UPDATED FOR 2024. Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following email from a reader. She learned the hard way how important it is to listen to your inner voice.
When I met my husband, 14 years ago, I owned my own home, had two children, a great job and life was great. I wasn’t looking for a relationship, however, he would not take no for an answer until I went out with him (1st red flag). He presented himself as financially secure, a family man with a daughter, and who told me family is everything . He was very charming and giving to my children and I.
After 5 months of dating, he started telling me how much he loved me and wanted to marry me. I said that I wasn’t ready to jump into marriage again after being married for 12 years. However, he never let up. He kept saying that I had no idea what a great life we could have together and that all he wanted to do was make me happy and provide a wonderful life for myself and children. We married 7 months later and my life has never been the same.
He changed the very night of our marriage. It was like he flipped a switch — not even consummating our marriage on our wedding night. He immediately got the attitude of “I have you now.” He moved into my house with nothing but a suitcase of his clothes, never even asking me if I wanted anything from his house. He started not wanting to drive to pick up his daughter to see her. Told me he didn’t want to have to go to every family function of his family. He started becoming distant to my children as well.
That was just the beginning of a mountain of lies and deception I started to uncover 9 months into our marriage. I started noticing that any time I asked him a question about anything, he became angry and verbally abusive. When it became time to do our taxes the first year of our marriage, I asked him if he had his own accountant. He said, let’s use yours. So we did. We both sat in front of my accountant and my husband NEVER flinched when asked certain questions. He again was extremely charming, funny and articulate, seeming to be capable of a lot.
Well, a few months later, I received a letter in the mail from the IRS stating they were withholding our refund of $6,000 due to my husband NOT paying his taxes the previous 4 years!! His response to the letter was, “SO!” He used MY interest on my mortgage, my children, my everything as deductions because he NEVER paid his bills, was in serious debt and his house (which he owned with two other people) was going into foreclosure!! I found out it was all a facade. But yet, he kept telling me that I was making more of the situation, that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. Oh no, it was much worse.
And here I am, 13 years later, finally getting a divorce because, you see, it is not that easy to get away from a person like this. I went from an outgoing, smart, independent woman to a woman with no self esteem, trust issues and just plain scared. I am ashamed to admit this and believe me, would never, never, have thought this could have happened to me! My story is so much worse and so many other things have happened, that this is just a glimpse into this nightmare. But it has and I am trying to move on with my life to get back to the person I once was.
Please don’t think this could never happen to you. When people show you who they are, BELIEVE them the first time (Oprah) and move on. Don’t ever believe it is in your head, as told to me. It is not. Listen to your inner voice. If it just doesn’t feel right, it is NOT. TRUST YOURSELF MORE THAN YOU TRUST ANYONE.
Learn more: Sociopathic Seduction — how you got hooked and why you stayed
Lovefraud originally posted this article on May 9, 2012.
3 steps to prevent a sociopath from taking advantage of your vulnerabilities
darwinsmom
g1s,
best edit your email out of the post. We’re not permitted to put info out here for people to find our live contacts 🙂 (I’ve saved your email) 🙂
Ox Drover
If you want to contact someone directly who is not an author, you can ask donna to exchange the e mails.
Vision
Hi Oxy,
I just finished reading New York Times magazine , May 13…Title: When is a problem child truly dangerous?
Amazing. Finally, an article that mirrors Lovefraud…
Quotes: “Even if accurate, it’s a ruinous diagnosis. No one is sympathetic to the mother of a psychopath…”
“Psychologists now believe fledgling psychopaths can be identified as early as kindergarten. The hope is to teach these kids empathy before it’s too late.”
callmeathena
Vision
Can you post a link to the article? I would like to see it.
I believe my child (20 YO) is on the right path now, but on occasion, I wonder if I am pushing him the wrong direction by my strong parenting style. I don’t know. I think he could have easily gone either way – spath or not – but so far, he’s on this side of the fence. Thank God.
Vision
Hi Callmeathena,
Yes, now that was a good idea!
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/can-you-call-a-9-year-old-a-psychopath.html
darwinsmom
Thankyou very much for that article, Vision. Finally some part of the media paying educational attention to this
skylar
Vision,
thank you for posting the article link. Very interesting.
The article indicates that the problems with the boy began when his brother was born. He admits to hating his brother and wanting to hurt him. Yet the little brother seems to worship his big brother.
It’s also interesting that the father admits to having been similar to his son, until he reached his teens, then he grew out of it.
It would be interesting to observe more about the family dynamics. The reading I’ve been doing lately is about seeing emotions as a social trait, rather than an individual trait. Emotions, for example envy, don’t exist in an individual alone. It exists in a person in the context of other people.
Vision
Darwinsmom and Skylar,
Yes, I was excited seeing this article. I agree. It is interesting that the media is paying attention and included this article. More education and research let alone solutions to help these kids…how frightening for the parents….I just gave “Just like his Father” book to someone to help raising her son and I was hoping she would see herself in the descriptions (her borderline disorder) as well….Her child is the most compassionate child, sweet, kind, feeling which is opposite of her hostile and disturbed self….
callmeathena
Skylar, yes, you are right about emotions being “relational” oriented, not individual oriented. I found that amazing. i just started reading a book about that. Envy, if you think about it, is relational.
skylar
Athena,
It just occurred to me that, as easy as it is for spaths to slime us with their shame/envy, it is also easy to pass along good emotions.
That might have been what saved me from my bad upbringing. After high school, I got a job with some very upbeat and positive people. They were sales people, so it was their job to be that way, but it was also in their nature. I was the receptionist and they interacted with me all day, giving me very positive feedback, always smiling at me. It was so much better than all the previous places I had worked at and I think it helped form my positive self-image at a crucial time in my life, when I was still young.
Of course having a spath to go home to didn’t help, but I think those people influenced me more in 3 years, than spath did in 25 years.