Editor’s note: The following story was submitted by the Lovefraud reader who posts as “Greenfern.” It is a classic story of sociopathic seduction.
When I first met the S, I was very young, 22, and in a pretty bad spot. I come from a broken, abusive family and I have been pretty much on my own since 16. I was managing by putting myself through college, working full time, step by step. A year before I met the S, I was hit by a car and the recovery from that sent me into a depression and hardship. I had no family support or insurance, so I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and tried not falling behind. I felt alone and struggling, but managed. I feel like I was a strong young person considering the circumstances.
Then the S appeared in my life. He was my TA at school. As it turns out he later told me that he had been observing me for over a year, but I was acting “stand offish” and “unapproachable” so he had difficulties getting to know me. So I guess when I hit the bottom after my accident I have become more approachable in his eyes and he pursued me.
Constant care and attention
He courted me very intensely, I felt off guard, like a deer in the headlight. He came across as this very dignified, old fashioned (he was only 28) gentleman with strong interest in my background. He kept asking if I needed help in my school work and brought me sandwiches and kept coming and coming at me. I felt strange, but I was flattered by the constant care and attention. Inside myself I felt weird, it did not feel right. But then I dismissed my own discomfort. I told myself “maybe I just need to relax and accept the attention and kindness”. I think at the time I have isolated myself from people and had little trust in myself being liked for who I was.
Read more: Dating a sociopath? Spot the red flags of love fraud
I told myself that maybe it was time to open up to people and receive. The problem with this was that I made the wrong choice of person to open up to.
He kept pursuing me harder, showering me with gifts and sweet little notes. He even branded my name into his arm. That should have been a big red flag. In fact when he showed me my name burned into his skin, I felt physically ill to my stomach and had a rising panic within me.
He wanted to hang out at all times. I felt like I had no time to myself at all. I kept telling him that I needed to do stuff on my own, but he replied to that by asking if he could come over after I do that thing. He wore me down with persistence and I did not say no. I did not know how to say no.
Phony clowns and bozos
Before I knew it, we were hanging out all the time. He told me about his problems with his parents, he made preachy speeches about the phoniness and hypocrisy of the world. He told me that now it’s us against the world and to “f___ the phony clowns and bozos of the world.” He convinced me to let him shave my head for a home movie. He told me that I was a mess and he will take care of me. He had me help him with his projects, including these films where he dressed me up as a boy wearing leg braces. He would pretty much decide when to eat and sleep. Many times I wanted to sleep at night, but he was asking for more.
In the same time he put me on this special pedestal, told me that I was the one for him and that I made him a better man. He said I was very special, he loved me, I was his best friend. He said we were meant for each other. He always asked if I was “the one” for him. I just could not say yes. I think this made him angry, but he would not say.
Completely suffocated
We moved in together, I have cut off my friends and social life. The S and I were doing EVERYTHING together. I felt completely suffocated, yet I could not even be clear to myself as to what was wrong exactly. I would have crying spells and could not put in words what was wrong. He delivered these little pep-talks about being strong and not caring about what the world says.
He took over many things in the household. Even though I was perfectly capable of doing those things, I have always managed previous to meeting the S. When I would do these things, he always made me feel like he could do them better; he would take them out of my hand. Slowly but surely he would be doing all these “favors” then make me feel like I owed him. He got mad at me because I did not say “I love you” enough in response to his million “I love yous” during the week. I did not love him. I dreamed of some miracle happening, so I could get away out of the relationship. I had fantasies of him just going away. The idea of me ending the relationship filled me with dread, dread to his response. I felt like I owed to him to stay with him. He always said “I saved you, you were a mess when I met you” then following it up with “I love you”.
He would go through the garbage to see what I was doing on my day off and I am pretty sure he was monitoring me, even though I have no proof. He grew marijuana and collected toy guns in his special room. He also hoarded his own urine in soda bottles. According to him, he was too busy with his projects to go to the bathroom. Gradually he has become too busy with his art projects to have time for me. He stopped initiating sex. When I wanted to talk to him about the sex issue, he shot it down with “sex is WAAAAY over-rated” or “what do you want me to do about it?”
