Editor’s Note: In this post, another Lovefraud reader tells her story of being deceived by a sociopath.
He was an attractive, well built-man for his 47 years. When we met three years ago, I thought he was extremely handsome and charming. He was fun to be around, and seemed to crave the same physical and emotional contact as I did. He said he was not married and that he had just ended a relationship with a woman he had been dating because she was pressuring him to meet his daughters and he was not ready for that kind of intimacy.
Over a short period of time, about four weeks, he talked about his abusive mother, his time in the Navy as a SEAL and a reservist. He suffered from the same kind of distant relationship with his wife as I had with my husband. He said she had mental problems and was very abusive toward him. Our values and standards seemed very similar. A graduate of University of New Mexico, he claimed, he wanted to be a doctor at one point and had done quite well on the entrance exam. He just couldn’t afford it He seemed smart, with a great sense of humor.
He seemed very intuitive and was extremely responsive to me. I had been married for 20 years to a man who didn’t pay attention. I craved this kind of physical and emotional attention. He was loving, affectionate, generous. He loved taking me places and out to dinner (which my ex-husband refused to do). He gave me his time and did so willingly. When we weren’t together we talked for hours on the phone. He was on the road a lot working in sales and seemed to value hard work. He said he had worked three jobs at one point so that his ex-wife could stay at home with their children and so that he could afford the lifestyle they enjoyed (home on a golf course, home on a lake). I envied this as I had always worked full-time at the demand of my husband.
Says he’s in love
We saw each other a few times and within a month he called one evening and told me he was in love with me. It was sweet. He was adorable. On our next meeting, he was so romantic and attentive. At one point he asked me how I felt about people who killed other people. I was stunned but thought it must have something to do with his work as a SEAL. It was like he needed to talk about something and I wished he would just open up to me. That very next day he called me and told me he could not see me anymore because he was in love with me and his intuition from all of his abuse was telling him that he would only get hurt. I was devastated. Had I done or said something wrong? I was in the process of relocating. He knew that, but the distance did not seem unsurmountable. There was no talking to him. He refused my calls and by the end of the week he did speak to me and told me his ex-wife had had some surgery and he was going to move her into his home and was going to take care of her while she recovered. He said she was crazy but he had to do this.
About four months later, I contacted him to let him know I was settled in my new location and my divorce was moving forward. He asked if he could visit me. He missed me and wanted to reconnect. I was so happy and excited. We spent a few weekends together. It was during one of those weekends that he told me he was married and had been all along. That was the first red flag and I should have kicked him to the curb then. We were away on a very romantic weekend in a small cabin in the mountains. His weekend was filled with drama (calls from his wife and daughter). They thought he was on a hunting trip. He told me his intention was to leave his wife within the next two months and that almost everything had been ironed out because they had been separated and close to divorce previously. He had already been looking for an apartment. I asked him about the woman with whom he had a relationship and he said he had an affair with her that lasted a short time and he regretted it almost immediately. He did not love her. He was so lonely and felt so abused by his wife. I was already in love with him. It was that weekend that he told me he could easily be married to me and that he wanted me to meet his daughters.
Little boy demeanor
Mostly, he had this little boy demeanor about him. I saw the hurt in his eyes when he talked about his mother’s physical and emotional abuse. I couldn’t stand to even listen to it. I can’t even watch movies that have anything to do with abusing children. He cried when he told me the story about being tortured as a Navy SEAL. He said his captors hooked electrodes to his testicles and shocked him. He couldn’t stand to listen to the cries of his SEAL partner also being tortured along side him. When the event finally ended and they were rescued he said he had killed his captor. He explained that he believes his testicles are smaller than normal because of this torturous event. He talked about how he wanted to go to Iraq and work for Blackwater consulting. He said he had been offered the opportunity to do so because of his SEAL background. Again, that little boy quality of wanting to just run away from it all. His daughters were very demanding and he talked about some of the problems he had with them over the years. He described his older daughter has lacking a “social filter” and said his younger daughter was bi-polar. They were both adults now but still extremely demanding financially. He seemed like a good father. He could not say no to them.
