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
Perhaps part of the problem with relationships with sociopaths is the degree of enmeshment. In my case I can say it was certainly true. I could no longer put my feet down on basic rights and basic logical needs in a relationship. I started blurring the boundries, questioning my own needs, making excuses for the s.
Instead of thinking what learnthelesson said ” sexlife included” about what I wanted in a relationship, I started questioning my own neediness for physical closeness with the s.
That’s exacly how he wanted me to think. Question my own sanity. To him it was not the question of “how we can make this work for the both of us”, but it was my own fault. He said it was my own neediness, bottomless pit of my emotional hole.
Somewhere deep within myself I knew that there are people out there who can enjoy a healthy, satifisfying sex life which could match mine. I would have a sharp pain thinking about the lost oportunities I would have if I stayed with the s. I think this feeling kept me from marrying him. He would actually bring up marriage (in weird, jokey ways) and I would try to express to him that we would have to work on some of these “issues” before we could talk about marriage. He would always have put-down comments, or go completely silent and walk out of the room.
I simply did none of what I said above when I was involved with him. I began questioning myself, feeling unworthy and undesired. I kept trying to fix us/fix things…figure out what to do, what was wrong.
Instead of doing what I should have done…never gotten enmeshed…simply by virtue of loving myself enough and respecting myself enough the very first time he treated me badly, confused me, hurt me. There has to be a first time …in order to ACT or REACT or IGNORE or TURN YOUR CHEEK THE OTHER WAY…now if ever Im with someone who can make the choice to intentionally treat me badly in any way (sexually included) I NOW KNOW MY OWN PERSONAL BOUNDARIES, I TRUST MYSELF TO SAY STOP. CHANGE DIRECTION. THIS PERSON DOES NOT HAVE MY BEST INTEREST IN HIS MIND. NO QUESTIONING SELFDOUBTING, BEGGING, WANTING, NEEDING… HE IS NOT THE GUY FOR ME. BEEN THERE DONE THAT.
I KNOW WHAT I WANT AND WHAT I DESERVE FINALLY. AFTER 42 YEARS .
Well there I go again with that STANCE! LOL
I guess I might add that depending on the circumstance the first time, I will now speak up and say “you may not know me well enough yet, but this is something I wont accept …disrespect, being used, or verbally abused….. and so Ive just let you know me a little bit better… and now I know you are aware of my boundaries. Then is as easy as letting time unfold and knowing I didnt cut off at ankles over something minor but I spoke up and protected myself…if it happens again….RED FLAG TRASH BIN!
greenfern and learnedthelesson:
I have a very healthy sex drive. S not only was withholding, but, like you, belittled my desire for sex, made me feel like some kind of human freak –totally undesirable. Bad enough that, I was spending 24/7 trying to figure out how to make this “relationship” work.
My boundaries are still a work in progress. But, I will never let somebody I am emotionally and physically intimate with ever make me feel that way again. If my partner can’t meet my needs, and isn’t willing to discuss the problems, then he gets his marching papers. The personal destruction caused by an uncaring partner just isn’t worth it.
Matt said
“I have a very healthy sex drive. S not only was withholding, but, like you, belittled my desire for sex, made me feel like some kind of human freak ”“totally undesirable. Bad enough that, I was spending 24/7 trying to figure out how to make this “relationship” work.”
EXACTLY!!!! That’s how I felt too! I felt like the freak, a bottomless pit. When in reality I have a pretty average drive. The s is the one who is a freak, with his disabilty fetish, fetish for bald headed girls etc…
I agree, the only thing I am changing is how long I would put up with anyone making me feel this way.
Hello Everyone,
I am really NEW to this group and I am not proud to be a member. I want to SCREAM!!! I don’t want to let this demeaning experience turn me into a cold, cynical person who can never let anyone near her again! I don’t want to question someone’s kind gesture and be wondering…Hmm, now just how much money is this guy looking to get? It will take time, I know.
“Oh, Sweetie, I’m going to go home to Nigeria to source out some business ventures for you and I so that we will have contacts there for the goods that we want to buy and sell in America and Canada. So, I’ll be travelling to various adjoining countries and you know how terrible the phone connections can be. I’ll have to call you as you won’t be able to reach me easily.”
Now, for a time, we did maintain a long-distance relationship and I do know full well that the telephone lines in Nigeria “suck”. So, I believed him. He sounded so forthright. BUT, I found out through a Facebook entry that he wasn’t heading home to Nigeria at all! In fact, he was going to the U.S. to be with his wife! The same wife whom he had told me had had their marriage annulled about 3 years ago. Apparently, the whole time he was LIVING OFF ME, he was just waiting for his visa to head to America.