I wanted to feel the way he made me feel in the beginning, but I did not understand why he took me off the pedestal. In the beginning he would want to have sex multiple times a day, but now he did not even want to hear about it at all. I did not understand what happened.
More and more criticism
At this time he started criticize me on small things. For instance on my grammar. English is not my first language, so I felt sensitive to the issue. He said I was sloppy in my language.
Then more and more criticism has arrived, and he has become more and more withdrawn, physically and emotionally. He refused to have any discussions about the relationship. He said I was the one who had a problem with the relationship. He also told me that his friends were surprised that he did not have a younger and prettier girlfriend.
I think what was the beginning of the end is that I got a good job that I liked, made me feel good. I think it really gave me confidence to stand up for myself more. I started pointing out some of his BS, yet I was not feeling strong enough to break up with him, even though I wanted to.
Bringing home a drunken girl
On our 7th year anniversary night he told me he would be home by 8 pm, so we could spend some time together. He came home at 4 am with a drunk girl, laughing. The girl was one of his students. He was offended that I thought that there was anything weird about the situation. I was livid. I felt like my world collapsed. He showed up with flowers the next day.
Then not much after that, we had a Thanksgiving party where he acted like a total ass. Then he broke up with me the next day.
He was was unfazed and calm. He combed through all of our stuff to make sure he took everything he felt a right to. He went about with complete calmness, purchasing new bedsheets for his new place. Completely cold. He told me that he was now seeing a therapist and he thinks he is pretty depressed. For the last 3 years I was BEGGING him to see a therapist. He would not even talk about it. But I think this was just an act. Later I found out that he was cheating on me for the last year and a half with the woman he married not much after we split up.
I have been in therapy for a while now. I realize that those years I lived in a complete lie and I chose to be blind to it. My task is to recognize that blind spot and protect myself from Sociopaths like him. I’m a work in progress.
Please if you are out there involved with a sociopath, trust your intuition!
Lovefraud originally posted this letter on Jan. 26, 2009.
Child abuse is America’s biggest public health crisis, and if you had a sociopathic parent, it could explain what happened to you
SC2: Here’s another thought sequence I’ve used. I’m very good at self-examination, turning it into an obsessive guilt-trip on myself that can at times incapacitate me. Now, some self-examination is good, but, REALLY . . .
So, here’s a sort of mantra: “I did the best I could at the time, knowing what I knew, and in the circumstances.” Say that at least three times. Repeat any time you find yourself obsessing over things you just can’t change now. Especially as you acknowledge the loss of your mom and a 14 year relationship that you were only coming to understand had been an ongoing toxin in your life.
I like the flowers that look great and also last awhile. Daisy mums are good. You can mix flowers together and make a changing bouquet as you fill in with new ones. (Lessons from someone with Perrier-Jouet taste and a Budweiser budget.)
Eliza: You are sufficiently clued into your life that you recognized the difference between authentic and counterfeit. Your poor friend is likely to find yet another one of the same breed without ever distinguishing what the problem was with the ex-fiance model.
It’s not about you having the problem; it’s about you RECOGNIZING that THERE IS A PROBLEM.
Healing Heart said: “And education may not directly have too much to do with how long people stay in abusive relationships, but access to resources definitely does. There is a well-documented history that women who can support themselves are less likely to stay in abusive relationships than women who cannot. Women who lack resources are often stuck, due to financial imperatives, in staying with their abusers.”
Yes, I realized you were not calling her a loser (and why, since you had also been conned.) Didn’t intend for my post to come across as if I was criticizing you, as I was just attempting to make the point that if we sometimes want to call other victims losers or pathetic, it is easy to see how people who have not been involved with a sociopath or psychopath would “not get it” and could have a tendency to see us as weak or losers or pathetic. You know, like THEY would never be that stupid.
Yes I am sure there are studies showing women are often trapped by economic situations that prevent them from leaving an abusive situation when they want to, just as economics is preventing my leaving the states and going to visit France right now. 🙂
But I also know (not from studies but by reading this and various other message boards) that alot of victims have remained in emotionally, verbally, and sometimes physically abusive relationships and it didn’t have a thing to do with economic hardship. And tha seems to especially be he case with people involved with an S or P. WE were often the ones with the money or house (especially in the beginning before they drain us dry)and the sociopath had NOTHING of substance financially to bring to the table, so we certainly weren’t staying so he could provide for us financially.
