Editor’s note: The following story was submitted by a Lovefraud reader whom we’ll call “Marsha” about the coldest man she’s ever known.
I just wanted to write and share my story. I did some research on all the characteristics of what makes someone a sociopath. My father is a psychologist and knew my situation. He had mentioned the concept that my ex-fiance was a sociopath after everything that happened to me and I didn’t think to ask him more about what that meant. After exploring this site with the symptoms, I realized that my dad was 100 percent right. Here’s my story:
When I met my ex-fiance, it was through a mutual friend. He was charming, funny and seemed to be very witty and smart. He displayed himself as a go-getter, very ambitious, etc. We were friends for several months when our relationship seemed to get more serious. It was around that same time that I was living in an apartment that I loved within five minutes of my workplace. He lived in a fairly expensive high-rise condo on the beach, a condo that he owned, whereas I was renting.
He was a mortgage broker at the time and the housing market was steadily headed into the downfall. As we continued to date, his job stability as a broker seemed to be in question. Sure enough, about six to eight months into our relationship, he lost his job working for one of the major banks as they had some layoffs. He faced the challenge of paying his bills and mortgage in his condo as he waited for the opportunity of new employment.
Moving in with him
He created this idea that our relationship was headed in the right direction and that he “loved me.” He advised that really the only thing to do at this point would be to move in together. He urged me to quickly move into his condo so that we could play house in a sense and combine our incomes. Looking back I realize just how much I was duped.
I decided to give up my wonderful, beautiful, convenient apartment to move 30-45 minutes across the town to his location. I began paying him rent, month after month and not really seeing where the money was going. It turns out he was saving the money with plans to not pay the mortgage and lead his own self into foreclosure. He then anticipated that since we were not married he could just short sale the property in my name.
Now during all of this time, I let a lot of these financial plans slide through the cracks. I trusted him and figured that he had a plan. I didn’t know that this was a true con artist act in disguise.
During the span of time that I lived with him, he had kept in contact with an ex-girlfriend and stated that they had to keep in touch because he had known her for so long and that she was a friend. Again, I let this slide, even though I didn’t like the thought of it. Mainly because the communication was often and not of real purpose. Flirtatious, in many ways.
The marriage proposal
After one year of dating and living together I truly felt that I was in love with him. He proposed to me but even the proposal was cold and emotionless. We were arguing one afternoon and he laid the ring on the table showing that he had gotten the ring and that this should get me to stay.
This was never what I would have thought my proposal from the love of my life would have been like but again, love is blind and the sociopath can find a way to have you hanging onto a relationship that you know deep down doesn’t make sense.
He wanted silence
Needless to say, after several additional months his personality began to change and change and change. I never knew what personality I would get on any given day. He was oftentimes very irritable and mean. He was cold. I would come home from work and he would state that he couldn’t talk to me, he wanted silence. He would spend nights upon nights sleeping on the couch (by choice). What young engaged man chooses to sleep on the couch and not in the bed with his woman by choice?
Read more: Seduced by a sociopath — it’s not love, it’s love fraud
It was as though all he cared about was the money that I was paying and the plans for the short sale.
He would talk sometimes about how people always betrayed him growing up and that he blames his father for being abusive. But, he rarely ever showed affection — kisses, hugs, terms of endearment.
I made excuses
I always would make excuses for him and say to myself — He’s just going through a lot right now —or he really cares, he just doesn’t know how to show it. Yet, over time it just seemed to be that he was purposefully being emotionally abusive and standoffish. He told me that I was too close to my family and should cut the close ties. It was almost as if he was jealous of my close relationship with my family and didn’t want that closeness to continue on.
Looking back, I realize that he didn’t want anyone else to figure him out. He didn’t want anyone else to realize that he was a fake, a fraud and that his love wasn’t real. His love didn’t mean anything.
He would always find a way to charm me, or reel me back in like a fish out of water, when I started to question his intentions or when I would take a stand. Then, there were other days where he just really didn’t give a crap.
I can’t say enough how this was the coldest man I’ve ever known.
Charmed again
After additional communication between he and his ex surfaced, along with his decision to allow a buddy of his (male) to come stay in our house for well beyond a few weeks, without asking me of course. I decided it was time for some separation. Although separation was there I still missed him. After a few days, he charmed me again and offered the possibility of my coming back home and things changing.
