Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following letter from a 24-year-old woman, a graduate student.
He told me he was all I needed; he told me that he was the only person who cared. He told me my friends hated me because they were so mad at me because I got sick. He told me they were just all bitches like all of the other girls in the world. Like his ex-girlfriends, like his mother, like (me).
I had no idea that sociopaths existed. I thought that “sociopath” was only a word thrown about on TV, late night news, America’s Most Wanted.
My therapist told me that my ex-boyfriend is one of the worst sociopaths that she has heard about in her 12 years of practice.
Abuse starts slow
The abuse started out subtle; the control started out slow. He told me that I’d look cute if I just started dressing a little more suggestively. He told me that a slight heel (high heels) would do wonders for any girl’s appearance. “Didn’t I want to be the girl all of the other girls were jealous of?” He would tell me how to dress in order to make guys stare.
He would walk me down the street, hand around my neck, but whispering, “Babe, you look great. God, baby you’re my good thing; look at all of them watching; they think you’re so HOT.”
I now think they were wondering what was up because I was dressed like a whore and my ex boyfriend would ask random guys if they would pay me to provide sexual favors for them.
Controlled everything
I dated this man for two and a half years. He would control what I did, what I wore, what I ate, when I slept, how I slept, what I was required to wear to bed, what I could do in bed, IF I could move in bed ”¦ He wouldn’t let me move; he would get angry if I woke him up. He needed his sleep so he could “go out and make money the next day. You know you’re just a needy woman. You need me, the big strong man…”
And he’d laugh at me. He would ridicule me. He would make fun of me. He would laugh if I thought I was smart. He would laugh if I thought I could do something. He would introduce me to people as “the retard.” He would tell me not to talk—why would I bother? It wasn’t like I knew what I was saying anyway.
He would tie me up tell me it was sexy and that everyone else was doing it. He would punch me in the stomach, but he would tell me that he was seeing how tight my abs were. He would show me horrible, horrible movies about what women do when they’re hurt.
He showed me the movie Secretary, where the woman gets sad and then cuts herself, gets found out by her boss and her boss says something like no, don’t do that. And they proceed to have sex while her boss beats her butt with a wooden paddle. My ex would force me to have sex while slapping my butt and digging his hands into me, saying it was love.
Getting out
The list of scary things goes on longer than I want to remember right now. It got to the point that my parents were afraid. My ex-boyfriend was losing control, and I was stuck in the middle.
I would do anything for him, but then I did the one thing he forbade me to do. I got out. I realized that my parents didn’t hate me. I realized that my friends didn’t hate me, and I realized that I am stronger than he is and that I didn’t have to be his “good thing” anymore.
Then he told me that he made a huge mistake. He told me that he was “so sorry,” that it was normal to fly into insane rages when one loses something that he loved. He tried to get me back. I broke up with him. He stayed around for a few months trying all of this.
He convinced me that we could still be together if we were just “F” buddies, because I was the best girl for sex or at sex that he’d ever had. I know that is complete b.s. now, but at the time, when he told me I was the “only one” and “oh so special,” it worked to keep me around.
But, yeah, I mean there’s no doubt in my mind that if I had stayed with him, he would have convinced me to kill myself, or killed me himself. He would tell me to take pills. He said it was a way for me to show the world how “hurt” I was (all said in a condescending and convincing tone).
Anyways, there’s more, but yeah he tried to get me back. He tried telling me how heartbroken and lonely he was without me, which didn’t make sense to me, because when he and I were dating he told me he didn’t get lonely, he just didn’t “feel” it. It’s weird because when I was with him and he was being manipulative and abusive, he almost always told me what he was doing, but he always said, “But baby, it’s okay because we’re different. No one else is like us; we’re better than everyone; just trust me.”
Apart for six months
I can say simply that when I was with him he was emotionally abusive, physically abusive, sexually abusive. He would always say, “You can’t rape the willing, and you know you’re always willing, don’t bother saying no, because I know that no means yes.” Mind games and everything. He would get me so confused and afraid that if I said no, he’d be angry, and if he was angry he would hit me. Or at least I was terrified that is what would happen, because he would always tell me that he was bigger and stronger…
I have a restraining order against him now. I am in therapy now. We have been apart for six months, but I am still so shocked from it all. It still hurts really bad. I was with a man who told me he loved me, but that was just so that I would keep playing his bitch, keep being his doll and keep being his slave.
