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
Greenfern,
Thank you for sharing your story. I am sure that someone out there reading will really resonate with it and realize that they really are dealing with a Sociopath.
James, you did an excellent job of plucking out the behaviors and defining them. I will save this piece for my own files. Who knows when I will use it… but I know I will.
I am sure this thread is loaded with more gems but I am up to my nostrils with my new job! If only there were 30 hours a day and 10 days a week. I really need that! I can’t keep up with all of you here at LF!
All the Best.. Aloha
Eliza,
Keep working at it, and while you do, beware of some of the sly tactics, red flags and excuses:
– I fell asleep early so could not call you back
– Had to charge my phone, so could not pick up
– Was at the bank, so could not pick up since they don’t allow cell phone use..))
– Cannot come over tonight because I have to do some paperwork
– Voice mail full…???
– Cell phone ringer on silence (so that we don’t notcie other calls are coming in)
– Cell phone left in car when he is at our home (so we don’t notice calls coming in)
– Checking voice mail when he is at our home, and we are busy doing something else
– He is sick to his stomach and has to cancel our plans
– Has to go out of town for a few days on business (meanwhile, never left town…)
– Cannot keep his stories straight about his whereabouts (contradictions, subterfuge etc…)
– Otfen doesn’t deliver on promises to call, or to do something he promised to do for you (something better obviously came up…)
That’s obviously a partial list I can compile to help out…anyone else?
Sociopfree
I can add to that list
-I have to visit my sick gma this weekend, NO not that one, the other one
-I have to help a relative move. Suddenly, on a friday night.
-I am on call (ignore the pics that surface of me out drinking that surface on my website tommorrow).
-I can’t hang out with you twice in one weekend, that
is just how I am.
-I haven’t been able to talk because my father is leaving my mother and she is really upset, well actually he is just taking a job out of town, oh well no actually he is just going on a brief business trip and my mother is not upset at all???
Kathleen
I don’t know. Perhaps I am dealing with an immature jerk?? He doesn’t steal money from me, that is not what he deals in where I am concerned. But he lives in his sick grandmothers house and admits to “mooching” off of his relatives. He admits to having slept with woman for soccer match tickets or because they had nice boats. He has a definite harem going. He is quite charming and lies with ease. A lot of other things, I have met some jerks, but when I do the math it adds up to sociopath with this guy. He is different, has been from the outset.
If he does have empathy, and he is not a sociopath, then he is even worse because if anyone could do what he has done and understand the gravity of the pain that they are causing, they truly would be the worst sort of evil. At least he can attribute it to a brain malfunction. If he handed me a ticket to Hawaii I would suspect that he put me in coach on the crappiest possible plane, made sure I had a long layover somewhere, put me up in the dirtiest cheapest grossest motel and hired someone to mug me while I was there for good measure. All the while he would be screwing one or several of his other ladies all over my house and leaving used condoms on the floor.
I know what I am dealing with when it comes to him. And yes, realizing that he has the power is killing me. I said to him in one of our earliest conversations,”You and I are going to have a power struggle aren’t we?” He just laughed. I just thought that he was another strong personality, someone that could keep up with me intellectually. Little did I know.
Stargazer,
Thank you for your encouragement. I have been careful not to liken my socio to a snake anymore because I know you like them! I always called him goldfish.
eliza,
“I just want him to admit every lousy thing that he did. I want him to own it.”
This is the one thing he will NEVER EVER do.
Please try to stop wanting it. We all felt that way about our S at some point. Not wanting it is a major necessary step for you to heal.
For me, it helped a lot when my family and friends began to see the S for what he was. Let your friends help you validate your knowledge about what a jerk the S is. The S will never do it.
Second, FIND SOMETHING TO REPLACE HIM. One reason he has power is because you have a hole in your life that only he can fill. Work to change that. Replace him with family, friends, job, a really positive hobby. Replace him with something that benefits YOU!
Start acting strong and independent. Do this even if you don’t feel it. Eventually you will. Once you are independent, you will not “need” the S.
Prayers for you.
ignore the pics that surface of me out drinking that surface on my website tommorrow??? Holy cow I need to proofread a little better, I am a dork.
I know he won’t admit it. I am just so pissed off that he dragged me down to his level and made me think that I liked it there. He should always have been below my notice. The only thing that he could do to make amends is give me back the last effing year of my life and stay the hell out of it.
There are so many great posts here – so valuable for me to read.
Sociofree – your list of what to watch out for made my stomach turn – it was so painfully accurate. My exS did each and every one of thoese.
E- what every one is saying is great advice to you (and to me, to all of us) that NC is the only way to go. I tried so hard for so long to get my ex S to apologize, to own what he did. It will never happen. In the beginning of the end, right before full NC, I refused to speak with him unless he sent an apology letter. At this point his obession with me had really kicked in, and he was desperate. He wrote the letter – actually spent a long time on it.
