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
Rune; you are silly too. Thanks.
I have run a laughter group in other areas that I cannot mention.
On a whole it has made a difference to many and many have joined in in helping me, if it helps for only a brief moment. Whatever the situation may be.
God’s intentions are for us to be happy and laughter can be part of that being happy after being serious for so long with this S.
I think laughter can make a difference here, I will be happy to help.
Dogs and cats are funny. Both of yours sound that way too. I wish so bad they could all talk. How interesting they would be. My little yorkie would probably talk my ear off. He has a funny stubborn side and he may be a bit crabby.
Another thing I have have found is good for healing are inspirational videos on you tube and the internet, and many poems I absolutely adore in the words that take you away if only for a moment and that can leave you wielding. Did I say that right. No bad meant.
I think we have had misery and the dark side so let’s all bring some good feelings as part of healing.
shabbychic: “Happiness comes within first”, I am learning….
and is maybe a lesson I was meant to learn in the first place.
Goodnight and may your rest be peaceful.
I just read this conversation you guys had late last night (or early this morning) and I have NOTHING TO ADD TO IT, you guys are really GETTING IT!
It gives me so much laughter and so many smiles to see people talking like you guys were talking last night/this morning and supporting each other, and a GREAT WARM FEELING! (((((hugs to you all)))))) Thanks for sharing this conversation with us and letting me “evesdrop”
“The fog comes in on little cat feet” and happiness shows up on big furry dog paws?
Well I am trying to decide whether or not I will fully assign my husband the label sociopath. This is a 15 year relationship.
It went bad shortly after I was pregnant with our daughter he became somebody I did not know. He was too serious all the time. This was an extreme opposite of the fun loving and charming guy I met. I was 18. He was 25. I would call my sister crying about how he was treating me. After our daughter was born it seemed to get a little better but in hindsight that is only because I was not around him that much as I went back to college when she was 7 mos. He refused to let me put her in child care which was just across the street from the school. She ended up with autism as a result of not having enough stimulation. He slept all day but promised me that he was up with her. She even fell out of the crib when she was 6 mos in his care.
But fast forward a bit by the third year of our relationship I was ready to get married and he wasn’t claiming we needed to be financially secure. It wasn’t helping that I was attending a church in which the first lady and pastor badgered me for not being married. I had a break with reality and in 1996 I started surfing the internet looking for a way to escape the madness. I told him that I would find another church to attend he replied that if I left they would think it was because of him. I told him it is because of him but not for any other reason than I wanted to preserve our relationship and family. But he insisted that I had to stay so I listened to him. By the next spring I had a nervous break down at school and my lips swelled up like balloons due to the stress I was feeling aggravated by the pollen in the air. A little while later I found some desperate guy online and started an online and phone relationship with him. Then I went to met the guy and got stranded 60 miles away from home, I was scared to call my husband but I called him anyway. He told me he coudn’t come pick me up because he had to go to work. When I got home finally after an scary night he woke me up to ask what happened. When I told him he wasn’t mad but he seemed hurt. We stopped talking altogether this time. When our lease was up we went our separate ways only keeping in touch because of our daughter. He stated that he had actually cheated on me. I went to meet the guy the guy tried to kiss me my guilt got to me and I told him no. It was helpful that the guy wasn’t cute but I still told him no and I was ready to go home but my husband insisted at that time that I cheated on him.
Now in all this I couldn’t tell you what my husband was doing but I always felt like he was cheating on me. Before I started the internet he would disappear for hours on end and when I asked where he had been he would tell me that he didn’t have to answer to me with a big smile on his face and laughing. Anytime anything went wrong in the relationship it was always my fault for being too emotional. He could never deal with my emotions. And for me it was normal to cry when I was hurt but he would act like I was overreacting. After a while I started blowing up on him in violence. I have thrown drinking glasses and shoes in anger but never directly at him. We have fought twice, once when I was pregnant with our son and this is when he finally got his things and sneaked away while I was at church.