In the coming months he found he was being relocated to the city where I was living. “It was fate,” as he stated. What a coincidence. We were meant to be together. He felt higher powers were bringing us together. In that time he began talking more about his life as a SEAL and how he was also working part time consulting for the NSA (National Security Agency). He said he was an explosives expert and he had helped the NSA to plan the deaths of terrorists. Little by little he gave me additional information about his “part-time job” as he called it. At one point he told me he had killed seven people. On a trip to Canada, he introduced me to a woman, whose appearance was questionable, who he said had been one of his informants. I now believe she was one of his girlfriends who he frequented in his many travels.
Meeting his daughters
He did relocate. I met his daughters. It was not easy. His oldest, now 24, would call constantly to berate him for leaving her (she was away in college and living with her fiance). She eventually told her father she hated me. On many occasions she appealed to him by saying “She doesn’t like me daddy.” She also told him she was getting married simply because she felt insecure about him leaving her. Subsequently, her marriage lasted five months. He and his daughter had what I would call an emotionally incestuous relationship. They discussed personal and sexual things that I thought were inappropriate. She physically hung on him like a lover and spoke to him as though she had ownership. It was disturbing. His younger daughter was also manipulative but in a different way.
Read more — Seduced by a sociopath: It’s not love, it’s love fraud
Initially, I tolerated the drama, the emotional outbursts, the bad behavior and much disrespect from his daughters. Each time we would go away together his older daughter would call incessantly and would tell him her disapproval of our relationship. His younger daughter would call and tell him how he should have been with her instead. On one occasion his ex-wife called to tell him she had herpes and got it from using her sister’s towel (so he said). I think that maybe she called to tell him he had given her herpes, but he eventually told me she was lying about all of it simply to try to keep him from having sex with me or anyone. This was normal in his life. I can’t begin to write all of the stories and drama, cancelled trips because of the drama. I chalked it up to his divorce and the trauma of the family separation.
Calls from the NSA
There were many restricted calls on his cell phone at all hours of the night. He insisted that the calls were form a former NSA partner who was in trouble. He cried because he was not able to have contact with this man outside of official business. He decided that he was going to leave the NSA and actually went to Fort Mead one day (so he said) to be debriefed as he left this covert role. He seemed so dedicated to his work. He wore dog tags around his neck. He showed me his Navy SEAL trident pin. He gave my son a SEAL cap and t-shirts. He said he had used aliases and had traveled the world doing this work for the NSA. I asked him how this was possible while working full time and he said that some of his work was done on his own as he did his regular full-time job, but when he traveled for the NSA he just took vacation time here and there. He said his wife didn’t pay much attention and never called him when he was out of town so she never knew. He also talked about how he used a satellite phone so his wife could not see his caller ID when he called home from abroad. That was why he restricted his number on his cell phone.
He left town one day for a nine-hour trip in the car to visit his younger daughter. I spoke to him late in the afternoon and he should have been at his destination but he was not. He started crying and said he had to re-route to visit with some former NSA people. The friend who had reached out to him had been killed. He said, “If the FBI comes knocking on your door or anyone ever tells you I died of a drug overdose, don’t believe it, because I would never do that.” The stories were becoming too bizarre. I wanted to believe him but something did not seem right. The emotional outbursts and crying seemed to always come at a time when I would find later he was not truthful about something.
A few months later his older daughter started to send emails to me telling me that my children were not invited to her wedding. It caused a big argument right before his birthday. I asked him to please handle it; that it was between them. He blamed me. I had rented a house for his daughters and he and I to spend the weekend. He left me at home and went alone.
Uncovering the lies
We did eventually get back together. The next few months I uncovered that he had lied to me about his homes. He had not worked three jobs. His primary home had been given to him by an aunt. He had sold stock, which was given to him by another aunt, as a down payment on his lake home. His mother had given him money for three years after his father’s death. I also uncovered that he had not earned the salary he quoted to me. I suspect that he was embezzling from his mother as she lay dying in a nursing home. As if this was not enough.