I came back, of course, and things didn’t change and he was as aloof as he had always been. The problem was that I still loved him and wanted to marry him, wanted to change him. Within a few additional days something very devastating took place — He cut the ties of the relationship with as much care or emotion as a gravedigger. Again, it was cold and at this point he devastated my life — he told me that he just couldn’t deal with this anymore and couldn’t be in a relationship.
After all I had sacrificed emotionally and financially, he was just easily done with everything. I took steps to move out. After that point, he didn’t call; he didn’t attempt to communicate at all.
I would have never been happy
At first, I went through hell. Replaying the events and wondering what I could’ve done differently. But looking back, he just wanted to live by his own rules — he clearly was a sociopath.
What is he doing now? I hear he is still living in the same place, filed bankruptcy and works out all the time to make himself look more muscular. He dabbles into drugs and is even further down the wrong path.
I’m just happy that I got out because I would’ve never been happy. He had no care or concern for anyone but his own self. I tried not to blame myself or get depressed. I try to realize that people like this, I call them users, don’t have a heart. They don’t care! They are truly sociopaths and will do whatever they can to win and to live by their own set of rules.
Please learn from my lesson.
Learn more: Sociopathic seduction — How you got hooked and why you stayed
Lovefraud originally posted this story on April 30, 2009.
To escape a sociopath, trust your perceptions
Focus on your business!!! That is something to be real proud of!! You want someone wearing that jacket that you are proud of , someone who is a good decent person!! They are out there — when you know the red flags — you realize who they are — and who they arent!!
Focus on yourself and your business. And the person you were before you met her!
I think if we all had stoped at the first clue that the person we were attracted too was or did not have our best interests at the focal point of the relationship and if we could have looked beyound what we wanted to have or feel that we could have saved a lot of time and misery!
It seems that they have this period of time carefully figured out! They give us just enough hope to disregard our natural defence instincts and give them the benifit of the doubt! Because we want the relationship!
All they want is to use and abuse our trust or Love our hope for the perfect match! And they slowly TRAIN us to accept the abuse for the CRUMBS of reward.
It is amazing how adept at this they are. The stories of decades of deciet are mind boggeling.
I watched last night the story of a psychopath who used his wife and child to convince the victims that He was legit and then he tied his victims up and anchered them to the bottom of the pacific ocean as if it was making toast!
I can’t help but think that they are mentally impaired to the point of no return.
If we saw each other as only pawns with out seeing all the others that our actions affect , then Human life is just like pulling a weed out of the garden and tossing it to the side.
I said it before they are Parasites living off anyone who comes in contact with them to them it’s not personal it’s survival!
We are week. careing , loving , trusting Sheeple ! here for their entertainment and abuse and destruction! It ain’t personal they would do it to your mother or their mother it make little difference!
Very difficult to fathom or believe let alone to under stand!
But! It all comes back to them TEN FOLD! Thank God they are still responcible and accountable for their follies and we have to learn the hardway that they exist but we can tell others and warn them of the EVIL that is alive and well and running the country. Susspect everyone until they prove themselves. WORDS are cheap! Actions speak louder than words! old but true! Peace
Hospice summed it up in a nutshell post. From the first red flag to their very last ACTION – put it together and you have the makings of getting caught up in crazyland or getting out to greener pastures….
Have to go through it to know it, experience it and get out stronger and wiser.
When unhealthy Selfish and unhealthy Selfless meet its a true nightmare. But you can learn and grow and become involved in healthy relationships again – after you sort YOURSELF out. Because no matter who you are with if you are lacking self-respect, self-trust, self-worth you will never be able to protect yourself from the Evil and Bad people out there. period.