Anytime I call him on his judgment or character he becomes extremely defensive. He claims that he only reacts when provoked. Instead of taking the high road and not having a reaction he has to get even with people in his own sick twisted way. He knows the law as though he was an enforcer of the law so that he don’t have any run-ins with the law. However he does some of the most illegal things which he hasn’t been caught. Recently he lied to me and said one of his male friends said they were going to turn him in for some of his suspect activities. I don’t know too many guys who will turn in anybody for doing something that doesn’t have to do with killing someone–heck they will even let that slide. I believe it was some female he was talking to and he didn’t want me to know about it because the day I get a job he is going to divorce me. He refuses to divorce me because I don’t have a job. He doesn’t want to pay anything and as a matter of fact I see him trying to get me to pay him. I see him using his decision to move out of the house in his favor and turn it against me in court and paint me out to be the crazy person in the relationship who doesn’t know how to control her emotions. Oh yeah let me not forget that I am the one who was set up, lied on and put in jail for two days. I was carrying so much stress with me that I cussed out a woman in public but did not threaten her at all though I admit that I did cuss her out telling her that she can’t talk to me any kind of way her but nobody listened to me and I went to jail. Everytime something happens my so called husband has the nerve to put that in my face as a word of caution because ‘you’ve already been through that before’ as he told me two days ago about an issue at my daughter’s school.
Like I said in the beginning of this post this is a 15 year relationship and there is no way I can put everything he has put me through and he calls it being stubborn. No, it is something deeper than being just stubborn that fuels his fire. But he is so crafty in his what I believe to be sociopath lifestyle that he even has himself under tremendous self control and admits to being wild before he trained himself to calm down. He would say to me, “I was a trip when I was younger. I had to calm down because I was going to end up dead or in jail.” And you know what nah he is just leaving a trail of devastation wherever he goes. He plays the shy guy just like the day I met him which only pulls you into him. Now this man would go through cycles of distancing himself from me and it seemed like every three months he would blow up on me and then we’d argue because I am not the kind of person to take abuse but after we’d argue he’d stay quiet for a month. He’d walk around the apartment in dead silence as if he was going to kill me if I said anything to him. I never got used to it but I learned how to cope with it. And then he’d want to have sex after four weeks of silent treatment. But he wouldn’t come right out and say it he would start to talk to me and I would be so desperate for conversation with him that I would fall for it every time. Within a couple of days we would become sexually involved again. Then it was the quickies and how he would thank me for it. I would tell him not to thank me, it’s not like I am not willing to and it’s not like we weren’t in a relationship.
Then there is the admitting to wearing a mask. Since he moved he has tried to change himself into yet another personality. But it is still him. Perhaps he has multiple personality disorder. But it has to be something that he can talk about recreating himself when he leaves one situation and enter another. How fake can a person be. Unless you are undergoing a real spiritual transformation you are simply being a variation of your sick self.
Then he claims that he hates to argue but he is always saying callous things which will spark and argument with a monk. He rubs people the wrong way and then he cuts them off like and as if he is so much better than them. He left me feeling less than and simply depressed. The best thing he has done is make sure his children have a roof over their heads and some kind of food on the table. He is selfish and really don’t love my children. There is no way he can love our children if he don’t love me. He even does things to upset and hurt both of our kids ages 14 and 3. I don’t know how I lasted this long in this relationship I saw something good in him but he feels worthless and useless and simply no good and does whatever he can to feel better about himself even at the expense of marriage and fatherhood.
I really feel like he is a sick man and needs to be committed to Patton Mental Institution for his sickness. All these years I was feeling guilty for acting out in protest of him and come to find out he is really a sick person. I don’t hold too much stalk in spiritualist or seers anything like that but I read in a birthday book that he was born on the day of the hell raiser and was prone to deep dark moods what was so eerie about it is that describe him to a tee. I was born on the day of the long odds.
loveonmusic: It does sound like you have been through a lot. There is no reason why somebody you are in a relationship with should make you miserable, whether their a sociopath or not! You have certainly come to the right place for support and knowledge from all the people on this website. I admire you for searching out help, you can tell there is something wrong. Keep reading and posting… any man that leaves a trail of devastation wherever he goes and admits to wearing a mask… sounds like a real personality disorder to me.
Dear loveonmusic,
Your marriage sounds like a terrible ordeal and the opposite of what a loving marriage should be. He also sounds pretty disturbed to me as well. I hope you take as much time as you can away from him. I know it’s impossible to have no contact as long as you have a child with him. But the more time you have away from him, the clearer things will become and you will be able to sort this all out. You found a really great site. We are all here to support each other, and whether your ex carries the title “sociopath” or not, you will find much healing and information here.
loveonmusic: If you can, get away from him and don’t look back. Do what you need to do to get you and your children away from him. Whatever your life will be without him is better than being involved with a selfish, self centered, self absorbed fool.
There is no changing them … but you need to be away from him so you can clear your mind to heal. It is not a quick fix … but, remember, we all have been where you are now and you can find peace and serenity away from him. It takes work and it isn’t easy, but it is worth having your harmony and peace come back into your life.
