Editor’s Note: This story was submitted by a Lovefraud reader who we’ll call “Marcia.” She describes her involvement with a man who she now believes is a sociopath, and how her relationship had three distinct phases.
I met him on Chemistry.com in February of 2009. He wrote to me through the site and we corresponded several times before speaking on the phone. I liked his profile very well and enjoyed his style of writing and what he wrote in our correspondence. When we spoke on the phone, we had no problem starting and maintaining a conversation on the phone. He was articulate, intelligent and had all the time in the world for me.
We met on March 6, 2009 for a drink. I got there first and very symbolic of our relationship, he blindsided me and sneaked behind me and playfully grabbed the back of my neck. The attraction and chemistry was immediate. He was extremely charming. He looked into my eyes with such a piercing look that I felt he was seeing through me. He was fun. He made me laugh. He treated me like a gentleman. He had a great energy. I just enjoyed being around him and with him all the time.
That very same night we had dinner together and made love. Since I was an hour away from him, I was staying at a hotel that night. So he stayed with me and we had a wonderful and relaxing breakfast on the porch next morning. When I was leaving he asked me if I could see him next day. I was coming to town to see a ballet with my girlfriend so we decided to have dinner with my girlfriend. He invited me to stay at his place that night and I accepted.
Lavish flattery
Lavish flattery began immediately. There was nothing I could do wrong. I was sexy, I was beautiful, I was attractive, my energy was great, it was fun to be around me, I was the best mother, I was the best doctor, I was the best lover, I was the best friend, I had great taste for clothing and jewelry, nobody has ever loved him like I did, he had never loved anyone like he loved me, he would marry me in a heartbeat, finally he had found the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, that is why he had never settled down before, he did not want to settle for less, and I was the proof he was right to wait for the right person.
Every time he would see me, he couldn’t catch his breath (he was such a great actor, there was a visible pause in the movement of his chest). I was wise, I was brave, I was evolved, I was everything he would ever wanted from a woman. I was funny. He had such a great time with me no matter what we did together. I was fit. I was strong. He would send me fifty text messages a day telling me how much he loved me and how much he missed me and how even exchanging text messages he would be aroused, and how he was so attracted to me. He would bring me roses, buy me jewelry, music, wine, etc.
The pity play
Pity play began almost at the same time. He told me how abusive his parents were. How his mom used to scream at him and beat him. How his father was always dissatisfied with him and how he was refusing to tell him that he was proud of him to this day. How his parents’ divorce when he was 20 affected him because he was put in the middle. And then it was his wife and how she cheated on him with many men including his closest friends, and how she got pregnant many times and had an abortion every time, how he knew it was because those were not his children, how she gave him a genital wart and he had to have surgery to remove it. Then it was his ex-girlfriend and how she was dependent on drugs and him and she would not let go of him and how he could not leave her because everyone in her family had abandoned her after she had disclosed that she had been sexually abused by a family member. And how his boss was treating him just like his dad did and how abusive the boss was, etc.
Read more — Seduced by a sociopath: It’s not love, it’s love fraud
From that point on, we had four months of amazing time together. Retrospectively that was the “honeymoon phase of our relationship.” Also retrospectively I see that things were moving very fast. Only a week after we met, he was telling his mother that he has found the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with and in the first month of our relationship he bought me a ring as a present. It was not an engagement ring and he did not propose but he emphasized that he had never given a woman a ring before.
Many women
Very quickly he started introducing me to his friends. He “could not wait.” We went and visited his mom in Rhode Island for Mother’s Day and she liked me and my seven-year old daughter very much. She told him “she is beautiful not only on the outside but inside.” In that trip I also met his father, his stepmother, and two of his three brothers. During my visit, his mom told me that he has brought so many women home that she had told him “no more women unless they have a ring on their hand.” I looked at him, he laughed and pointed to the ring and said, “she has a ring.”
That was the very first time I questioned him. I told him I thought taking me to his mom was something special. He became very defensive and angry. He said after his wife of five years left him 18 years earlier, he had been single and dating and “naturally” had met many women. He said he had taken about five of them home but not to introduce to his mom. He just invited them to join him in the trip to his hometown. He said he had taken only two women to introduce to his mom as people he had considered marrying. He was upset with me for a couple of days after we returned but then sent me an email and apologized for his mother’s “insensitive” remark and his own as well.
On another occasion when we were staying with one of his friends when his friend’s 8-year-old daughter asked him why he did not bring his “other girlfriends.” He asked who she was talking about and she named a few names! He did not respond but I immediately felt like a number and completely disposable. I discussed how it made me feel with him but his universal response was anger and blaming things on me, my “insecurity,” my “fears,” etc.