I wanted to post he letter I sent her on 4/15 to see what you all thought…I edited out names and such…
I know a lot more than you think I do and the only thing that I’m left to think was that, although we had a plan, this was your plan all along. When I was in your home state, your couisn told me that your mom told her that we were already broken up before we even got there. she told me that she told your mom to thank me for her for moving you there despite the fact that we weren’t together anymore. Where would your mom get that info from??? I discarded that at the time because I felt like she HAD to be misinformed because I knew that it was impossible that you would do something like that to me. So combine that with what I know, plus you slowly detaching yourself from me ever since I’ve been here and now you breaking off all communication, for no reason at all, that is what I’m left to think. And it is a terrible thing to do to someone. Especially someone that has always been there for you and always had your back. I have done nothing wrong and nothing to deserve this from you. I guess you were just using me the whole time. That shit is cold and heartless.
I just wanted to give a HUGE thanks to you for showing this inconsiderate, uncaring, cold, cruel, deceitful, Benedict Arnold side of you now and not years down the road. It fucking sucks that you turned out to be this way because I never thought you could, but it is impossible to ignore it at this point after you still won’t call or write to me and you still continue to treat me like shit. You obviously have no appreciation at all for the things that I’ve done for you and for us. For you to continually toy with me and tease me for the last 2 months, especially the last month with your bullshit excuses and empty promises of simply contacting me is the dumbest thing that I have witnessed in my life. It is child’s play…but I stayed very patient and I kept giving you the benefit of the doubt because I knew you’d come through eventually and you let me down because you never did…You must have a couple of screws loose yourself to even consider what you have done to me to be remotely cool. You’ve just been fucking with me for too long. I mean, you miss me and my voice, but you won’t call or chat or even respond when I offer to drive 14 hours to visit you? That makes zero sense…and you telling me that you were ready to go was the low blow. I was on cloud 9, and then you never spoke to me again…in the last email you still mentioned that you missed me and you said you’d call as soon as you can…that was 2 weeks ago and I’ve emailed 3 times since then with no response.
I don’t deserve this from you or in life. If you are capable of being this way now, for no reason at all, then who knows what your capable of down the line. So thanks, for being such an asshole and showing me this side of you because I have no room in my life nor will I ever for your bullshit. And thanks for making all of those empty promises about marriage and kids and living here and our future and all of that shit that holds absolutely no merit now. How you can feel like that, and then act like this is beyond me. I’m normal, so I don’t understand that kind of shit. I would have followed you anywhere because that is what love is all about…sacrifice. Playing games are for teenagers, not someone who is 32. It blows me away that you could just stop talking to me altogether for no fucking reason. Man, that is some scary shit.
I’m glad that I’m getting out when I am because having to look over my shoulder and sweat something like this happening again for no reason would scare the hell out of me, especially if we had kids. You are an absolute nightmare and you have been bringing me down for too long now since I’ve been here. I’m shedding the cloud of confusion that has been hovering over my head for the last 2 months and particularly the last 5 weeks and focusing on more important things. I need to focus on my business instead of sweating why my girlfriend has disappeared into thin air without any explanation or cause. Real classy, super mature. It does disappoint me very much that this happened. I will never understand because I still think that we were so fucking good together, that we were unstoppable…I NEVER wanted this at all, and I thought we’d be together forever and I obviously thought you felt the same way. But you have left me no choice by treating me like total shit and by having complete disregard for my feelings. You have treated me as if I’m not even alive. That is a really cool (I’m sorry, cruel) thing to do. Have a nice life, I don’t need you… You always said that you learned from your mom how not to treat someone, but apparently you failed to learn how TO treat someone. Especially someone who has unconditionally dedicated himself to you and who you continually said that you wanted to be with forever. You also said that you saw what your mom did to your dad, that you were concerned for your brother that his wife will screw him over and you shamed on your cousin for cheating on her husband so I thought you had some great values and that I had nothing to worry about, and then this…