It was quite chilling for me reading this story, because there are so many similarities (much more diluted for me) though. My ex watched The Secretary, he called me ‘his … bitch’, he was into spanking, when we broke up once he rang me and asked if we could be F buddies, but when I called on him, he declined, so I terminated the arrangement after a week. He used to dig his fingers into me and bruise me and I said I didnt like it and couldnt understand where he had got that idea from.
He didnt control me overtly, but he used to turn his back on me in bed or sit away from me, he would tease me and then reject me. He used to make weird hints that men were attracted to him – which freaked me out, because I wouldnt get involved in a bisexual relationship and he said he hated gay men, which made me wonder what he was up to. The physical relationship was strange too, very mechanical, devoid of emotion or passion, it was intense, but not the intenseness of passion, more like the intensity of force. He would suggest things to me, but I wasnt liking what I was hearing and he would say that he would be prepared to try anything. I was not into the spanking side either and he very rarely tried that on me, which left me wondering and asking him whether he was carrying it out somewhere else, especially as he was going through large amounts of money in a short space of time. I had some terrible dreams, nightmares and I was becoming fearful of what was happening to me.
During the time we were together, we had numerous break ups, because although I didnt understand why he was doing what he did, I would express concern and he would walk out and finish things, like punishing me for speaking up. Then without a word about it, he would reappear a week or so later, like he had forgiven me for acting up! He asked me to hit him with a belt, but because he had been abused I couldnt do it and I said to him, that all this sex and pain stuff seemed like a he was asking for the woman’s permission for him to hit her through sex – he said he had never thought of that! I had some awful dreams and I never have bad dreams. Luckily those dreams have stopped. He said that we would be ok if ‘I kept my mouth shut’ – the thing is that I am not the kind of person who can keep my mouth shut for long – and thank goodness my anger (the anger he was berating me for) was my saving.
When I read the accounts of what you women endured, it makes my walk much simpler but the end result was the same. Disbelief, disillusionment, etc. I suffered the verbal, mental, and emotional abuse. Some physical, but in the form of man handling. I would like to be able to take a survey and determine if the most of the weird begins once sex starts. That’s when it happened for me.
My husband and I went together for 1 1/2 years and we were chaste in that time. Lots of heavy petting, but we wanted to do it the right way. So I thought. I think if I would have given in, he wouldn’t have married me. I didn’t hold out for marriage. That is just my conviction. I guess that’s how he was able to break me. He knew what worked and he knew how to get to me. It was just a game. Had to be. The end didn’t justify the means.
That’s why after 30+ years of this kind of push/pull treatment, the friend I had was able to get to me. He knew my weakness and played on that. I was so desperate for someone to love me. I was so naive and I always felt that the sex act was consummating the love we felt. He was my only indiscretion. I asked God’s forgiveness for that, but it was probably a blessing in disguise. Had I divorced at that time, I would have probably married this friend and he has really weird ideas for sex. He might be into porn, but his idea of sex and mine were totally different. He, too, was all about roughness and spanking. But he just used my body to get off and left me with nothing. I asked him how he could call that sex. I can’t imagine having that to “look forward to” all the time. I don’t know how anyone could keep up.
I am loving my freedom and when I try and reignite any feelings for this friend, I can’t find them. I think his treatment of me put out the fire. Apparently that’s his idea of sex and from what I’m reading here, there’s more who have dealt with that. What ever happened to romance? I’m beginning to think that sex is over rated. Too much imagination and not enough real action. But all it is, is sex and not love making.
Look at all the news accounts of sex gone bad and the woman gets killed. There is entirely too much perversion going on in the minds of so many, that it makes me very leery of ever trying again. I’m no prude, but I sure am prudent. I had a good friend say that the fighting, hitting etc., are their idea of foreplay. I’m beginning to believe that.
I just know for me the weird started after sex began and in the case of this friend, a slip up, that left a lot of doubt what he really was capable of doing. But I hear the same thing in these blogs. I’m glad I’ve escaped.
Wow…I got complete chills when I read the quote of “you can’t rape the willing.” In the brief time I was with the sociopath he must have said that at least four times. It was always out of the blue, and I realized after the fact he was talking about me. Scary how they are all the same.
I need two things…AK-47 and his home address…Anyone? Well…thats how I feel. Anyway I feel sorry for that student. it was horrible…Sociopaths are so so similar…You have no kids with him and you are not maried to him, you are young and I wish you to recover as soon as possible. But now you are prepared…you know who they are
Agreed Dorkgirl. It is very weird how they seem to say and do the same things – are they watching the same kind of porn or something? Also some of the people who have recorded their thoughts on this site, have used the same terms as myself. One woman said, she called her ex ‘knight in rusty armour’ and that is exactly what I called my ex. The more I analyse these quotes, the more I see through the illusion of it all – and it really was an illusion – they were weaving the illusion unbeknown to us.
