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
EB,
you are almost as BAD AS I AM! Woman!!!! Woman!!! what a hoot you are!
I’mm just glad it didn’t wash up a wave like the one in Indonesia that killed 200K folks, and apparently the EQ in South America was BIGGER but wasn’t the kind that topples things quite as bad as the one in Haiti.
I was in Los Angeles in Feb. 1971, 8 mo preg, when that one hit out there and that was scarry enough. Only 6 folks died if I remember correctly, but my yard rolled like a pool when someone jumps in. Scary when the ground moves.
You guys have funn tonight, this old bat is going to bed! Nighty/nite! (((hugs)))))
Yeah….I really, really DON”T want anyone else to get harmed/hurt/ or lose property….JUST HIM!
I want to mount his washed up shark bitten head on a plaque and nail it to a tree as yard art, the yard knome!!!! I’d pluck the shark teeth out of his skull and adorn my neck with a new gold plated sharks tooth!!!!
I would donate money….(I don’t have any currently, but I would do all I could to make some FOR THIS REASON) to shark protection in the islands!!!!
Oh…..where is jaws when ya need him…..
EB! 2 weeks ago my ex Raced his ski boat in the Southern 80 boat race (oz) I was watching TV and a news flash came on that there had been a fatality in the race. I quickly jumped on the internet hoping that God may have finally saved past and future victims of the S, Ex. But ‘No’ sadly it was a loving father of 5 who had been married for 25 years. Then I got angry thinking why would a good, husband/father be taken and not my ex? I always believed in the laws of Karma! Just don’t know why S’s dodge bullets all the time and always land on their feet!!
Guys, I hate to tell you, but I think the P’s have the same “dark angel” that saves drunks and druggies from wrecks that would KILL and dismember sober people, because they have NO FEAR—as for the “loving father of five” that died–my guess is he has at least one point for BEING A P because you can’t do that kind of HIGH RISK RACING if you have any fear at all. So once in a while one of them bangs it in because they keep upping the stakes till something has to give, but you know—that life-risking is fun to them cause they think 1) they are better than everyone else and 2) it’s only gonna happen to others not me 3) they are just not afraid
Keep in mind that the HIGH RISK TAKER5 in dangerous sports have SOMETHING in them that makes them FEARLESS or they wouldn’t do it, AND FEARLESSNESS is one definite aspect of most Ps—so there you go girlfriends, stay away from people who are BIG RISK TAKERS either financially or physically.
Anyone who just can’t live without a BIG dose of HIGH RISK ain’t someone I wanna be around. There are less dangerous ways to get the adrenaline high than taking RISKS with SAFETY.
I didn’t realize when I isaw it with my sperm donor who was a pilot (my late husband was too) but my sperm donor would DELIBERATELY do STUPID and RISKY STUNTS just to scare passengers (me included) and then laugh and call us cowards because we were “afraid.” It is remarkable that he never died doing these stunts, but his “evil angel” and his considerable skill kept him alive to die with his boots off, but my late husband would NEVER NEVER have attempted any of these stunts and he was a MUCH BETTER PILOT than the sperm donor, because he was very SAFETY Conscious. Odd, too, as he did die as a result of a crash.
I was usually scared chitless in a plane with my sperm-donor (or if I wasn’t I should have been but didn’t know enough to be) but never afraid flying with my late husband. Been through mechanical problems with both, and believe me, keeping a CALM head rather than the P-s lack of fear is a much better thing to have.
I think the lack of fear gives Ps an advantage as well as a disadvantage in surviving the high risk taking—-but they are not as bullet proof as they think and if something does go wrong, I think they are so dumbfounded that when they no longer have “control” and know it, they lose their confidence more quickly and start “striking out in all directions” to try to regain control, I’m not sure that isn’t even a form of “fear” even. Maybe more akin to “panic.” (at least some of them)
Comments on that?
Hello Ox,
Oh I agree, the moment they do not have control they lash out, at anyone and everyone. They MUST be in control at all times.
My xP would always say “you will never change” and that I “applied pressure”. He said I would never change bcause I was continually calling him out on the bullsh*t and trying to get him to understand that the things he was doing was hurting me (there lies the pressure).
He would never get it, it was always wasted breath on my part. He would only make a change when he wanted to, ever, never at my encouragement or asking.
As far as risk taking goes, idk, I think because they lack fear they do not see it as risk, period. Its just a thrill for them.
Oxy,
Kind of a paradox. It has to do both with what they DON’T have in their makeup but also what they DO have in their make up.
I think that their risk taking has everything to do with what they lack. (fear) And also something to do with what they ARE able to feel, because they are so limited in the feeling department. When they do feel something they “go with it”.
I don’t think they look at what they do as “risky” the same as we do.
However,
If they DO the risky stuff they feel a huge rush. Maybe even closer to a high, for them. Those rushes and highs can become addictive. Don’t you think?
Witsend
I do think its a rush for them. For my xP it was about the rush of getting someone to fall for him, them begin the downward spiral of control and manipulation, ultimately devaluing them.
It goes back to Steves post the analogy of the boy and the bug.
It occupies them for a bit, once they are done they move on.
I saw a documentary a long time ago, about high end psychopaths, such as serial killers, and it’s been found that they have high levels of testosterone and very low levels of seritonin…I wonder if that has anything to do with their risk-taking, and fearlessness….
I thought this was interesting, too. Somewhere on the web I read that p’s in combat where the most fearless, in that they would rush in, where others might stand back a bit, but when it came to rescuing a fellow soldier who had been wounded and was maybe laying in the middle of enemt fire, it was the normal guys who became fearless….
kim,
That really makes sense to me. That a P would be fearless in combat and rush in, but not even think twice to want to rescue a fellow wounded soldier.
That speaks volumes to me as far as them not having “feelings” as a motivator to their behavior.
Guys, I agree that the adrenaline rush is a “high” for them, just like “compulsive gamblers” get a RUSH whether they win or lose! It is the RUSH, the drugs they are addicted to, and they like it!
I have heard that some people who are bi-polars don’t like medication because it keeps them from having the highs of mania and they LIKE that…
I also think that their judgment is off as well and they probably don’t consider the RISK OF FAILING and the consequences of failing. Failure of their plan is never their fault so they don’t say, “boy, I don’t think I will try that again!” They say, “well, X caused my failure not me, so I will try it again!” The same way my P-son “blames” me for his being in prison now, not the fact that he KILLED a woman in COLD BLOOD. He doesn’t get that.
I even found something in one of his letters where one of his “good buddies” had called me and I had apparently pumped him some about P’s crime (murder) and P-son went into a long drawn out chewing on me about how I should NOT pump his friends about his crime cause THEY didn’t know what his crime was and it was NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS, and NONE OF MINE. “I wouldn’t understand” if I knew the details. Well, he was RIGHT ABOUT THAT, I still don’t totally understand what would make him do what he did, since I can’t imagine doing that. I CAN imagine killing someone in self defense and I honestly think I could and would DO so. But killing someone because you are just mad at them? Nah, I can’t even imagine that. Don’t want to imagine doing that!
It was sort of gratifying though back when after the TH-P’s arrest when my P-son was being kept NC by the entire family how he TWIRLED on a spit like a roast over a camp fire because no one would write him back. He had LOST CONTROL without contact and he felt POWERLESS AND ANXIOUS….he went from the pity play to the anger posture and back again. The egg donor was mad at that time, but she eventually started writing him again and fell back into his web of deceit again and then became his “proxy” punisher, but I think she LIKES that role or she wouldn’t have taken it, she does it with lots of vigor!