You will regret forcing my hand like this, but what am I supposed to keep waiting for you to simply get in touch…fuck that. You have just thrown away something real special with us because things like you and I don’t come along but once in a lifetime. I have been bummed out for awhile now about what in the world happened to you, but I’m through because you seem willing to give me no answers as to why you flipped a switch and became a total stranger. I don’t need answers, I don’t care. I’ve seen enough in the last 5 and a half weeks to realize that I don’t need this shit and I have no patience or willingness to play your stupid games any longer. So you fucked up, because I was a great catch for you and we were a perfect fit in so many ways and I would have never let you down. And I thought you were the same for me, but you have unexpectedly let me down in a huge way. A way that cannot be repaired. It is so sad to think that on the day I left you, that I never thought in a million years that I’d never see you again…you probably knew all along…
I need to move on. I’m erasing all the pictures and videos and hitting the delete button on all of our awesome memories. It is a damn shame, because I loved you to death and I would have forever, but I’m cutting the cord. You did this, not me, I’m just the only one who has the balls to say it because you should have said this shit a long time ago instead of keeping me hanging on to something that obviously isn’t there… I have no idea why and what happened and I guess I never will and at this point I don’t even care…you are so tough in many ways, but you took the coward’s way out on this one…you fucked up…I’m done
and then i sent this on 4/27 which I realize was probably a mistake but I didn;t know the what I know now…no response to either letter but with the 1st one I forwarded a copy of netflix cancellation and she retrned the outstanding videos so…
You should offer me the closure that I deserve…I am hanging on to the girl I knew out west and I knew her for a lot longer than the girl I know from Michigan. I’m appealing to her, and her feelings for me and her remembrance of all of the good times we had and our great chemistry, to reach out to me and tell me what the hell happened. If this is about you wanting to stay in Michigan, and I fully understand that, all you had to do was speak up because that didn’t have to stand in the way of us being together. Nothing should have. With the flexibility of both our schedules, we could have easily worked that out. We were together for a year and we went through so much together in that time. I’m not happy with the way you’ve handled this in the slightest and I’m not saying I can soon forget, but I’m sure I’ll greatly appreciate the day if and when you ever apologize. It didn’t have to be this way, but it was a lot of fun while it lasted…
And belive it or not, I still have a letter ready to send although I edit it more and more with the new information I have. before you all jump to conclusions, I’ll post it here to see what you all think, but wait until I post it to give your feedback please. I still feel real empty inside about all this, especially after reading that letter again and I still fight the urge to reach out to her despite the fact that she would proabbly ignore me anyway
Good Grief… With all the writing you are doing and getting things out which is so good for you to do…and sharing your story…can you also take a minute to write a list of all the amazing good things about your relationship with her and all the unbelievable bad things about your relationship with her. You seem to be confused by the fact this about whether she calls you/contacts you …or not. And if only she did, you guys would be ok. Or you would get closure… But really what was the REALITY of your relationship..what was the best thing about it above and beyond anything else youve ever had?? The sex? The love? The Friendship? The Realness? The Trust?? Im having trouble seeing what was real and what was fake or what was what you wanted it to be or her to be — and what she really was – what she really gave and put into the relationship… So that if she does call you/email you…you hear her voice..what does that mean…. she will miraculously change WHO SHE IS?
So far, you have share the good things being…
She was hot.
The chemistry was good.
The fun (albeit fleeting, but it was “fun”)
The conversations, HER WORDS TOWARD YOU (marriage, kids, trust)
———————————————————————————-
And So far, you have shared alot of the bad things…
HER ACTIONS TOWARD YOU
But she would always talk about us being a done deal, right up until the day I left her in her home state
she started acting real shady almost instantly.
I saw her send couple of real shady emails because i was getting suspicious.
Throughout the year we were together, She “made me jealous on purpose” two seperate times when I think I caught her in lies.
She took a lot and gave a little, she would put down some gifts i;d give her and say she didn’t like them,
she was super independent, she put up huge walls, she is going bankrupt, and obviously she turned out to be incredibly deceitful and selfish.
no remorse? no appreciation?
