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
‘I mostly trusted others, not myself.’
My 17year old daughter told me today that she had been talking to her father(a great man and good friend of mine, though we split up when niblett was very young)about an incident that occurred when the creepy little man (sp) came here to stay with us last year and I wanted to share it with you.
My daughter is a very confident, self assured woman(nothing like her wimp of a mother;) and she was trying to explain to her father, who doesnt really get why I have been so depressed by all this, the nature of the mind games and manipulations that the creep subjects people to.
This is one of my big red flag stories- it didnt get ignored but it got thrown into a fog, by him and it just illustrates these creatures ability to confuse and manipulate.
We were having a big family dinner, during which my daughter and sister became disturbed and left the room. I was busy cooking and serving and didnt really catch what went on.
My daughter spoke to me later and said that she had been completely creeped out because the sp had been having a sexually explicit conversation with her and had been sexually suggestive towards her . I didn’t believe it to be an overreaction, so later that night I told him that she had been very uncomfortable with his topic of conversation and asked him what he had said. He completely denied it and even went so far as to blame another guest (like she was confused as to who was saying what…?Huh?).
The next day, without speaking to me first he ‘ambushed’ my daughter in front of me and asked her why she had said that about him. I watched in horror as he put her completely on the spot, but she told him that yes he had made her feel uncomfortable.He then proceded to TELL her that she had heard wrong, interprited wrong and that it was another guest. I WATCHED her stand there and doubt her OWN memory of an event that had happend less than 24 hours earlier and by the end of the converation agree that she had been mistaken! With a few words he left us both standing there in a fog of self doubt.
I come from an abusive background, which he knew, and he made us feel that we were being hypersensitive and paranoid.
She avoided any further interactions with him from there on, she doesn’t take shit from people generally and doesn’t waste time with people who make her uncomfortable and has great self possession and esteem and I certainly felt very protective of her where he was concerned so it was the ONE and ONLY time he managed to manipulate her in a way he was doing to me on a daily basis.
Of COURSE she WAS telling the truth and her feelings WERE valid and I should have thrown him off the balcony onto his repulsive face there and then.
Every time I spoke to him about anything, it was like a fog decending in my mind.
And I cant describe how terrible I feel for exposing my children to such a creature, he didnt manage to do them any harm (apart from nearly destroying their mother) but I was completely neutralized, paralized and utterly pathetic:(
Dear Muldoon,
I hope and pray that your biopsy comes back clean!!! (((hugs))))
I am also glad that he is gone. there still may be days when you wish him back, think about the times he was pretending to be “nice”—-and notice, I said PRETENDING TO BE NICE. It was only an ACT.
I recall he trashed your car, trashed your friend’s car, and threatened and on and on, before. So I hope this time he is “done with you” and moves on to another woman who will take him in. I almost feel bad for saying that, but I know that he WILL find another victim, he will find another and another and another. He will never be “nice” to anyone, and only pretend to be nice for a short while to hook them in, like he hooked you in.
You do NOT deserve to have that kind of treatment. I am glad that you are starting to truly see that THEY CANNOT AND WILL NOT CHANGE. He doesn’t love you, he thinks he OWNS you. They don’t “bond” (love) anyone else besides themselves, but they do “attach”—like OWNERSHIP. You are a possession for his use. He doesn’t love you or the children, you are just his possessions.
No matter what happens with the biopsy, Muldoon, he would not have been a “help” or a “support” to you, he is wanting all the attention and to be served, not to serve any one else’s needs.
I am glad you came back here, Muldoon, start reading the old articles in the archive….read them every one!!! Soak in the knowledge from them, and keep on posting here too. Knowledge is power and you can take back the power you gave him. He is like a VAMPIRE and will suck the life out of you and turn your day into night forever! Love and Prayers, Oxy
Dear Blueskies,
Wow…your daughter sounds awesome with the self-awareness and self-protection shes got going for her! And on top of that, she has you to show her lessons from your journey to further protect herself!