Again, he tried to hide the truth through another emotional outburst claiming to be ill and have been throwing up blood. He apologized, bought me an engagement ring and wedding bands. We started building a home together. A month later we had completed selections for our home. He fought with me again, accusing me of sleeping with and dating other men. He disregarded me for two days. I went to his apartment to speak with him, only to find him in bed with a woman 18 years younger than he, who he picked up the night before in a biker bar. I was traumatized. He accused me of cheating and told me I drove him to this behavior.
Never a SEAL
I reached out to people at the POW Network who put me in touch with a former Navy SEAL and author, who assisted me in finding the truth. The truth was this man had served four months in the Navy before being discharged. Not only was he not a SEAL, he never worked for the NSA. No Navy SEAL has ever been a POW. His dog tags were not real, nor was his trident pin or SEAL diving watch. And all the articles of clothing he gave away and wore, could be purchased online. I confronted him with all that I had learned. He insisted that I was wrong. While having this conversation with him I noticed he had a SEAL banner hanging in his apartment. It was new. I asked him why a 50-year old man would hang a SEAL banner above his bed. He had supposedly not been a SEAL for 30 years. Then I asked him if it attracts young girls who adore his service as a SEAL as they sit on top of him in his bed.
Abusing steroids
I found used and unused needles in his apartment and in his trash. It was then that I realized the lies covered up other lies. He was abusing steroids. I tried to appeal to his sister, thinking she may get him some help. She made excuses for him. I did not understand even then what I was dealing with. I blamed myself for a long time. I tried to make sense of it all and to rationalize the bad behavior, the steroid abuse, the lies. Everything was a lure — his body, his stories, his lies. I don’t think he is a graduate of the university but I have not been able to verify that.
His testicles were not small from the torture he said he had suffered. They were small because he was suffering the result of steroid abuse. It’s also why he shaved his head (hair loss). At the time he was also being tested for heart, liver and kidney problems and was being treated for high blood pressure. These are all symptom of steroid abuse. This man was physically sick, but also a pathological liar. He then decided to be a bouncer at the biker bar where his new girlfriend worked. She was on welfare with three illegitimate children, had cancer and kept getting kicked out of homes and apartments because she couldn’t pay her bills (according to him). They were also “just friends” according to him, because he never wanted to take care of her or her children. Keep in mind, I have an advanced degree, a beautiful home, a responsible job. I pay my bills and I am an attractive woman for my 47 years. I could not understand any of it.
After the devastation
A year later and I am trying to heal from this devastating fraud. I believe now that he is a sociopath and I was targeted. I also believe that the drama in his life is a result of his sociopathy. I believe his older daughter is also a sociopath and that his younger daughter may be misdiagnosed as bipolar. I met the worst possible person at the worst possible time. My head was reeling and my heart could not keep up. How did I get so wrapped up in someone like this when clearly all the red flags were there? For a period of time, I dropped my guard and my boundaries. I did it because I was lonely. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I cared deeply for this man, who had been so badly abused. In the process, I allowed him and his badly behaved adult daughters to abuse me too.
A few months ago I heard he had a heart attack. I started searching obituaries thinking that maybe he died. I searched the Internet and found his name and face on the POW Network as a man who has potential to be prosecuted for violating the Stole Valor Act of 2006. There are many men like him on this web page. The people there were extremely helpful to me and they do fantastic work. THIS is his only crime. I had contact with the woman he said he had a short affair with. I found that he met her in the same exact place he met me. He spewed the same lines. He took us to the same places for weekend trips. He told this woman he was in process of a divorce but I don’t believe he had never been separated from his wife. He had an affair with her for a year and a half — then one day he called and told her he was getting back together with his wife. And that was the last she heard from him. Cold and heartless, he is gone from her life.
What kind of love is that? She said that he left her often for periods of time but that he always came back. She said he treated her like a princess. She told me that she wanted to die. She lost her job, and had a DUI. The suffering is incredible. The lies are pathological. Their families cover for them. The abuse confuses otherwise emotionally healthy people. They eat away at our souls and take away our innocence and ability to love completely again.
