in there, including (I won’t spoil the plot) how us “Southern Ladies” handle some stuff that “don’t need to be told and best be kept quite.”
Unfortunately, I come from the primarily Scots-Irish traditions that can quickly degenerate into WHITE TRASH if it goes too far in ENABLING the males in the family to continue in their ABUSIVE behavior. It isn’t about poverty, though many “white trash” families ARE poor, but they are poor because their behavior is trashy and they aren’t real inclined to work or be responsible. Other “white trash” families are quite WEALTHY and no one checks too closely into how that wealth was obtained. Then of course are the crooked public servants–but that’s a discussion for another day.
My farmer (mom’s dad’s) family (I live on the old acres where we settled in 1833) were honest and a little backwoodsy but generally hard working, smart, responsible, and owned their land and acquired more. My paternal doctor family were a little better off financially, smart, hard working, civic minded. (Doctor GF built first hospital in county) However he married as second wife a psychopath and it entered the family there. Rest of the family is respectable and good folks.
Mama’s mama’s family has a history of psychopathy clear back to a buy born in 1800, murdered in 1860, and down through that whole line including severl generations of murder-suicides, went down from relative wealth and social standing to my GGF became the town drunk here, and my egg donor’s brother replaced him and surpassed his abuse by becoming Uncle MONSTER. GGF-Monster was just a sick old man when he died as far as I was concerned, I think I was 7-8 at the time of his death.
As far as I know, no matter what they did or how public or bad it was, they were never told to straighten up, just enabled. My Egg Donor’s dad did “wear the tar out of Uncle Monster” when Uncle was 14 and daddy found out that he had been smothering his little baby sister (7 yrs younger) unconscious since she was born—worst part was, his wife Granny Enabler, knew about it and kept it SECRET cause she didn’t want her son Monster to get a whipping cause he might “run away” from home. Uncle monster’s crimes were generally hidden from the community until his wife finally left him and he moved back here and became the community woman hating/beating drunk and everyone pretending it wasn’t happening. I didn’t know about them till well after I was grown.
Not that he was by any means the only one here, but we didn’t talk about that either.
I’ve got some of the Southern traditional manners of hospitality and caring, community involvement, etc. but I also have some of the strengths of the tough women who survived and thrived and I am learning that being truthful with myself and others, especially myself, is more important than what “the neighbors think.” I’m also getting a bit more spunky in my old age and standing up for myself, and finally figured out that I don’t have to throw my best quilt down, or my back, to let anyone wipe their feet on in order to be hospitible.
I’ll raise you some green peas and grabbled new potatoes cooked in cream sauce. I got 200+ tater sets out and when the oak leaves are the size of a squirrel’s ear, I’ll plant the corn and peas.