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
Good Grief
I am right about one thing. She is definitely a Man-Eater, and she knows EXACTLY what she is doing.
Trust me on that.
just looked her up on public records, looks like she moved into her dads place out there…not surprised. At the risk of looking incredibly foolish and stubborn and naive and other adjectives that I’m not proud of (need to work on that self-worth thing), I’d like to post the letter that I would send her IF and that’s a big IF I send it. It is a little repititve from others I’ve posted on here so please bear with me on that but with the help of my little sister, who byt the way thinks I’m InSANe for doing this along with everyone else, this is what I’ve come up with. If you all would be so kind to simply analyze the content. What exactly to analyze I dont know since most think that words do not get through to them. Once i finished this letter today I sensed a bit of relief and I want to ride that for a minute before I send it. I dont know if the relief was cuz it was done or what, but I know that I still wake up in the early morning before my alarm with my thoughts racing and I still pick up my computer and type it out in order to TRY to go back to sleep. I fear that if I dont send this to her, these thoughts wont go away, or they may not go away anyway. For better or for worse, and expecting to get chastised for even thiniking of sending despite all the great advice on here, here it goes. remember, im still in denial cuz I think it might get through to her LOL. Because I post it here does not mean I will send it at all, just looking for feedback on the content. Thank you all so much. You all are wonderful people and you care so much about someone you don’t even know. You dont have to take the time to respond to me but you all do and it is heart warming. the title would be “this is the last time I will contact you”…it sucks to realize how much thought and time ive put into this but I truly feel like this is it for me and if i sent it I think Id move on and not look back and constantly have these thoughts inside of me. It helps to not expect a response so my hopes dont go up. I just wonder if there are any words of challenge, of reverse psychology that can penetrate the walls that these people put up to real emotion. I edited out most of the language LTL :), and I remember what you said about it taking more balls to not send it and I’ve yet to send it! Again, I apologize for the repititve nature..thanks in advance
———————————
I don’t miss you at all, but I miss my girl from out west everyday. It’s just too bad that you’re not her anymore. I assume with this letter that I’m talking to the real you and that she never existed. You would think (or I would), after having a 2nd chance at life, after having someone dump you because you were disabled, and having people who you wanted to be there for you throughout your life let you down, you would hang on dearly to the one person who welcomed you into his life with open arms despite everything, changed his whole plan in order to be together and who had your back in every possible way, and that’s the one person who you let down. Like Jim Morrison says, “people are strange.” I know you don’t care and I can’t make you feel something you are incapable of feeling. It hurts after everything I did that you made me so worthless to you, it still does because I felt safe giving you me.
I guess all you viewed me as was a nurse, half the rent/bills and a moving company. You didn’t consider me your lover, you didn’t even consider me your friend. There is no way you could treat me so bad if you even appreciated my friendship and I certainly gave enough to deserve it but it wasnt enough for you, I guess it never would have been. Take what your freind Mikey did to you and multiply it by a million and that is how betrayed I feel. Whenever you counted on me I was there, and you know I was counting on you. You know that. You promised so many things and I believed in you. You may have even started dating someone else while we were still together. That is glacial cold and it probably makes you smile to hurt me like that. I smile at how twisted that is.
What if when you awoke from your surgery I was gone forever, instead I was right there when you woke up and I drove you home with my hands at 10 and 2 and avoided every bump in the road because I knew I had precious cargo. I took incredible care of you. What if you woke up and I was gone with no note the day we were to pack the house and you never heard from me again? What if I couldn’t be bothered to go to the police station to deal with the whole stalker thing? What if when you were counting on me to move back out there I disappeared? Wouldn’t of, didn’t happen. My love was pure and genuine and I am reliable and caring. This is essentially what you did to me on a much larger scale and you seemingly had fun doing it. You told me once that if I ever tried to leave you you’d fly to wherever I was and tell me I was wrong…yeah right.
Sure, I’d get it if we went out on a few dates and you stopped calling…but we were together for a year, we lived together, we have so much in common, we were best buds, and we were side by side through everything, good and bad. I mean, what am I missing here? Sounds like an awesome couple to me! WHY DID YOU HAVE TO GET SHADY? Why couldn’t you just remain the girl I knew? Just in case you forgot, you were supposed to move here and we were supposed to get married down the line and start a family together and blah blah blah and then you vanished and started treating me like your stalker. Big difference between him and I, or so I thought. I had a lot more invested in you and there’s a big difference in his reaction and mine, but nah, you don’t appreciate that. You don’t appreciate anything. If you did, you would have never treated me so poorly, even if you didn’t want to be with me, which I still don’t know why you wouldn’t. It’s strange to me because I know you remember how great we were, how much fun we had (everyday) and how promising our future was and I wonder how you don’t value that. I suppose it’s all meaningless to you. I always thought you had such a good heart.
