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
well eliza, if they can do this much damage in a few months, he has 25 more years to torture ther people. God help us all !!
I know, I wish I still had those numbers from the mass text of his penis that he sent out. I don’t know why I didn’t send them all a mass text when I discovered it, like hey we all have something in common! I feel so bad for the rest of his little harem, he just keeps collecting, I don’t think most of them realize what hit them and they just hang around hoping he will choose them in the end. 24 years and counting.
keeping_faith:
Amazing story — and so much I can relate to.
The package the present up front — attractive, charming, fun to be around — and key — that they crave the physical and emotional contact we do.
The vulnerability you spoke of when you met your S. Did you ever feel like your S was psychic? I mean, we walk around with a big ol’ flashing sign over our head saying “VULNERABLE”. Yet, somehow they intuitively know this.
And the intuitiveness they exhibit. You mention how intuitive and responsive your S was — especially after you had been so starved by your ex-husband. I got “love bombed” by mine. And I lapped up all the physical and emotional attention.
Looking back, I now see that all of this added up to the lure.
The little boy demeanor. Yours trotted out the abused child. Mine trotted out the kid on the playground.
The night we met the alcohol was flowing. I remembe him climbing on my leg — like a kid getting a horsey-ride — and saying “I like you.” I remember him over the next several months saying this repeatedly.
Initially I thought his behavior was sort of endearing — like he was being totally unguarded with his emotions.
Now? Do you think you bought into the Peter Pan syndrome? I’m an adult, I’ve had adult responsibilities for most of my life, and I think I got drawn into being around somebody who didn’t seem to have that restriction on his emotions. Of course, I never thought through the implications of that to their logical conclusion — that an adult who acts like a child also acts like a child in every other area of his life.
I love you and the first bad behavior. Your S told you “I love you” and then the next day told you he couldn’t see you anymore because you would be hurt. You were devastated. And right on the heels of that he lays on you that he was married and had been all along.
Do you think that was the moment he knew he had you hooked and then tested the line and see if the hook really was in? My theory is if we’re willing to stay at that point, they now know they have carte blanche to really start misbehaving.
In my case, I was the one who said “I love you” first. He claimed that freaked him out — which generated his first bad behavior — standing me up for a date and not bothering to call me or even walking two blocks to my apartment to tell me he couldn’t keep it.
A few days later when I confronted him about his behavior and he knew I was pissed royally and ready to walk, he said “I don’t want to bring the problems of my being a convicted ex-con to your doorstep because I love you.” And right on the heels of that he slipped up and I learned that rather than having broken up with his ex a year earlier like he told me, they had actually broken up only 3 weeks earlie — when he was released from prison.
Yup, I was hooked. And that was when his behavior toward me started to change.
That’s also the moment when the stories they tell begin to blow right off the page. And in those rare moments when we want so despeately to believe in the face of the bizarre, mine like yours would pull the crying act, the I’m so sick because of my high blood pressure, etc.
And off we went rationalizing — you chalked it up to divorce and family separation. I chalked it up to his being sent to prison.
Steroid abuse, cocaine abuse.
Do you think they know we’re doing all that rationalizaing? I think they count on it.
Like you, I’m good-looking, educated, have a beautiful home and a responsible job. Like you, I was lonely. Like you, I was willing to give S the benefit of the doubt — even though it went against everything I knew — intuitively and from personal experience, regarding ex-cons. Like you, I cared deeply for a man who had been badly abused — and ended up badly abused myself.
I agree completely with what you’ve come to realize. I’m printing out that list and taping it to my bathroom mirror.
keeping_faith”
Typo: Meant to say “we DON’T walk around with a sign reading “VULNERABLE”…
That’ll teah me not to type after 10
Matt,
Thanks for taking the time to read this. When i read your story it struck me how similar they were, like many of the others…..but yours in particular.
“I don’t want to bring the problems of my being a convicted ex-con to your doorstep because I love you.” Don’t you wish you could go back to that moment and do it all over again?
This is something he would say. “I am so sorry for bringing all of my crazy x wife and family drama on to us. Only a good woman would be able to handle all of this”….then, “thank you so much for standing by me through all of this. no one has ever treated me like this”…….to “you cheatiing bi^%$. My intuition is good and I know you are cheating on me. What did you do at lunch for 2 hours?”
He once took my cell phone and told me to go through and delete the names of all of the men in it. I refused. I told him this is my work TREO and that I had vendor info in there. He left me sit at a bar when we were out of town and i had to walk back to the hotel alone.
But, yes, I was hooked and he knew it and that was the first d&d when he said he could not see me anymore. i think it was that he knew I was relocating. it would have taken a lot of effort to see me. Remember I thought he was single but he was married and I didn’t know so it would have taken A LOT of effort on his part to see me. he couldn’t do it. I later found on one of the previous trips to see him that his wife was in the hospital having surgery when he and I were sleeping together….nice huh?
I loved the little boy things about him….I liked the ripped jeans and the tight t shirts. he looked good in them. I’m fairly conservative. I work for a bank so suits every day….. I mean I think he was just different than anyone I had met and adventurous and silly in some ways. i lked that. But when the bad childish behavior started it was unbearable…..stomping on a pair of $250 sunglasses, breaking things, ripping photos, smashing frames, burning letters, calling names, throwing stuff at me…….
And the whole time he said I brought all this out in him and that I violated “the trust”. What trust. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t say anything.
I think you are right…..they count on us being open minded, rationalizing, trying to keep proving ourselves…..but I also think deep inside of them they know we were too good for them in many ways and they were way out of our element and so it had to end anyway. So it never really mattered. There was no way in hell they could make it last with people like us.