Hang in there and stay with us. Chat any time you want to chat about anything you want to write to us about. Whoever is on line at the time you write, will gladly write you back.
Peace.
This is my first post here, but I can identify with many of the things greenfern wrote way up above, and the pain, anger and confusion many of you expressed in your comments. It’s been 10 years since my last encounter with the S and my life is SO much better now. My reasons for posting here are twofold, one to tell you that it will get better, a lot better if you let it, and two, though it’s been 10 years I have yet to tell the tale in it’s entirety to anyone. While it saddens me to see so many other victims, it’s somewhat relieving as well to see others who may understand what I went through.
I was 18 when I met the S, he was 23. In my first year of college, I suffered from undiagnosed Dysthymia for years, my self-esteem was low. I had heard about the S from a friend. After telling me how smart, handsome, and generally all around wonderful the S was he introduced us with the hopes that we might date. The S was well-groomed, confident and surprisingly, interested in me.
We started dating almost immediately and everything seemed perfect, for about a month. I began seeing red flags. For one, he seemed to drink a lot, his apartment was meticulously decorated, but it smelled like a bar. Later I would find out he drank every night, taking ephedrine to stay up all night while he drank, sometimes getting high on whippets with his only friend or smoking pot, and getting completely trashed every weekend. He also told me weird stories that sounded too crazy to be true, but I’m almost positive they were. He said he used to rob video stores with a gun he had stolen, he described how he did it in great detail and was proud that he had gotten away with it. I assumed he was lying at the time, but began to feel uneasy. However, I was determined to settle down. I chose the wrong guy.
Despite my misgivings, I slept with the S, he was my first. We continued to date and even talked about marriage, but we agreed we wouldn’t get married until I had graduated from college. All the while the S showered me with gifts, he had a decent job and he always said he was going to be a great entrepreneur. He even set up a fake web design company and made his own business cards and website, claiming to be the president of the company and listing imaginary staff on his website. Every month on our “anniversary” he gave me roses in the number of months we had been together. This was sweet at first, but he got upset if I made any other plans on our “anniversary.” The one time I went to the movies with some friends and he showed up at the theatre in the middle of the movie, talked the woman at the ticket window into letting him in for free, then proceeded to call my name from the front of the theatre. I was humiliated, he knew I didn’t like big public displays like that, and when I didn’t heap him with praise he got angry with me and said that all the other women in the theatre thought it was romantic.
By 4 months into the relationship I was very unhappy. I was now spending most of my time with the S when I wasn’t in school. I barely saw most of my friends and when I did it was always with S, who pulled out the charm, he loved an audience. When we were alone or with his S friend, he would get drunk or high and tell me what a loser I was, how my life would never amount to anything and I should just quit school and learn how to cook since that’s all I’d be good for. He never hurt me physically, but he tore me down mentally at every turn. Of course, he’d apologize and expect everything to be ok, but even when he was sober he would say things like, “you’re pretty, but you’re not beautiful, you’ll never be beautiful.” He claimed he was showing me his love by being honest with me. He criticized everything I did, laughed at me, told me I needed to lose weight (I’m 5’6″ and was 115 lbs at the time), told me how “green” I was while he claimed to be so savy. When I didn’t want to sleep with him he called me frigid and guilt-tripped me into doing things sexually that I can’t speak about in the light of day without shame. I cried every time we had sex, but he didn’t care as long as I gave him what he wanted. When I told him I wanted to spend some evenings at home so I could do homework, he told me I should be doing my homework before he gets home from work. He even got his creepy friend’s girlfriend to tell me I was being a bad girlfriend and that I really should do as the S told me. I tried to break up with the S, but he cried and told me I “made him a better man” and I came back, hollow inside but feeling responsible for him.
The true breaking point for me came a little over a year after the relationship started. The S told me about a scheme he had to commit credit card fraud. It was elaborately detailed and planned out. I asked him if he needed money and he said it wasn’t about the money it was about proving that he was smarter than the system. I begged him to think about what he was planning to do, I cried, I pleaded for him not to throw the life we had together away. He promised me he wouldn’t do it. A month later he disappeared for a few days with no word, when he returned he had a new laptop, new camcorder, a whole bunch of expensive software, he gave me gifts of expensive lingerie, several boxes of it, expecting to buy my forgiveness. I was horrified, but afraid to do anything other than thank him and leave. The next time I was there the new electronics were gone. I knew what he did, but I had no concrete proof to prove it and he was no longer admitting anything to me. I was done with him, but still didn’t know how to leave. I hadn’t told my friends or family anything this whole time, I didn’t know what to do.