Borrowing money
Very soon he prepared me for borrowing money. He told me how someone had scammed him on paying his student loans and how he had all this debt to pay but it was all going to be clear in a couple of months. How he had been helping a friend in advertising for his business and how he was not paying him and how there were thousands of dollars he would be receiving soon from him. How he was so responsible with money and he would never use a credit card and only use debit card so he knows he only spends the money he has. How he would appreciate it if I put costs of all the activities we were doing together on my credit cards and once his student loan is clear, he would pay me back. Soon he would ask me to put charges related to his canoe club on my credit card promising that once he collects money from members of the club, he would pay me back. Once his boss fired him, he could not pay for his bills and rent and he would insist that he could not borrow money from me. He had gained my trust at such a deep level that I handed him a blank signed check and then he wrote close to $2000 and cashed it. Later on when I asked him to pay me back, he said he neither had the money to pay me back nor he owed me any money.
Relationship had three distinct phases
As described in any typical relationship with a sociopath/narcissist, our relationship had three distinct phases: honeymoon, tension building, and finally violent phase.
In the honeymoon phase even when we text messaged or talked he would get aroused. Whenever he saw me, whether it was an act or a true reaction, I could visibly see his chest would stop moving and he would take a deep breath and would tell me, “you take my breath away.” He could not keep his hands off me and we made love twice a day when we were together.
In the tension-building phase, our sex life suddenly went from what I would rate 10 out of 10 to 1 out of 10. This was so sudden and so drastic that I suspected he might have developed erectile dysfunction. He no longer initiated having sex with me and when I did, 9 out of 10 times he would say he was “tired.” Other excuses included being “busy” or “depressed.”
This went on until November when I found hundreds of pictures of naked women he was having “cybersex” with on his laptop. There were some emails suggesting he had invited these women to meet and have a drink and “see where it goes” but I had no proof this had actually had happened. He adamantly denied having a physical relationship with any of them. I broke up with him for a week but he asked for forgiveness, cried and said he has had sex-addiction for five years and now is going to get help and promised he would stop doing it right away. I got back with him but our sexual relationship never improved.
Self-centered
Regardless of how legitimate my question or concern was, his very first reaction was always becoming defensive and turning things around and attacking me. This was always followed by a few days of completely shutting me off, not contacting me and even ignoring me when I reached out. Early on in our relationship, after a couple of days, he would contact me and apologize for his reaction. But after the honeymoon phase, the days he would shut me out became longer and longer and no apology was offered. Instead, over time he would build up a grudge and become punitive. In response to many red flags in his behavior, he would accuse me of being insecure, having fear-based reactions, having no impulse control, blowing small things up to huge problems, being depressed, being anxious, not exercising enough, at one time sleeping too much, in another time sleeping too little, lack of self-confidence, etc. At the end he said I was crazy, I was fucked up, I had taken joy out of his life, I had brought negative energy into his life, I had made him depressed, he was not excited to see me anymore, he did not want to be around me and he wanted me out of his life.
By then I had recognized how self-centered he was. It was never about me and my needs. It was only and always about him and no matter how much I gave, he would feel his “deeper needs were not fulfilled.”
Violent phase
The relationship moved into violent phase and beginning mid January, on multiple occasions he tried to hit me and even choke me. This was particularly dangerous three weeks ago when I discovered many text messages on his cell phone indicating he has been sleeping with multiple women during our relationship. When confronted him, he described details of his sexual relationship with this women behind my back, without protection, like he was talking about weather. He had no remorse and no shame and did not offer an apology. He hurt me with such a righteous indignation and entitlement that it was beyond my comprehension. His absolute callous disregard for my feelings and legitimate needs were astonishing. He continued to blame everything, including his cheating and lying to me, on me.
Upon discovery of undeniable truth on his text messages and speaking with the women involved, I left him. I did file a police report but he lied through his teeth and police did not pursue the investigation. Following the tactic of offense is the best defense, he did file multiple police reports on me including one of harassment. He also filed for a protective order, which was denied. Currently I am suing him in Small Claims Court for the money he owes me.
Learn more: EFT Tapping to break your addiction to a sociopath
Lovefraud originally posted this story on March 12, 2010.