You seem adorable, based on your sense of humor and the things you write. I am getting stronger too and I just feel that this happened because there are good things about me/us. i don’t want to lose those qualities. maybe I was a little naiive. In some ways i wish I had that back again so i could feel the ability to completely open myself up again. Do you think that will ever come back? I just know I will be more vigilant and Matt we have been through enough to have to deal with that shit again EVER……….
Thank you for reading this and mostly for understanding !!!
keeping_faith:
Man-oh-man do I wish I could go back to that moment. I would run and never look back.
The part that I can’t seem to let go is how everybody in his life — colleagues, friends and family all thought I was the best thing to ever happen to him.
I remember him telling me about friends and colleagues who asked him if I had any friends because they wanted to be fixed up with someone like me. One of my stated attributes, for lack of a better word, was my maturity.
Ironic, isn’t it, that my maturity was the draw for one of the most immature people I’ve ever met? My maturity became a weapon in his hands. I kept tolerating his abuse, because, being mature, I didn’t think it was fair to fight back against somebody who was “hurting.”
Of course, I now wonder how mature I really was, since I permitted this sub-human creature to cannibalize my life and abuse me. Would any self-respecting adult permit that?
Self-respecting adult. Now, there’s a phrase. I now see just how little self-respect I had. Add to that no boundaries.
I also keyed into your statement about how it would have taken him too much work to see you once you had relocated.
I can remember towards the end, I met a guy who thought nothing of commuting 2+ hours to come and see me. And S couldn’t be bothered moving his ass 40 blocks. When I told S that after 15 months we should be spending more time together, and instead we were spending less than at the start of our relationship, he told me he couldn’t afford the bus fare. I told him I was happy to buy him a transit card. No takers.
I now see what I couldn’t see all along — it was too much work for him to be in a relationship. He was happy to suck me dry as long as I made no demands. But, when I made a few minimal demands, he couldn’t be bothered.
I want to be open-minded and open-hearted going forward. However, I will never jump into the swimming pool again unless I am sure that it is both deep and filled with water.
In a wierd way I owe S a debt of thanks. I’ve gotten much more self-protective — in both my personal and professional lives.
FDR said it best: “Better to die on your feet than survive on your knees.”
Matt, there’s another saying too, can’t remember who said it (CRS) but it is “it’s better to be a live dog than a dead lion” and that is so true. Sometimes it is better to RETREAT when you are in a “fight you can’t win.”
I come from a long line of stubborn Scots-Irish “fighters” who would stand and fight, even if they knew they were going to loose and/or die for their trouble. While there may be something admirable about the people who defended the Alamo or those that stormed Normandy beach, I finally realized that there was NOTHING HEROIC about me standing here shouting “I won’t let him drive me out of my home!” and then dying to prove it.
I’m still a stubborn old woman, but I have learned a bit of discretion along with my stubborness. There are just some things that it is best to “give up on” and the psychopaths are one of the things that isn’t worth a “fight.”
Hey Everybody – as usual, so much of what you guys have written has resonated with me.
My ex S became so lazy about the relationship – he wasn’t willing to do anything for me, or the relationship. He simply did not want to spend time with me and avoided it constantly. Which is not so easy since we lived together – but he managed. He would not lift a finger or inconvenience himself in the most minute way for me or the relationship. In the beginning he couldn’t be with me enough, couldn’t do enough for me. But I see now that it was all for him. As soon as doing anything for me or being with me became the least bit on an inconvenience, he quit.
I didn’t think I’d ever become someone who was begging someone else to spend time with me. ICK. And I couldn’t shake him off my leg those first few months.
And – I was proud of myself for being so calm and mature with him. I never raised my voice, lost my temper, and I waited a long time before I started allowing myself to feel distrust. I thought it was maturity. Turns out it was denial and doormat.
Then again, I am proud of myself that I refused to stoop to his level, ever. What I am not proud of is that I continued to stay in a relationship where I acted like a mature adult, and my partner acted like a three year old. At that point my maturity had become doormat. And the double standards in our relationship were astounding. I couldn’t challenge him on anything (like why he had disappeared for 6 hours) while he could attack me for having dated someone in high school twenty years ago. That was somehow a personal affront to him. And I would actually appease and comfort him. OY.
ox: exactly. cut your losses. i gave up on the spath. too hard to keep it going. too little reward. too much pain.
but after 5-1/2 months he called. not a word. a peep out of me. no sightings. he has no idea if i’m alive or dead except for my voicemail. what the hell does he want? isn’t his wife and kids and hot new gf and baby on the way enough? i’m old and worn and fat. he’s young and has everything.
what on EARTH could he possibly want from me??
HH: every time you post it could be me writing. the similarities are incredible (although a LOT of all of our experiences are similiar). yes, doormat. i remember it well.
mine couldn’t be bothered at the end either. no effort whatsoever. i remember once i went to kiss him and he pulled back, saying: ”you can’t just approach me like that!” after 25 years! WTF!?
Matt,
I think the “maturity”, stability, conscientiousness, persistence….. all of those qualities are the things that attracted them to us. Because they are NOT any of those things. They are appealing then they end up hating us for all of those very things.
Self respect….now there’s a good topic. I allowed so much disrespect from him and his daughter and I feel as though all the time I was working on the relationship they were scheming and laughing about me behind my back.
As for your swimming pool analogy. I’m not embarrassed to say I may need swimmies on my arms for a while and I think i’ll be walking into the pool slowly and gradually. Eyes wide open. The fact that you/we can find some good in what has happened and we have learned form it is a really good sign.
I wish I knew you or that you lived closer Matt. My very best friend is a gay man, 39, one of the sweetest, most generous,people I have known. He’s almost as good a cook as I am too. 🙂 I could fix you up. You are a smart guy. You have figured it out and you can laugh about some of it in between the tears. THAT is progress !!!