And as far as I can see from reading this and a couple other message boards, those who are highly educated haven’t fared any better in handling the crap the s or p dished out, or handling no contact, or the manipulations, or getting out or staying out any better than the ones who are not as well formally educated.
So, yes, although I agree with you that some people DO stay in relationships due to economic factors, I also think alot of people stay for factors that have NOTHING to do with finances. And some people who SAY they are staying for financial reasons, once they are given financial help and are out of the relationship, they sometimes take the man right back anyway. And that is NOT a criticism of women who take men back (for whatever reason) cause God knows I would be the LAST person on earth who could criticize for that since I took my loser-user-asshole-P back so many times it makes me sick to think about it.
Rune: Great mantra! I copied and pasted it into my journal. I’ll have to say it to myself about 1,000 times a day. Good advice, thanks, I do have a habit of being very hard on myself.
Never thought about making a changing bouquet. Why can’t I think outside the box!!??
Box? What box? (Why do people call me a “loose cannon”?)
Dear Rune and Chic (I refuse to call you “shabby”! LOL)
Back in the days 10 yrs ago or so when I was working in the family health clinics (Rural Health Clinics) I got the clinic manager to let me provide pro bono health care to the women in the DV shelters and their kids as a “public service.” It seemed that all of these women and their kids were sick physically. I got the drug reps to give us sample meds for them, etc.
I noticed some patterns that were discussed above….many of the women had NO resources other than welfare and public housing, no job prospects, little education or job skills, and were “dysfunctional” in their social relationships. Things had gotten bad enough that they were in a DV shelter in fear of their safety and lives. Not an awesome start for a “new life” any better than the ones they had. Many of them (the vast maority unfortunately) would go back to the abusive man in their lives.
I watched this scenario over and over, and quite frankly, felt a LOT SUPERIOR TO THESE WOMEN, because I KNEW FOR A FACT, I would never return to a man who had hit me. (Actually I was enabling my Psychopathic son who had hit me, so I was pretty much in denial about my own “functionality” DUH!)
I was so frustrated that these women couldn’t “see the light” and I just couldn’t understand WHY for goodness sakes they would go back. Why didn’t they have more strength? Why didn’t they get out and stay out?
I had almost literally been in as bad a shape after my divorce due to my psychopathic X-FIL taking control of all the assets of my mentally ill husband and myself, I was living in the back of my truck with a camper shell, my two kids and a cat for goodness sakes. I had pulled myself up by my own boot straps, found housing, enrolled in college, worked, raised two kids and finished my degree and survived….it was hard work, but I did it even when I was pretty devestated from the divorce and the trauma of it all. Why couldn’t THEY?
I DIDN’T GET IT. IN ALL MY ARROGANCE HOW I SURVIVED, I just did NOT get it. Maybe that’s why God has given me a chance to GET IT this time, to finally get REALLY flat of my back so I would look UP and learn the WHY.
LF has been a good source of information too, because I see the people here who are better educated than I am, at least as smart, capable etc. and THEY HAVE ALSO BEEN DUPED. They have been knocked not only to their KNEES but knocked down flat of their backs, stomped on, kicked, pee’d on, shat upon and had their faces rubbed in it too.
Domestic violence has always been known about, abuse has always been known about….though some cultures define it differently (what is acceptable beatings and what is not acceptable) but much of the time even if “excess” violence is used, people don’t want to DO anything about it unless it results in DEATH or something obviously worse (like serious brain injury) and there are little or NO repercussions to the abuser.
I think back to the men in our rural community who beat their wives (or even still do) and everyone knew they did, but did not interfeer in “family matters”—it would have been “bad manners.” Instead gossip told the stories about how Jack beat his wife up when he was drunk because she didn’t get the supper on the table at 2 a.m. when he staggered in drunk, “Oh, what a shame.” But no one went to Jack and said anything, and everyone pretended when Suzie showed up with two shiners that her story of falling down the steps on the way to the outhouse was true. “Be more careful next time Suzie, ha ha”
Even when I was a young adult,, the police did’t want to “get involved” in domestic things and they knew the women would go right back, because they liked it….so the cops went home and slapped the old lady around somemore.