Hit and run
They are a devastating storm that changes lives forever in the aftermath. They hit and run, never to be found guilty or to pay for the devastation, because people like this do not feel empathy and don’t understand the pain they have caused. They don’t have consciences and so they continue the devastation somewhere else. They don’t care and never did. They have become good at imitating the emotions that normal people display and truly feel. Still I try to make sense of something senseless, irrational. There are no answers, even in finding out the truth. I loved this man. I forgave him many times. He projected all his sins on to me. He called me names and verbally abused me. He left me often. He lied and cheated. And for a while, even my friends and family thought me to be the one who was insane — because I still loved him and forgave him and I let him back in. Still he walked away blaming me and talking badly about me. I want that loving innocence back again. I despise him, mostly for stealing that away from me.
It can happen to anyone
I have read many books, participated in blogs and message boards, have corresponded with professionals and have had therapy with a wonderful doctor who understands sociopathy and personality disorders. Still there is no logic and there is no closure. It must be found through realizing:
1. I was targeted at a vulnerable time.
2. I was targeted because of the good qualities about me.
3. He is not a good man. He is disordered and will never heal or improve.
4. He did this to others and will continue to do this.
5. My good standards will not be lowered again and I have a zero tolerance for what I have learned is the definition of abuse.
6. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME.
Abuse is not just verbal or physical. It comes in many forms. At a minimum I require respect, honesty, integrity and it must be displayed by way of actions, not words. This man was not able to follow through on anything. His actions were almost never consistent with his words. He is simply a fake, a phony, a con man, who conned me into giving him my heart, my love and almost my mind and soul. Not one thing was real about him, not his body, or his being. I don’t think I will ever forgive him and I certainly will never forget. I have, however, forgiven myself, as I have learned that this can happen to ANYONE. None of us is free from the grasp of the sociopath.
Learn more — Don Shipley: Exposing phony Navy SEALs
Lovefraud originally posted this article on Nov. 12, 2008.
Announcing the True Lovefraud Stories podcast
Indi: Well said … and soon, we explain to everyone about our own selfish natures … how to go humble so we can heal.
Peace.
hi star: and thanks.
i am over it, but you know how you get these questions that pop up: what? how could he DO this? what is his problem? how can this be? how could i have gotten so taken?
there are no answers; i know. i’m pretty much over it, but once in a while, i’m still just completely in shock over what he was capable of. he tried to call me again today. i didn’t answer. no message. stupid creep.
LIG: I know it’s a hassle, but can you get your number changed so he can’t call you any more? Naturally, a phone call will stir up thoughts and feelings. I can actually go for days without thinking about my ex, unless I am posting on here. But if he were to call me, I’m sure it would stir up all kinds of stuff.
Henry.. thanks for that “final discard” post. It felt good to read that and especially coming from you.
I just wish you udder people could understand I can’t HAVE no contact right now. I still have to see him. Maybe that isn’t contact for you guys.. for me it’s so much contact that it feels like being slapped in the head.
And no way am I blaming his gf for his bahavior.. I am angry at her for gloating.. she knows what he is.. she thought this was a war between me and her, and she thinks she “won”. I truly hate her now for the cruel and evil things she wrote to me, and for the way she makes sure to rub my face in it every way she can, even though I have no contact with her whatsoever.
Because I am forced to be in the same town… I am forced to live with the reality of their relationship. And it really doesn’t concern her that he will cheat on her and use her. At her age she is happy to have him on any terms. She is a “pro” at dealing with guys like this, she can talk him into just about anything.
I can’t control my sick, angry feelings when I think about her .. guys, I really don’t want to end up in jail for beating her ass.. or his either.. I’m sorry but I have to try to keep on a steady emotional keel until I get out of this town three years from now.
Kat: You WON. You are away from a greedy selfish user and abuser.
You say the OW is a game player too? … good. The two users deserve each other … they can play their games with each other. I’ve seen many user couples together, they really are so destructive to each other … and both run off to people to cry the blues. Their relationships don’t last long … but the vindictiveness of what they did to each other …. goes on for years after they break up. It’s incredible. I saw a female user nail her EX husband (another user) years after they divorced and she re-married. It didn’t matter how long it was or how stupid the reasoning …. that vindictive streak is so ingrained in them there is no talking sense to these idiots. To this day, both attack each other any way they can. I believe it will never stop until the day both are deceased. They always have to win … no matter how they win.