I even spoke to his ex and I asked her what he was like with her – she told me he was very possessive – yet he wasnt like that at all with me. Infact he was very very ambivalent with me and then I realised he had tried one way with one person and had adapted himself with me. His ex was very introvert and I am extrovert. Then I began to smell a rat as I realised that he was not being his true self with me. He went beserk when I told him I had spoken to his ex – he said I didnt trust him. Damn right I didnt.
Then as the veils of illusions started to come away in my mind, It suddenly dawned on me that he was having a fake relationship with me and was stringing me along. Of course after that, as I uncovered more and more information and with the help of this site, I realised the true extent of what I had (almost) blindly (but not quite) got involved in and then the terror of where it could have led was frightening, as the story from the poor graduate woman shows.
I suspect this, too, is a common theme amongst them. It certainly was with the one I encountered. It’s why the recent cultural fascination with kinky sex has disturbed me. We all think anything is fine between consenting adults, and in theory it should be. But how many of us slowly give away our consent to a man like this because he’s eroding our sense of right from wrong? In my own similar situation, I thought I was being ever so avant garde and clever and cool and doing what was “hot” to please the man I loved. In truth, I was allowing him to debase and degrade me in ways that would horrify me if I found out someone was doing that to my sister or daughter. It wasn’t the actual sex that turned him on, I’m quite sure of that. It was the power and control and the knowledge that he could get me to say I was a consenting adult. In truth was a coerced and miserable woman trying too hard to please, but it happened so slowly that I barely noticed. My family did, though. They worried from the start, and I wish I’d listened to them and to other warnings I was given.
Notquitebroken. Thank you for bringing me back to first base. Yes I felt the same, I was trying to demonstrate that I could be broadminded, willing to experiment and I did check some of the facts on the web first. The ‘behaviour’ did nothing for me, but of course I didnt realise at the time what his angle was.
I also realise that I wasnt being my true self, I was trying to impress and so in that way I didnt exactly put my foot down. Point taken and digested a little more. I am practising being more real with people and saying ‘no’ when I really want to.
Donna,
What was the addictive quality of this relationship? Why did it take so long to leave? Did you just believe him when he said he was the only one who loved you? Is this out of some self loathing?
I’m just trying to understand the emotional aspect of why you’d endure that sort of abuse for even a day. I understand being a sadist, but I do not understand masochism.
SecretMonster
This story was very upsetting. There were, as always, some underlying themes that I understood. It’s funny but it is often hard to put into words what it is I am understanding. I just understand.
I do think there is something to these sexual deviances. I know from a women that was with the Bad Man after me that he was starting to deviate more and more from what I would consider to be the norm. I mean, he was getting more and more experimental and wanting to try things that are on the outter fringes. I mentioned before that we (another ex of the Bad man and myself) saw an ad on Craigslist that was looking or a Transexual. This, I consider, is on the outter fringe. There was no picture but since we both had recieved volumes of emails from this man, we could recognize his writing anywhere.
I too thought I was being spicy and fun with my man. I never did anything that was outside my comfort zone. At the time I knew this man, he claimed to be into “Tantric” sex. of course, I thought this was neat but now I feel so turned off when I hear this from people. So many freaky new age weirdos use this as a cover for their hunger of sex sex sex… and Tantric techniques teach men how to gaze into your eyes and “connect” in a way that women long for… and it’s all pretend when you are with a sociopath. They are just following a set of instructions that will allow them to bore a hole in your soul. It’s horrible.
Use caution when people start talking about their love making techniques. It’s not a technique if it comes from theheart.
Anyway, to the author of the letter… I am glad you found lovefraud. This was the beginning of turning my head around. This is your support group. I hope it will be a safe place for you too.
Nothing would suprise me about my ex’s sexual behaviour. he was suggesting things that were making me feel very uncomfortable as to what he was cooking up.
I saw an adverts which said ‘dominant male aged 50 seeks submissive domesticated housewife to act as slut and maid. Although this is acted out in the sexual underground, one wonders how much of this slavery is actually going on 24/7. If my ex wanted this kind of relationship, why didnt he tell me in the beginning, so that I could opt out, he would then be free to find women who might like that kind of relationship, instead of approaching mainstream women and messing with their heads, hearts and souls.