Things ARE changing some, but still only PHYSICAL violence is sanctioned at all in most cases. Stalking has been labeled a CRIME, but it still isn’t usually taken seriously by law enforcement unless it becomes physical. Most of the time stalkers can get by with their harrassment because there is no “evidence” that THEY are the ones that burned your house, or took a hammer to your car in the middle of the night, or slashed your tires, etc.
Changing a whole society or culture’s way of looking at violence is a LONG PROCESS. Look how many centuries it took to change western civilization’s ideas about slavery? Yet in some cultures in the world slavery is still an accepted practice. “Owning others” is still okay in some areas, and women are “owned” by their fathers or male owners in MANY PARTS OF THE WORLD TODAY. Look at Saudi TODAY. Look at parts of India, which is a “civilized” country on the world stage.
Arkansas even had a law on the books UNTIL RECENTLY that a man could beat his wife with a stick, AS LONG AS THE DIAMETER WAS NOT MORE THAN THE DIAMETER OF HIS THUMB. Heck, I don’t use a stick like that on a 2000 pound ox! Have you ever been hit with a fly swatter, or an electric cord?
When I was doing my preceptorship with a local physician, we had a kid come in who had OBVIOUS bruises from being beaten with an electrical cord. I was going to call human services and was ordered not to by the physician who said “I’ll handle it. and talk to the father.” Sheesh! I kept my mouth shut to protect myself and I am not sure I will ever be able to forgive myself for that one! I told myself that the doctor would “handle it.” I don’t know if he spoke to the father or not, but even if he did, I am sure the child continued to be abused. Now, of course, there are laws mandating reporting that kind of abuse, but THAT KIND OF ABUSE is simply the TIP OF THE ICEBURG I wonder what OTHER kinds of abuse that poor child experienced.
Even if I had turned the father in, would the child have had any better life in foster care in the hands of the system? I’m not sure he would have, because the child was probably already so TRAUMA BONDED to the abuser at age 7 or 8 that the kid didn’t have a chance no matter what.
Legislating “good behavior” is impossible, and there will always be people who will “break the laws” anyway, but education is the key to changing people’s opinions and ways of viewing “WHAT is abuse?”
Recognizing abuse, definiing abuse, and teaching people who are not abusers themselves to STAND UP and socially sanction the LOWER LEVELS of abuse (emotional and religious abuse and social abuse etc.) that do as MUCH or more harm to people as the physical abuse that sometimes accompanies the “lower levels” of abuse that are not physically demonstrated.
It’s a long process and we have made SOME progress in the last couple of hundred years, but we as a society and culture have a LONG WAY TO GO. Peace.
So, Oxy, the rule of thumb is: NOT MORE THAN THE DIAMETER OF HIS THUMB. Really.
Yes, you’ve got it. And it’s interesting as you tell your story to see how you now understand your own blind spots from the past. Me, too.
I was raised to believe that I could ALWAYS persevere. That hard work and intelligence and right choices would prevail, and people who weren’t successful were just plain lazy.
In so many ways I’m flat on my back. I never imagined, ever, that I could go through such a stretch of time with so many setbacks that defeated every attempt I’ve made to move forward.
And, at this point, I’m also musing about all the people who are in situations similar to mine who don’t have my voice, my ability to see, to define, and to articulate this situation. What about those folks?
I just finished reading “Dolores Claiborne” by Stephen King. I recommend it as an astoundingly compassionate inside view of that woman you describe, the one whose husband gave her two shiners for not having his dinner on the table when he got home drunk at 2:00 a.m.
I share your angst over that child with the injuries from the electrical cord. When we open our mouths, we suffer risks from “the law of unintended consequences”: we don’t know what will happen because we spoke out, and, yes, things might even get worse. But if we maintain silence, then NOTHING will change.