In retrospect, I now realize that at about the same time that he would have received notification that he had been granted his visa, was about the same time that I witnessed some drastic changes in his disposition toward me. But, I didn’t understand it at the time. He was becoming quite distant with me (for no apparent reason that I could come up with) and he was very aloof. We went from QUITE THE ACTIVE SEX LIFE to not even a good-night kiss. He would wrapped himself up in a blanket, turn onto his stomach and move as far away from me as he could possibly get.
I found out about the lie in mid-November. The next day, after confronting him about the entry, he left. He did go to Nigeria for about two weeks and then by the beginning of December, he arrived in America.
I KNOW WHERE HE IS and HE STILL CALLS ME professing his love for me and that he misses me!! He asks me to remain focused on US and to keep my door locked from “any freaks that might come around trying to get in!” He calls me from a pay phone. He has no idea that I have put together the puzzle pieces and am aware of so much that he lied to me about. He has no idea that I am “onto him”. He thinks I am sounding upset because I AM MISSING HIM TOO! HA HA!
The night that I told him that I knew he wasn’t going home to Nigeria on any business ventures for us but that he was going to his wife, his first words to me were, “What are you going to do?” Then, he cussed me out and said, “I’m glad to see that you have nothing better to do with your time than to check ***** out!” It’s a good thing that I did or else I would still be thinking that I couldn’t contact him because of poor phone lines to Nigeria!!
I am so thankful for this blog. I have cried a lot as I can identify with so much. It has helped me to recognize a lot of the red flags that now are my justification in “kicking his ass to the curb”! I have been so much happier now that he is out of my apartment and far away from me. I didn’t realize just unhappy and miserable I really was when he was around!
I hurts to know that I was nothing more than his Plan B girl in case his Plan A with his U.S. wife didn’t pan out.
I am also ANGRY that, without any real proof or without a lot of hassle, there isn’t much we can do legally about these people. We have already been victimized, but if we try to speak out to expose them, WE can be slapped with libel or slander! Where is the justice? We should be allowed to tell everyone about them without any legal repercussions–God knows we’ve paid enough already! (time, $ and emotions)
When he departed, he left many of this things in my apartment. I’m getting ready to box them up and send them to his new address. Once they’re in the post, my “NO CONTACT” takes effect! Don’t know if wifey will let him sleep in the bed the night they arrive but I DON’T CARE NOW WHAT HAPPENS TO HIM! But, I’m sure he’ll have some story about me and how crazy I am. That’s OK
Sex was a huge issue with my ex S. For years, we lived across the country from each other and had phone sex that was off the chart. Once we arranged to spend any long time together it got less and less frequent, our last week together none at all.
He told me later, after he was with Jane, that it was not my fault, something was wrong with him, age or circumstances, just did not have the drive he used to. Jane confirmed it, it was once in awhile, one way and unsatisfying for her too.
I remembered this when I read Greenfern: “As soon as I moved in with the s, after 6 months of dating him, sex was not appealing to him. He no longer initiated, was kinda put out by it. He was always sort of robot like, but he became even more so. He treated having sex like a chore. . . .He said it was my own neediness, bottomless pit of my emotional hole.”
Mine told others I was needy, never said it to me, and had told me never to discuss our relationship with anyone else. He was discussing it with everyone, especially Jane, that’s how I knew she was telling the truth.
After we “reconciled,” first it was “let’s take it slow, I don’t want to hurt you by jumping back in too fast.” Matt said, “belittled my desire for sex.” Then we started having sex again but he played sick during our last weekend together, just to get out of it.
Bottom line we had sex once during the whole six months. It was incredible, but once. I agree they use it as a tool, do it once in awhile so we want it more and they can get stuff. I was flying so high after than I bought him a new toy the next day.
This site really is the best thing for me, and everyone. You don’t want your regular friends knowing all these details, and this is anonymous.
Matt –
I’ve heard there is a way to take a non-business bad debt off on taxes. Is it worth dealing with him to get a judgment? I have an email where he agreed to pay back the $30,000 and a verbal agreement on the 2nd $25,000.
He said I could 1099 him, and he’s made reports that he was working for me but he really wasn’t. He gave me advice, made a call (in fact got one large bill knocked off, a mistake in an order), but I don’t think it’s enough to justify a 1099.
Please let me know.
Thanks
Oh the sex thing! How I can relate!
Probably way TMI…..Sorry.
I met the S when I was a brand new teenager and of course I was a virgin prize for him. He pressured sex constantly….I rejected…..he pressured. Every time he picked me up for a ‘date’, it became about sex, I thought we were going out, and he would take me to his grandparents vacation home to start it off with some sort of sex attempt. I was always fending him off….damn, I was a kid!