Remember not to beat yourself up about all that stuff IN THE PAST, and truth is …you actually exercised some of the self-everything right then and there…by calling him out on it… now we have learned that when coupled with lots of questionable behaviors we simply dont have to give them an opportunity to “explain” things away or “confuse/fog” things up…I could actually imagine him twisting the story around, being loud too probably, just abrupt and lots of shock the system tactics to get you and your daughter to second guess yourselves and turn the entire thing around. And the problem is they take bits and pieces of events that are true but twist and turn them in such a way that we are left questioning or just wanting to believe them.
You are very lucky he didnt do any further damage to your kids, and had you not acted right then and there the way you did…he may have been setting the motions in place to further break your daughter down to a very vulnerable state of mind…GOOD FOR YOU BLUESKIES!!!!
You did the best you could with the tools you had coming out of an abusive past and wanting to trust and believe and all the good things we all hope for ourselves and our families…now you know the real deal..not only about yourself and what you really are made of…but about others and what to do…. Your children are lucky their mom wasnt destroyed but further that shes being REBUILT!!!!! 🙂
On mothers day my youngest son, who lives with his girlfriend came up for the mothers day lunch. He said to me, “where is the best place you’d like to go in the whole world, mum?” I listed off a few nice spots, then asked him the same question. He smiled and said, “wherever you are would be the best place in the world mum”.
I keep thinking of that one sentence and it gets me through the horror of all the psychopaths in my life that I have had to deal with, including my daughter.
Tilly
That is the sweetest thing a son possibly could say. And Hallmark should be asking you for the rights to use it 🙂
I think that you are very lucky to have him, and hold that thought dear to you heart during your struggle with your daughter.
Hi Marsha,
This entry sounds a lot like someone I was dating in the Chicago area. Even up to the part of him working out and dabbling in drugs…
He told me he lived with his ex girlfriend and their 2 year old daughter for three years. Which of course didn’t come out in the beginning. He tended to lie just about anything. He too was in real estate and had been dealing with a short sale on a property.
He went so far as to tell me that he had cancer, and admitted to lying about that too. He always hung out with one of his guy friends from out of the country, never could keep a promise to meet me on dates, and would frequent bars calling me in the middle of the night to pick him up.
He always came up with excuses. He also never would let me over to the house he lived in claiming that his ex girlfriend was still in love with him and he was sleeping on a couch and then moved in with his sister in Indiana.
Anyway, either our stories are very similar which most of these types of people seem to create… or we know the same person.
I hope you are better now. I have been still trying to deal with the pain, and also the shut out. He hung up on me three months ago and that was the last I ever heard or ever saw of him, which in itself is a blessing. The more I am reading about sociopaths he really seems to be a likely candidate.
Uhg so it’s been almost two weeks now with no contact…I’ve been doing surprisingly well but today I had a 4 hour drive and 4 hour flight which proved too much time to think and I cried a little bit. I let myself start thinking up “what if” scenarios that are never very helpful. It’s so hard to understand how someone can be so hot/cold. How can you be packing boxes to move in, then an hour later say matter-of-fact that you are not moving in, not in love, f-ing someone else, etc etc?!!!?!? It just hurts soo freaking bad and I’m soo sick of hurting!!! I wish I could just erase him from my mind. It’s hard to think back on all of the time we spent together over the last ten years and realize that he probably never had a genuine emotion towards me other than viewing me as a meal ticket, sucker, ride, etc.