I do feel that we have a powerful community here on Lovefraud. We have been “pre-qualified” as compassionate people through our experiences with the S/Ps. I’ve wondered if we’re gaining a critical mass to be able to make larger changes in society.
First of all, we can’t change it, if we don’t even recognize what’s wrong. Those of us who are here have already come to understand that some things (people) are fundamentally wrong in deeper ways than ordinary pop psychology can describe. So we’re ahead in the game.
Dear Rune,
Yes, we are growing in numbers and strength, and the voices of the “oppressed” are starting to be heard.
If you look back at history and look at some of the movers and shakers in freedom for women and slaves, etc. those women and men had to pay a stiff price for the activities in running the Under Ground Railway to free slaves, or to get the vote for women, or birth control, or property rights for women….and none of that in the time of the “world” is all that long ago. They were fighting against the ENTRENCHED powers of their times.
There ARE voices against domestic violence now being raised from many corners–look at the huge number of sites on the web, and organizations fighting against female circumcision etc. even here in this country (US) but there is also a male dominated culture tht still has the “glass ceiling” in business except for a few exceptions, and racial profiling, ethnic profiling etc. Our country and the world is FILLED with the “Us vs Them” mentality—in fact, here on LF we think of US (victims) and THEM (abusers) and catagorize the THEM part as BAD and the US part as GOOD.
I live in the South and grew up thinking the Civil war was the most current past war, the prejudices were there so heavily. They are STILL there to some extent in society, they WILL continue to be there for a long time to come, even though legally they are “legislated against” by law.
Changing human nature is pretty difficult and changing people’s ways of thinking can only be done voluntarily not by force. “A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion, still.”
Oxy,
Reading your letter just gave me a chill. Everything in me says that silence is what enables abuse to continue. But the thought of speaking raises fear.
In something like a split second, I ran in a movie in my mind about women speaking up, and being killed by a bunch of men. This is just my own imagination, but I think it also reflects my social training.
When I was a kid, we were not allowed to speak about what happened in our family to anyone. That included our grandparents. “It’s none of their business,” my father said. But there was an implied threat. There was always an implied threat.
When M.L. King Jr. came to march for equality in St. Augustine, where I lived for a number of years, a group of men rode into the town on horseback to block their progess, and the demonstrators were put into jail by the local police. This was one of King’s first marches. If the mother of the then-governor of Massachusetts hadn’t been among the marcher, I don’t know how long they would have sat in that jail.
Men have most of the money, virtually all of the political power, control the law enforcement and military.
I used to watch the VFW float in St. Augustine, and think I’d like to have a float for the incest survivors, the veterans of domestic wars.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this, except that I believe we stay silent because we are afraid. We don’t speak up about what is happening to women and children because we could lose our jobs, or be targeted, or be stalked by some maniac who thinks he has a right to do what he wants to his family.
And much as I hate what the dual-income household has done to families, I’m glad that women are making their own money. Financial independence may not make us totally free, but it makes a lot of difference.
What is wrong in our culture is at least partly, and possibly a lot, a residue of systems that allowed people to own other people, gave some people more rights than others, and assumed that wealth accumulated from the labor of the poor is a good thing.
Human values and human systems have a long way to go before we can be considered ethically mature. And part of my piece on denial is about that, although I didn’t get into the topic because too far from our purpose here. We live in denial, not just about our private lives but about the cultural circumstances we accept.
If we do truly get well, we also discover emotional freedom, which gets us in touch with our own ethics. It becomes harder to stay in denial.
I also think that our healing process is intended to make us free. I think that’s what God intended for us, and I think those of us who are challenged by abuse in our lives have a special purpose. Because we bear the cultural history on our own skins.
It may sound paradoxical, but when we do really discover the capacity for compassion in ourselves, I believe it makes us warriors. Like the Buddhist monks who protest human rights issues against their governments.
Oxy, Good post. All those people that accomplished all these amazing feats you listed were humble people who believed and trusted in God. That’s why these miracles happened.
I for one, am so grateful that Obama is our president. Just look at all the spiritual advisers that are surrounding this man and his family.
For the first time since Bobby Kennedy and M.L. King were assassinated, back in the 60s, have I felt renewed belief in this country and our new leaders.
Peace.