Sit back Kat … wait … and then watch the fireworks from your safe distance .. over the years. Then you can smile to yourself that they are both getting their just desserts.
It will happen … just not instantaneously like you would want it … but it happens. Besides, by the time it happens, you will long since not cared.
Peace.
Dear Kat,
I know you think you can’t control your rage at her, but you CAN.
If you are say driving down the road and you are in a hurry and you get behind some slow driver that there is no way you can pass.
What do you do?
You can sit there behind him and fume and curse and be angry, or you can CHOOSE to just say “Oh, well, there’s nothing I can do about it, (the driver) so I will just be at peace with it and not get upset.
You CAN choose to not be enraged at her. You can choose to live in the same town with him and not speak to him or have lunch with him or any contact. You are not required to see him or “be friends” or even acknowledge that he is alive.
I live right across the field from my mom. I have NO contact. If I run into her at a store or something, I can see her, and turn the other way and walk off. If I run into my DIL that tried to kill my son, I can see her, turn the other way and walk off. I don’t have to be angry or cause a scene. It is still NO contact. I don’t have to wait for any period of time.
NO CONTACT is more a state of mind than a physical thing. You can have EMOTIONAL NO CONTACT even if you work in the same building with them. Even if you work in the same office and sit across the room. You can wall off your mind from them.
It takes practice and determination, and believe me, Kat is is the best thing to do, because having contact, even thinking about them as you think about her “gloating” riles you up, gets your anger flowing, reinformces the injury she did to you.
It is ONLY AN INJURY if you let it be. If say some stranger walks up to you and says “you are a witch!” It probably isn’t going to upset you very much because this woman doesn’t know you and you don’t give diddly about her so you just “blow it off”—if someone you LOVE says the SAME WORDS to you, it HURTS BIG TIME. So as long as you let his GF hurt you, you are giving her RENTAL SPACE IN YOUR HEAD.
What is this woman to you? NOTHING. What did she take away from you? A PSYCHOPATH THAT WAS A CHEAT, LIAR AND AN ABUSER. So WHO WON? YOU or HER? DUH!! Kat, she is so stupid that she doesn’t realize that what she “won”–the PRIZE–is a FAKE.
You need to see Kat that YOU ARE THE BIG TIME WINNER. He is hers, but she did YOU A FAVOR. As long as you look at it as a contest over him, she won and you lost, you will continue to be angry and upset. This whole thing is a big game to them. But you know the TRUTH. Recognize it, and admit it, accept it, and BE GLAD.
My son, the one whose wife had the affair with the Trojan Horse psychopath–he was the BIG TIME WINNER, because without catching her having the affair with the TH-P and then her trying to kill him, he would have DONE ANYTHING TO HAVE KEPT THE FANTASY OF THE MARRIAGE ALIVE. He admitted to me that the first six months were ok, but the rest of the marriage was an abusive nightmare and a hell on earth, but he was committed to stay in it NO MATTER WHAT. After she tried to kill him, though, he SAW THE TRUTH and realizes now that it was a BIG FAVOR TO GET RID OF HER. Sure the TH-P “won” his wife over him, but what kind of a prize did the TH-P get? A lying and cheating and murderous bitch. Son C is FREE OF HER, he is free of the abuse, the unhappiness and he is HAPPY AGAIN. Sure it hurt for a while, but he is no longer the man he was that would put up with anything, he is learning to set boundaries and to set limits on who and how he interacts with people. I guarentee that NO ONE is going to lie to him and be trusted again, no one is going to abuse him and get a second chance to do it.
I hear the pain and the anger in your “voice” and the frustration and so on, but Kat you can be NO CONTACT if you want to be no contact. As long as you still think you have to move away to be no contact, you are in denial. You know I love you Kat, but I’m not going to pull punches here with you dear friend—it is the truth, and the truth may piss you off (and you’re welcome to tell me off if it will make you feel any better) smile–but Kat having contact with him is like opening the wounds again and again and again. (((hugs))))) Peace and prayers for you Kat. (p.s. you can borrow my skillet and boink me if you want to!) Love Oxy
kat: not only does my ex-s/p/n live in the neighborhood now, he lives with his new pregnant gf! thankfully, i have not run into him at all. each day i pray that i won’t see him. also, he works just 8 blocks from me. i have had NC for 3-1/2 months now.