I spent so many hours worrying over/about him and trying to “save” him and it was thankless. I used to worry that he would never change, and that he would drink himself to death, or die of his high bloodpressure, or be too poor to ever retire. I spent years trying to get him to get his crap together. Just when I thought it was never going to happen and had moved on, he reappears feeding me all this bs about how he’s almost 40 and he wants to get his life together and start a real career, and get married and quit drinking and get in shape and move in yadda yadda yadda. I kept my guard up for the last several months, and finally, let it down when it looked like he was going to move in and really start getting all his ducks in a row. It is like he just knows the very SECOND that I let down my guard, where I finally let myself believe “wow maybe this is really it, maybe he really is serious this time” and as soon as it’s down, he’s like, btw I’m in “love” with this other girl that I’ve been f-ing and I’m not moving in (I don’t know where he finds the time since he’d been at my place at least 4 nights a week).
I shouldn’t say this, but I hope he dies. He hasn’t been taking his blood pressure medicine and he smokes and drinks at least 10 drinks a day…sometimes more like 30. I hope his cold heart explodes in chest and he won’t be able to use anybody else. I used to pray that he would get better bc I didn’t know what I would do w/o him and it drove me crazy that he was so unhealthy but now I hope he keels over. I wish I could watch. GOD I am sooo angry and hurt.
OK sorry for all the venting-I needed to to avoid spending the night miserable.
Tilly:
You cannot rise to his bait of saying “come over and get…” The fact of the matter is he has a restraining order on you. You cannot go near him without violating it.
Next time he does this, I’d go to the police station and say “look. I want my things. But I can’t go there alone. I need you to come with me.”
They’ll go. And then you can get your stuff and be done with him. Right now he’s just enjoying jacking you around. Once the police see his email telling you to get your things, he won’t be able to do this with them on the scene.
Done:
Are you sure you and I weren’t involved with the same guy? Mine will be 40 this year. He drinks too much. He’s back on drugs (at least IMHO). He didn’t have 2 nickels to rub together, which, since I was paying for everything I didn’t understand how he couldn’t even make his rent. And the blood pressure was a biggie — his mother has been brain dead for over 4 years after her last stroke from high blood pressure.
I also tried to “save” S. I was S’s one man Salvation Army — legal counsel, social director and ATM. By the end of 15 months I was exhausted. Of course, how a successful attorney like me ever got hooked up with an ex-con like him still boggles my mind.
But, I did. I want mine to suffer. Personally, I’d like him to have a major incapacitating stroke. Just like that mother of his that he trotted out whenever he had to run a pity play on me. In my fantasy, I go to nursing school. Then I become his nurse. 5 times a day I jam the needle into him. And just like his mother, he has lost the ability to speak. And has to take it. And take it. And take it. And can’t make one more snotty comment to me. Ever again.
Matt:
Haha I love your fantasy. It does sound like almost the same guy. I don’t know how we (smart successful people) get duped by these guys, but it somehow helps to know that I’m not alone…that they have amazing powers of manipulation.
Mine was holding a job at a resort/hotel where he was making several hundred dollars a shift, yet still had a hard time paying rent and utilities for some reason. I didn’t think he was using anything aside from alcohol, but who knows. He did dabble with cocaine before (after I left him one time…I ended up feeling guilty like maybe I somehow drove him to it by leaving [whatever]). My s’s mom is a very sweet woman, but she is crazy. I don’t know what her diagnosis is, but one time she didn’t recognize her own son, and she becomes very frantic and disoriented. She still calls and I don’t have the heart to tell her I want nothing to do with her loser of a son, but I think she must know. In one of her lucid moments she told me I must be a “social worker” for putting up with him.
I know what you mean, I want him to suffer too. I’m trying really hard to just let go though, bc seeking any revenge just shows that I still care on some level. I hope that whenever his habits finally catch up to him and I hear the news I can just shrug and say that’s too bad. I feel like revenge is impossible anyway…if you don’t have emotions, how is anyone able to hurt you? I could never cause him to feel as much emotional pain as he’s put me through.
But for fantasy’s sake…since I’m unable to inflict any emotional pain…I’d like to lock him up somewhere and starve him to death, and make him listen to all his least favorite songs while I enjoyed lavish meals while he watches. (Now I sound crazy =)