To recover from the sociopath, be selfish
I read some posts today, totally relating to some things that were said by anitasee and midlifcrisis. My husband would make my head spin, especially when I wanted answers to questions about finances, providing me with vague responses or no responses. He usually communicates in a controlled, emotionless fashion, especially when a crisis is brewing. I have lived with an uneasiness in my gut for years, hating it. After reading your blogs, I know that it’s not me. He has always been secretive (especially about finances). I give up. He doesn’t seem to realize (or care) that his decisions affect me and our family. He definitely has created terrible crises, causing me to be eaten up with worry. I so relate to your stories. It’s helpful to read about other people’s experiences, having many “aha” moments. We are separated, needing to keep it that way for my own mental well-being. I can be obsessed recalling things that he said or did, needing to refocus my thoughts. My husband would tell me stories (I believed him), taking off for a few days, and then finding out that he lied to me about his whereabouts. I have said that he is the biggest stressor in my life, never having encountered another person like him. Last summer and fall is when I “woke up” and realized the truth about my life, our situation.
Bluejay, yes, sometimes their emotional flatness is incredable. They don’t experience fear and anxiety the way that we do…they act like they haven’t a care in the world.
It sounds as if you are in the middle of the coming out of the FOG stage (fear,obligation, and guilt), trying to make sence out of the nonscence. Eventually it will either become clear, or you won’t care anymore. Just hang in there, and keep coming back here.
Greenfern – sure you will enjoy it – check out the store for other titles to search for like the Sociopath Next Door 🙂
Bluejay – I can so relate to the evasiveness about money – mine didn’t care that what he did affected me at all. He either couldn;t understand that he was taking my choices away or just didn;t care – probably the latter. Try to stay strong in your separation – don’t go back. It only gets worse if you do. I went back and that’s when he really acted up and instead of hundreds of dollars missing, it was tens of thousands that he couldn;t account for. All wasted on nothing tangible for him alone. If you go back you can expect a similar ‘stepping up’ of financial and other forms of abuse.
Be sure to protect your own finances and financial ratings – they aim to destroy not only their own but our credit ratings. I am pretty sure he will end up bankrupt and would have aimed for me to end up that way too. Selfish to the core. You have broken the spell though and sound like you’re in a good space for yourself – able to see him for what he is. I agree it is helpful to read other stories – we see the similarities in our own experiences and realise we are not alone in what we went through.
Keep posting more as more insights come to the surface – stay here and stay strong 🙂
Kim yes the flatness – he actually had the audacity to say to me “You worry too much.” I wouldn;t have had to worry if he hadn;t kept creating stupid crises in my life and then leaving them for me to sort out for him. I was a nervous wreck by the end of it.
Anitasee, midlifecrisis and bluejay;
Thank you for sharing your stories– after reading the previous post on the Biederman coersion theory and your stories, I realize that what I went through wasn’t all in my head. That and what little I knew about what happened to my ex-sisters in law. The isolation and calculated manipulation of the physical and mental environment in the home and the relationship was a deliberate effort to produce a specific result. I had no idea this was possible–or that any human being was capable of it.
Marcia,
Thank you for the wonderful article. It was an OMG moment when I read it. Do these guys have a “How to” manual or what? The similarities that crop up in soo many posts, the way they succeed in multiple relationships. The blaming of all the previous partners was what I got, too. In fact, no one in his family was at fault for anything and he became extremelydefensive if I dared to question anything they did or said. He wouldn’t even stand up when they threw the baby in the air or kicked our dog. They were all above reproach and their opinions were superior to everyone else’s. (This really bothered me because I’ve always tried to give people the benefit of the doubt.)
Also, the “flatness”–the lack of affection in family relationships and sibling’s marriages and also in him after the honeymoon phase was over. it’s like he checked out emotionally, even during intimate relations. Knowing what I know now, he stopped saying my name for fear of blurting out someone else’s.
7 weks NC and I was having a delusionary weak moment last night and this morning questioning again if maybe he really wasn’t “all that bad” and I just “blew it out of proportion”…once again.
I missed all his “goodness”; his healthy eating habbits that match my own, the ballroom dancing, the bike riding for hours and having fun, the new hobbie he took up in oil painting and including me in it, the traveling to distant lands, the diamond earings he gave me for Xmas and the cute way he wrapped them enside 10 different boxes till I got to them…..deep enside, the crazy sex…….
Then in sadness and confussion I came here to LF and read all these posts and felt the FOG lift….reality set in; same behaviour patterns, different variations in a 3 1/2 year peiod:
For all the “goodness” and loving times, they were allways fallowed by him creating chaos out of nothing, the surprise attacks of something said or done to completely throw me off balance, make me crazy and find a reason to blame me for it. Break up, punish me with the dissapearing acts or cheating with other women.