i still hate him and everything he did. i can’t blame the stupid girl that’s with him now. he’s charming and gorgeous and i don’t blame her one bit for getting taken in. he told me he’d never treat her badly (after trashing me for 5 months before he admitted everything). it’s hard as hell not to want to talk to him, to beg him to say it was all a mistake; i’m not yet over the hurt. he even called me, but i didn’t pick up, and i didn’t call him back. because i KNOW that if i talk to him it only gives him an opportunity to manipulate and hurt me again. and he will. he’s a psychopath!
it is more comforting not to know ANYTHING about him or his life. a mutual friend of ours called me yesterday, but i didn’t answer and i won’t speak with him either.
if i open the door even a crack, i’m doomed to hurt. no matter what i learn, hear, know … it will hurt. i’ve been through enough. i gave him everything. why would i allow him the privilege of seeing me, or hearing my loving voice, or knowing one thing about me — good or bad. he deserves nothing more from me.
with regard to your hatred for the OW. i understand. but if she’s a s/p too, they deserve each other and will soon self-destruct. if she’s not, then she’s in for it, too, just like you were. either way, she loses.
kat, IMHO, each time you speak to him, you give him the opportunity to hurt you again. and i, for one, don’t want to see you get hurt again.
we’re all here for you. but NC is the only way to survive and move on. until then, you’re at the mercy of a master con artist.
Bravo Lostingrief – I have been reading all the post on all the threads. So many of you ask what I want to ask or say what I want to say – and feel what I feel – No Contact is our only salvation, as LIG says’s just to open the door a tiny bit causes huge pain. There are so many thing’s I would like to tell him or ask him, or let him know that I know he was lying. But what would I get if I did? more lies – more gas lighting more blame shifting – and more frustrated heart break for me. Just letting go has been a struggle – I still hurt deep inside like so many of you – but the hurt is less intense. I hate that I obsess about him so much. But little thing’s here and there let me know I am healing – a hell of a lot slower than I had hoped for though. His visit after 8 months no contact has set me back some – but seeing him again didn’t make me miss him more or want him back -it just made me nervous and anxious – and more determined to have no contact – and I don’t want to know what he is doing with who or where. What seem’s to bother me the most about the obsessing of him is that he is happy and in love and I am a big failure. But I remember the nite’s I was scared to go to sleep – I remember how he could say I love you and make threat’s in the same sentence. The 3 year’s I was with him I was like a deer caught in the head light’s not knowing wich way to run so I just stood still and let him run me over. I have all these emotions of loss and love and sorrow but I know they are misplaced emotions. I was victimized and what I hate is I knew I was being victimized but continued to accept the abuse – because he had me convinced I was responsible for him. And I knew he would leave eventually – and he did when I was broke and broken. And I ask myself Did I love him? and if yes then why?
Hi Kat:
I really hate the OW too sometimes because she knew my ex was living with me but bought into his BS lies that he was going to leave me for her. Uhmmm…let’s see. He separated from his wife and right away hooked up with me…then he cheated on me with her. So what makes her think he won’t cheat on her??? She’s just a stupid dumbass. He has cheated on every woman he was ever with. But she must think she is the “special one” right now who won a prize. This is because she doesn’t know about his past cheating sprees. I found out only after our relationship ended. I should have asked straight out in the beginning, “have you ever cheated on a woman before?” Live and learn. I will make sure I ask all the right questions next time.
What she “won” was a freeloading lazy bum who probably already has access to her computer, car, money, free meals, free maid service, taxi service, laundry maid, cook, free roof over his and his son’s head….while he sits back and watches football and plays video games. He is probably verbally assaulting her, accusing her of cheating, won’t let her go out of the house without him, he drops her off and picks her up from work so she has NO FREEDOM, and who knows if he’s spit in her face yet like he did to me and the woman before me. I hope she loves her “Prize.”
Oh, I’m greatful she took him off my hands. Maybe I should thank her. LOL! LOL!
Iwonder – We were all ”the special one’ at one time. And if you ask a spath if they have ever cheated – well we live and learn don’t we.