I must be OUT OF MY MIND to even consider this, but if you have any interest in pulling the knife out of my back then I’m offering you the chance to do it because what you did was, ya know…a tad fucked up. Against my better judgement, I’m giving you the opportunity as your friend to prove to me that you are not a cold-hearted asshole, that you didn’t do this for your own enjoyment, that you do have a conscience and the ability to show a mild appreciation for the aforementioned things, that you weren’t just using me and that you do recognize the value of me and of what we had…I’m a loyal, caring, and loving person and maybe those traits made me a target for you, someone to take care of you and look out for you when you needed it and when you no longer needed me, you were done and didn’t even have the human decency to notify me. I would love for you to prove me wrong although I don’t expect it. If my girlfriend who loves me so much she wants to marry me stops talking to me out of the clear blue sky days before our 1-year anniversary and can’t explain why or even apologize, then I’m sure your plenty capable of a simple non-response. It’s the easy way out. I hope you can appreciate what I’m trying to do here and the balls it takes to offer you something you don’t deserve, enough to respond, although I doubt you will because for some reason you don’t even want to know me. I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want me in your life unless it’s true that my usefulness was up, as much as that pains me. I doubt I ever cross your mind. I doubt you miss me. I loved you more than I’ve ever loved anything and you stomped all over me and you could care less.
It just sucks that even as my friend who supposedly cared about me, you seemingly enjoyed making me suffer with no remorse because you know I have no idea why this happened to us and why something loaded with relationship talent got completely shit on, by you of course. That’s the only thing that haunts me, it’s not what happened, it’s why it happened. But that probably makes you feel good inside. I thought we were the shit, I guess you just thought we were shit. Stupid me. I seriously would have done anything to keep us together and I proved that.
If you are getting some twisted thrill out of all this, then I guess I just gave you more fuel for the fire…enjoy! If this is like a report card for you on how to fuck with someone in a life-altering way and you think that you got all A’s, then your wrong. I am much stronger than that and instead of thinking you won, frankly you lost, something real special. I have put in enough work to try and get you to realize what you’ve done, what you’ve lost. This is the end of the road for me, it’s all up to you now. And to top it off, you never even said goodbye.
good grief:
I understand where you are coming from, but don’t send the letter. Your wishful thinking that she isn’t what you know her to be is telegraphed all over the letter. All you are giving her is ammo which she can use against her at a later time.
Don’t do it. You deserve better. You deserve more. More to the point, you need better and you need more.
thanks so much matt, what do you mean by ammo?
and you say what I know her to be…I guess the writing is on the wall that she is an S? Foolish question I understand or i wouldnt be here in the first place 🙂
Hey wonderful, giving, supportive people.
my brain is doing weiryd things. I am suddenly thinking, well maybe he was not an S. What??????????????????
I did lose my temper the nite I overheard by pocket call his bro tring to get him to dump me. five ecs later he gets a call from hospital that his alcoholic mom is on death bed. I should have been supportive– but I was freaking.
but– yeah– that did not mean he had to discard/dump me.
Matt has written to me beofre to remember how he treated you before that night. Not just that incident.
could touch i fron of his five year old or even hug.
no offers of marriage after two years– unless he said,”you can be good/anxiety free for two weeks.”
He never told me he was in litagation with his sister. So– when I threatened to call her and tell her that her other bro was tape recording her every word– he wa done with me.
Why had he never told me the truth of his life?
YOu guys– he made me watch– and held me the whole time- a movie called “Taming of the Shrew”–
he compared me to Elizabeth TAylor’s character. He held me and told me that if I could change like she did– and be good enough for him– he could marry me.
No wonder I have Stockholme.
his only friends were drug users/sellers Meg.
Matt- and any other guys willing to respond–
he was 39 and would smoke pot and play online games- role playing types– like World War Craft for five hours a nite. Is that normal? Addictive behaviour? He’d be up til 2 am every nite doing this. playing with others online.
he told my bestfriend that he wished I could be more like a submissive Jane Austin character?
Not gettig over humps. NOt well. Have been in bed all day.
sorry to still be in this place. I wish Jesus/God would beam down and give me the truth of everything– cuz I still waver back and forth of what was real and what was not.
anyone else get real bad acid reflux or gastric probs/ulcer after your encounter? Any suggestions? My GERD is not responding to medication– except for tons of Extra strength Tums all day and night.