It was the worst, most infuriating, three pages of self-serving bullshit I had ever seen. It kept talking about how sad he was to not be with me, with a very occasional “you must have felt awful,” which rang really really hollow. In the letter he clearly didn’t “get,” or even care remotely, about what had hurt me and why. He was just trying to pacify me and get back with me. It was so profoundly unsatisfying that I shut him down completely right then and there.
He sent me an email saying he was mad that he had worked on the letter for so long and “it didn’t work. It backfired” Didn’t work? Didn’t work??!!??? It sure as hell worked for me.
Truth is, E, they don’t care that they hurt us, at all. Unless our “being hurt” interferes with their desires (getting to vampire us more) in which case they will attempt to appease us by saying anything, so that they can get their fangs back in. But its word salad to them – has no meaning.
They don’t care, and they don’t get it. They just don’t get it. I would try to walk my ex S through the process of “getting it.” I’d say “Imagine that you were in my shoes and I did ______ to you.” His response was ALWAYS “Yeah but…..”
Some other classics were: “I was in fear at the time,” “I never though someone like you would love me so I acted out,” and “that wasn’t the REAL me who did that. My TRUE self would never do such a thing.”
It’s so hard for us to get away, in spite of the mounds of evidence that they are monsters who intend to use, destroy, and discard us. It’s still hard.
I love what people keep saying about faking indifference until it becomes unreal.
When I went NC it was because I wanted desperately to be in touch with thim – whether to say “I love you” or “I hate you!” The last thing I felt was indifference. But you have to do it. NC is the only answer.
Many of the descriptions here remind me of the descriptions of a cocaine high and the subsequent crash.
At first encounter with the drug elation, a feeling of being powerful,attractive, intelligent, in love with the world. Followed by the crash, the down, the guilt and the inverse opposite of the former feelings. Then, to ward off those bad feelings, more drug, and the cycle repeats. Except, a junkie never EVER gets that high as good as the first high. Many spend years of misery trying to get that fleeting feeling again.
Only after going NC can they recover and find their own joy, a natural high that comes from within.
Sounds a lot like a relationship with a P, no?
A comment on the Tears + Lies concept, I would agree. I have seen crocidile tears and an apology (someone else had to explain to him why it really was hurtful to find him online looking for random sex with multiple partners of both sexes, while we were in a “reconciliation” trying to patch up a previous split (my choice) turn into the most ruthless anger and chilling threats, when the tears did not immediately produce the desired result.
Turns out it was a clever technical ploy, by crying and asking me to go to marriage counselling, the seperation date of our divorce would be open ended during the time we are “working” through counselling. He asked me to go even if not to get together, but to help him “understand” what went wrong so he could “cope”. HA! He was just trying to buy time to rearrange the deck chairs on my Titanic, and to torpedo any life boats that he hadn’t already confiscated.
Even more telling than the S’s tears, are their reaction to our pain and tears. In my case always cold indifference and disgust at my weakness, completely blank effect.
Eliza and Greenfern, Good riddance to the evil jerks, you will heal and be FREE I promise. Once you have seen them for what they are there is no turning back. And never, ever believe some claim of “I have changed”.
That is unfortunately one of the qualities I most admired about my ex – his ability to “change”, ie, I saw him change his stance on issues like homophobia, racism, political views etc, and I admired his ability to change his attitudes, to reject the old school upbringing and think more inclusively and progressively. WRONG. All of it was just window dressing – there is no there there.
The best part of getting out is eventually recovering our JOY. I wish you all that your joy and peace of mind grow stronger every day.
Word salad, haha!
These posts are so helpful for me, today. Thank you every one. EYESWS – yes, yes, yes. I experienced all the same things with my ex S. He kept claiming “Now I really get it,” and “Now I have changed.” Therapy, AA, blah, blah, blah, he’d start all of these things, and I’d think “oh, he’s really making an effort, he’s changing!” No, never. No change. He’d seduce women in his therapy group and in AA. He’d con the psychologist. He’d get everyone thinking “Poor S, his girlfriend is so mean, clearly he’s the nicest guy…..” and just become more certain that he is the good guy and I am a needy, mean, whiney, loser who expects too much.
They don’t change, period. They get better at being sociopaths, which means they only get worse. “Treatment” makes them worse (better at being sociopaths).
The only thing you (I) can do it get away. It’s the only thing. There will be no apology from him, no compassion, no understanding, nothing. He is incapable.
And yes, we are addicted to them. I’ve read that its the same part of the brain that lights up for him as that which lights up for someone addicted to cocaine. We are junkies for them. And any one in substance abuse treatment will tell you the only possible way to “get better” is to go cold turkey. We are not women (or men) in love, we are junkies. Junkies for a toxic substance which will kill us. Like a drug, it will make us feel good for a very short while, and then will rob us of our money, our health, our morality, our spirituality, and our souls.
But if we quit, go cold turkey, we do get better! And I’m told even BETTER than before!