He had money….lots of it….he used it to exploit me, bribe me with it and rob me of my time, my energy and ultimatly to compromise my career and job. He used to tell me “move in with me and you’ll want for nothing, you’ll allways have food on the table, clothes on your back and a roof over your head…all you have to do is take care of me and put up with me”….”If you don’t do it someone else will”! Boy did I think I was going to loose out on something great. He said “sign over the mortgage of your house to me, and I’ll pay it off and give you a little something to hold you over”…..Thank god I had more sence than to do this.
I saw how he would blow thousands of $$ on playing the stock market, buying equipment he didn’t need, yet he was cheap whith me and his family….example while being un-employed I had to pay for the only decent meal we ate while on a road trip outside of a McDonalds.
His lovebombing was soooooo huge, that I lied to myself time and time again that he really loved me cared about me when he went disappering for hours or days at a time with vague excuses, hid his phone, went outside to talk on the phone, lied to me about visiting with his kids, walked out on me contless times at dances only to tell me he was doing it for my own good so I could go on and have fun while he was tired. Canceled a trip abroad with me 2 days before departure day only to show up at the airport at the last minute….kicking me out of his house last year when he got bored and tired with me a week after throwing a 50the birthday party for me………and allwlays, allways comming back begging foregivenss and promising 4-ever love…..telling me “you’re the only one I want to spend the rest of my life with” .
I went NC with him last year for about 5 months after he was so mean and cruel kicking me out….yet I took him back when he came begging for mercy because he was sick with prostate cancer and was having the surgery. “Your the only one I trust to be there for me at the hospital and look out for my interest” his said…I resisted until he persisted and I gave in and took him back in September. He had the surgery, had an “epiphany” that he had to change his evil ways and that he needed me, I was the love of his life….this lasted only till December, 3 months….the longest he could go abuse free in the cycle, untill the old sex addiciton came back….only this time he had medical ED and couldn’t perform like before so he started violating me to get his rocks off…..he was punitive if I didn’t give in to him….he would withdraw affection, become emotionally flat and distant so me like the confused twisted loving person I am…I thought I needed to tolerate his form of sexual abuse for the man I loved. I didn’t feel good about myself, I knew I had to end this sick relationship, but I clinged on for fear of being alone and fear of having another failed relationship in my personal history.
It all culminated in the creshendo of the hollidays and my birthday when he broke up with me in a cheezy no-tell-motel (though he could afford the Ritz) at 4:00 in the morning telling me he was “tiered of pretending to want to be with me and we’re finished” 3 days after giving me the diamond earings for Xmas and promesing his 4-ever love through our golden years! ….This while we were on the road trip from hell. In a state of shock I pleaded and we made up.
My birthday on Jan. 6 was allways another sore spot. Year after year he allways exploded, devaluated me and disreguarded me on this day. (his mother’s birthday is the same day)! This year was no different. He spent that afternoon with another woman …..and got furious with me when I confronted him with it, telling me I was “making a big deal out of nothing” because he wasn’t interested in her romantically! never mind it was the same woman he had left me for before….he then booked a trip overseas with her wile still with me….lying to me that he had not, (I only found this out after I finallly kicked him to the curb). He had the arogance and the gull to ask me if I would still help him with his studies and project after telling me he had made dinner plans with the woman the following Friday.
I finally had enough….7 weeks ago I said no more for the last time….yet I still have these moments of missing the bastard. I WANT THIS TO BE THE NEVER AGAIN LAST TIME!!!!!
Thank you for letting me vent…this is the longest post I’ve written, but I felt I needed to clear my self of doubt of the N/S I was dealing with, and not get stuck in the delusion of HIS “GOODNES” and the dream relationship and persuant confussion I was in. So amazing to me that I could still miss the spathole!…
thank you LF for being here.
Aeyala:
Vent away……this is ‘how it goes’……we do have moments of wanting the ‘fantasy’ again…..
THEN WE WAKE UP!!!!
During these times…..remind yourself of WHY you left…..WHY YOUR much better off now…..and think of your future.
These ‘moments’ do get less and less as time passes……it’s all the’normal’ part of the journey.
Hang in there…..come vent with us ANYTIME!
XXOO
EB
Thanks EB…. I really love this place!
I would be in the nut house by now if not for it!
love back acha!!!!
me!
exactly! You hit it on the head. The point I would make is that all of the things he says about you, he will turn on your. I was so successful – then I was too successful. He said everything yours said to you. Even his mother said the exact same thing that she only wanted him to bring home a woman if he was serious. The entire family lies. Amazing to see the same thing happened to you. Made me feel much better! thanks.
And wow, girl seven weeks. One day at a time. Keep it up.
“Soldier of Love”…..My new anthem!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR5_rTCi-Bo