i dont even know why she didnt want to be with me in the first place,
She would tell everyone too like it was a pity ploy, all the while still spending money like crazy in order to stock up for when she lost her credit card”she would say that she may be broke but at least she’d look good. But contrary to other stories, she wouldn’t accept help to avoid it”
Facebook status wasnt “in a relationship—well, I was with her for a year and she never put that on her page
she calls me while out running errands and says shes traveling 6. Hours south for the weekend for a girlfriends 30th bday party be it’s girls only. I’m a little suspicious and before she leaves and check to see if her birth control is under the sink and it’s missing. I call her out on itvand she says the ferrets must have taken it and hid it which they do all the time but I never noticed them take that”I look a little bit and can’t find if and shes spins it around to me being paranoid and if she told anyone what I did they’d tell her shes crazy for being with me after displaying that kind of untrust. She leaves for the weekend and within a half hour of getting home she comes upstairs claiming to have found the birth control”I was distracted by other stuff so I’m like whatever. Here I’d the kicker”a few days later I catch her on the phone in her bathroom late at night and I hear her say “I was just calling to say hi—when she comes out I ask who it was and shes says her sister which I told her I know I’d a lie cuz it was so late out west and she lives east and had to work in morning”she changes her answer and says it was the girl who’s bday party she went to and she had texted her with some guy emergency”well why would u say u were calling to say hi then?????? She apolofized and ssid she was trying to mskd me jealous”bulkshit”I freaking lost it and was out the door for good and she i’d begging ms to stay be apologizing fit her poor judgement in trying to make me jelous”mind u I had never heard of this girlfriend of hers before or since”I looked for her phone for 40 minutes cuz she hid it and when I found it all #’s were cleared”I lost it again and she even tried to soften my rage byvoffering sex which I was like hell no”took a long time of her convincing ms to stay and a long time to gain her trust on my part again but I did”
I think you should keep making a list of the good things (REALISTICALLY) and the bad things (REALISTICALLY)… I think this will help you see exactly what your relationship was about and why contact with her wont make things any bettter or different!
I hear ya, I really do and sometimes I think she’s made me a little crazy which I think anyone would feel…it’s almost like I’m up for the challenge to try to get through to her and to what benefit that would be I don’t know…despite all the things I said that were bad, I didn’t realize how bad until recently coming across this site…but in my heart I do the simple math of I was happy when I was with her and now I’m not so if I was again I would be…my head tells me something else but this is all sinking in still andim still not happy it happened in the first place…I guess it’s because to miss what I had so much and I’m in denial to believe that I can get through to the girl I know, real or not…acceptance is very difficult cuz I don’t get how she could devalue me and what I’ve fond for her THAT MUCH!!!
And I feel likevif I remind her of all I’ve done she will just laugh and feel good that she gotvme to do all that and then she just shut on me. It’s hard to imagine her out there being that wayvsnc I’m sure she remembers how much fun we had and all I’ve done enough to realize what’s she is doing and has done
Dear Good Grief,
Its all a process. You have to sort ir out and try to be totally honest with yourself about the reality – the real stuff that happened – when life with her got REAL – not just sex and fun — but honesty and truth and realness. We call it a fog of sorts (when all you remember is the “good stuff” the “fun stuff”… but as time goes on and you sort it out – you will likely see that when it got to the nitty gritty about her honesty and love and friendship — it wasnt/she wasnt so real with you.
We think we miss what we had – but when we write that REALITY LIST – we can look back and see what we had in terms of a trusting honest loving relationshp — sucked! It was a lot of BS, and chasing our tails to try to get them to see our love for them – afterall if we love them so much – how can they not see that and love us back.
A. They dont want to. or B. They cant. They are unable to be the person you thought they would be or wanted them to be or they “masked” themselves to be in the beginning.
Self-respect is not wanting to go back to someone who treats you the way she did. Self-respect is saying I deserve better. Someone who wants to see me smiling and happy and whose words match their actions.
Self-trust is believing in all the negative suspicious things you were feeling -and were happening right in front of your eyes.
Self-love is saying NO CONTACT. NO MORE.
Self-worth is focusing on you, your life, your business and building up yourself to the point you are able to protect yourself from this kind of treatment and WANT BETTER FOR YOURSELF not to want to go back and convince someone – you want someone who knows what you are all about simply because they are your friend who loves you back!!! GL
Good Grief: I have been “weaning” myself out of a relationship with a P and the DISAPPOINTMENT I felt from realizing that it was not a healthy relationship and I had to let go was overwhelming, and the grief I felt was EXCRUCIATING. So I am certainly not in a position to offer any advice here, but am just sharing how I feel. The more I gain the self-respect, trust, love that LTL described in her post above, the less I want to see him and the better I feel about myself. I don’t call him anymore, I’m afraid he’ll call me. For a while now I have still had the fantasy that I am going to get back the money I loaned him. He and I had great chemistry, I had such high hopes that things would work out with him, sometimes I still can’t believe that he was just using me!