At a year and 4 months, my out came in a convoluted manner. I ended up sleeping with someone else. In my then warped mind it made sense, it was the one thing I felt I couldn’t take back, I had to leave. I broke things off with the S, but I didn’t tell him about the other guy, apparently someone he knew was watching me and told him about it before I even came to his house. He showed up at my job the next weekend with an angry letter telling me what a miserable loser I was, and an itemized list of every single thing he had ever bought me, every event he had attended with me apparently against his will, he claimed that he did anything I ever wanted even though he didn’t have the money for it. He called every one of my friends and told them his sad story of how I’d broken his heart and dumped him, he couldn’t understand why I was being so mean. They got angry at me for him until I unmasked the lies. The next week he showed up at my job again with a new girl on his arm and gave me a letter that said he loved me, he had forgiven me, and was ready to take me back. My answer was to give him back his key and my sister picked up any stuff I had left at his place. He showed up at my job one more time and left me an envelope, in it was the key with a note that said “for when you find yourself.”
I fled the state for a few weeks visiting friends, during that time he showed up at my parents house in the middle of the night looking for me. My dad told him to leave and never come back. After I returned he called and asked to see me, because of the way I had ended things I felt I owed him that so I agreed. He cried and begged me to at least be friends with him. I agreed, but he quickly overstepped the bounds of friendship by trying to put his hand on my leg and kiss me, then he got upset when I pushed him away. I told him we couldn’t be friends, but a couple months later he was back, telling me how he’d changed. He was DJing at a local bar once a week and asked if I’d like to help him. I was 20, but he could get me in if I was working. I ended up doing all the DJing while he took the money we got paid and got drunk.
Then things got even weirder, one of the bartenders was interested in asking me out, but he told me he didn’t feel it was right to ask me out because the S was really interested in dating me. His brother told me the same thing, that the S was going around telling all of them he was in love with me and wanted to ask me out. I told them that he was my ex and then they all thought it was creepy.
The one night I was at the bar talking to the bartender after hours and the S showed up drunk. Since I knew where he lived the bartender asked if I would give the S a ride home. I should have followed my intuition, but I was afraid he might try to drive and kill someone. In the car he told me he had tried to buy bullets for his gun but they wouldn’t sell him any until the morning. He told me he was going to kill himself and I stupidly followed him into his apartment trying to talk him out of it. He punched dents into his kitchen cabinets yelling about how he hated life, I ran for the phone in the living room but he tackled me and ripped it from the wall. He threw his glass chess set across the room smashing it. I was sobbing hysterically and he suddenly told me I could go, but the minute I walked out the door he would kill himself. I stayed knowing I couldn’t live with his death on my head. My only hope was to wait until he passed out. He sat down next to me and buried his head in my chest, I was sick to my stomach but I told him everything would be ok and held him until he slept. When he was deeply asleep I carefully pulled free, took his keys so he couldn’t lock the door if he woke up, and ran. It was dawn and I drove to my mother telling her everything that had just happened. She called the police and we went back to his place to meet them. He tried to lie to them and said I was overreacting, he wasn’t planning to harm himself and I was lying. They took notes and then talked to me alone, I was so terrified they’d believe him like everyone else, but they saw the broken glass, broken cabinets, torn phone line. They locked him away in the local mental health center for the weekend for observation. But by Monday he had the counselors convinced he was fine, they did suggest he attended AA however. I visited him while he was in the center and he told me he still planned to kill himself if I didn’t help him get better. I promised to help him. He was out for two weeks before he was getting drunk again. I stopped taking his calls, I was broken, done, I stopped going to class, stopped getting out of bed.
I told my mom I needed help, I needed medication and a counselor. I was in an episode of major depression. The last thing I heard of the S was that he moved out of state. He actually called my parents house to invite me to his going away party. I didn’t respond, but I did check with a few locals at the bars to verify that he really did leave and it wasn’t a lie to catch me off guard.
If you read this far, thanks, I need to air this stuff like an old infected wound. I have to go now, but I’ll be back.
Midnight: Your story sounds so true. And he sounds so terrifyingly disordered, but capable of looking “normal.”
I was involved with someone like him. I thought it was a head injury that caused the behaviors; he was in a bad accident the first month we were dating, and I thought the head trauma was the cause. I stayed with him for two crazy years, with the erratic behavior and rages getting worse and worse.
I’m glad you found your way here. I will watch for your story.