I pray for miracles.
and just so everyone has all the info, because I’m a bottomless well when it comes to sharing my story here…here is the letter (kinda sad) that I sent her on our 13 month anniversary, but I hadnt even talked to her since before our year anniversary. this will probably explain more and enlighten you more and myself, as to why the letter i just posted would be pointless, because this letter got no response…it;s the last sentence that kills me because it didnt garner any response. I also posted “13 months” on her facebook wall cuz we were still friends then and she removed it, but didnt remove me as a friend. This makes me realize how much of a lost cause she is. The “I’m done” letter I posted a few days ago followed the next day, which I’m proud of because I didn’t waste much time awaiting a response…the pictures I mentioned were a great one of the 2 of us and another one of her giving me the finger…also the reference to my family was all of our pets.
——–
Happy 13 month Anniversary monkey! (that is if we’re still together????)
Ya know, it really has been puzzling and rather heart breaking as to why you haven’t bothered to call me in over 5 weeks and you’ve only emailed me once in the last 19 days…after all that I’ve done for you, it kills me to realize that you don’t recognize it as being enough to treat me with any respect and dignity, not even enough to give me the time of day. I really don’t understand it because the last time we spoke everything was cool and you mentioned being half way here. In all of your emails everything was cool and you mentioned how much you miss me and my voice and you even said that you are ready to go. But you keep telling me that you’ll call me and then you don’t and now you won’t even write back to me? You always said that you don’t play games but it feels like your just fucking with me and I don’t deserve that from you at all…I have no idea why my normally awesome, rock solid, on point girlfriend is putting no effort into our relationship all of a sudden and isn’t really showing any appreciation for it or for me…Is this just a major case of —- being —- or is there more to it?
The fact is is that I have no idea what is going on in my own relationship. I have no idea what is going on with my own girlfriend and honestly, I have no idea whether or not I even have a girlfriend. I haven’t heard anything to the contrary but I know what I feel. I know that you always tell me to trust you and believe in you and you talk about us being a team and then you just disappeared on me. I know that I’m pretty uncomfortable with what is going on right now and that there is only one person that has the answers and she seemingly has no interest in talking to me for some odd reason. I know that you tell it like it is and if you didn’t want to be with me anymore, you’d have no problem telling me and you haven’t. I know that your facebook page still says that we are in a relationship but it sure doesn’t feel like it. I know that you told me you were going to marry me 100 times and even removed “future” from future husband on the day I left you…I know that I miss my family and I’m not sure if I’ll ever see them again and I know that I have no idea AT ALL as to why. I know that I thought that we were easy, a done deal, 2 Fer 1…I know that we are awesome together…I know that you are treating me like total shit and like I’m worthless to you and I never expected that nor would I ever treat you that way…I know that I’m beyond confused and could really use some clarity from you one way or the other…
I meant every word I said in the anniversary card I sent you last month, especially the part about it being the best year of my life and expecting it only to get better. And now I have to wonder whether I’ll ever hear from you again. Didn’t expect that! For all that I feel that I’ve put into this, I’m getting nothing out of it right now but stress, hurt, and confusion. I wouldn’t think that you’d ever want me to feel that way and hopefully this will wake you up. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate out there, but that doesn’t mean that you just push me off the plate altogether like a piece of grizzle.
You always told me to call you out if you weren’t being the best girlfriend ever…well, Hi. I have come to expect a lot more from the woman who I am supposed to spend the rest of my life with because you have always come through with flying colors in the past. You have such a big heart —–, but it’s getting difficult to feel like I still have a place in it when I thought my name was written all over it for life…
Attached are 2 pictures, one of what I thought we were and would always be, and one of what I feel like you are inexplicably doing to me right now…you figure out which is which…
If you care about us or me at all, if you appreciate us or me at all, then you’ll get in touch with me ASAP because you shouldn’t want me to be feeling the way that I feel. It’s fun 🙁
I love you?
hey meg, not really in a position to give any advice here, but puffing and playing games at 39 is a little rare I’d think. It is 2009 tho, but Im 30 and I dont do all that like I used to…that shit is lame as hell to try to change you…for real, lame as hell
good luck
Good Grief
Don’t send that letter or any. Your writing to a brick wall.
I think the more emotion we show them they suck it up and use it on everyone else. We make them better psycho’s i’ve seen it happen. Anyone ever notice they don’t show much intrest in art ? Such as paintings, drawings etc. Took mine to a gallery once, every pic coulda been mickey mouse from the way she dead eyed them.
Your lucky to learn about them early in life GG. You’ll choose better next time.
I should date some of the girls on here LOLOL (dont worry im not seriously trying to pick up women on a sociopath recovery site) but you all seem like such decent people, and I know im a decent person…what im saying is, I wish my ex-S was like you all