Years past and even before we were married, the S started complaining about sex or his view of the lack of. I felt okay with 2-3 times a week, but with him and his way of communicating it was ‘always’ or ‘never’. So that translates to; we NEVER had sex. He used this as a way to undermine my self esteem, I felt broken, un attractive and not living up to his desires. I could never figure it out and slowely, this bothered me. Again, I tried every way to please him sexually, but he was never ‘happy’. He used sex as a tool to talk about me to all his ‘friends’, how he ‘never’ got it etc…they would laugh about it in front of me……YIKES how degradiing it was. The S had one friend, still does, who this is the preface of their relationship…..our sex life. Dang, I wonder what they talk about now.
I remember making a total commitment on one 2 week vacation to have sex with him at least once a day, and more. We came home from that trip, mission accomplished and I heard him on the phone telling a buddy that it was a great trip, but we just never had sex etc…. I was pissed! I was like a bunny and more creative than ever and this was the reaction, speaking poorly about me by manipulations and portrayal of something completely false……so I cut him off, gave up. Sex with him was mundane, he didn’t appreciate the gift of me….so screw him. By the time he complained, I threw it back at him…..”THIS IS WHAT NEVER HAVING SEX FEELS LIKE”.
I remember approaching him at times and he would rather masturbate by himself than have me. Wow….for a man that would tell me ‘making love to his wife was the best thing ever’, I didn’t realize he viewed his hand as his wife and ‘making love’ with it the best thing ever. I journaled that event…..I remember walking in on him and the S rejecting me. Again, I pulled away.
there were all these mind games in regards to sex. He set the rules and there was no way I could satisfy the revolving rules of control from him……I realize this now. I am not sexually unsatisfying….I enjoy sex for the closeness etc…I am a sexual human being. My GF’s who I do make a point of talking about sex with now…..say I am a 23 year old virgin heading off into the world. I need to keep my eyes open.
There were so many GYN visits that I discussed sex with the Dr. I thought it was not normal to have sex ONLY 2-3 times a week generally. I just didn’t know what “normal’ was….on any level in my life for that matter. Dr would be impressed with the activitiy and I would leave feeling bewildered and confused. This was just one example of keeping me off kilter.
I would read about the need for open communication to know how to please your partner and ask the S ‘what feels good to him’, his answer “everything”, I just want to have sex with you. After almost 30 years I still, to this day have no idea his ‘favorite’ position and what felt good to him. He never gave me any verbal clues or facial expressions of pleasure….He just kept me guessing and belittleing me for my efforts.
Sex with the S was so a chore! Towards the end of relationshop , he would go limp during sex. I was careful not to step on his manhood at first, carefully letting him know we could talk about this….then I realized I didn’t think he was faithful to me and this was his ‘guilt’ hitting him physically. Funny, how the old familiar irritable bowel would hit him at the same time as limpy showed up! I reversed the tactics on him and rolled over in disgust and complained about not being able to fulfill me sexually.
It’s funny, how they use every thing as a control mechanisim.
Generally we do not talk about sex in outside circles. At least I didn’t….(come to think of it, probably because I didn’t have any outside circles, I was alientated)…..Frequency, approaches etc, it’s just not spoken about period….So I had no idea, and believed him when he would belittle me and our sex life. I thought I was deficient, it was me. i had too lilttle experience and couldn’t please him.
One day I was so fat….I was ‘as big as a house’, the next I was beautiful and he couldn’t imagine life without me. One day I was a horse with a pigs face, the next I was perfect he way I was. OMG…I remember one time he stopped about 45 minutes into sex and told me to go wash, you stink. I had just gotten out of the shower as we crawled into bed. Yeah, these sorts of gestures sure made me want to tear my clothes off and get it on! It also ups your confidence levels to off the charts. NOT!
So this was how I ended it for once and for all!
Turning everything he taught me living with a Sociopath on him……..I called upon my inner Sociopath and turned his behaviors on him. I had a master for a teacher…….And I relish in this thought……I had a master plan, after we were seperated and he took the kids out of state and dumped them off with family and cut me off completely from them……I knew I could use sex to reel him back in for information on the kids, finances etc……I pulled together all my muster and huevos and
I showed up at the S’s house…..all dressed up as sexy as could be, he answered the door and I ‘attacked’ him sexually…..he submitted willingly, he was mind blown with the sex. THAT TIME! ……after sex, the S passed out and was in a deep sleep while I ransacked the house for financial documents, the kids Birth certificates and passports, taking photos of everything in my path and taking what I needed. I gained passwords to accounts, new cc’s he opened, went through his phone, bank accounts, phone numbers , billing information, found large amounts of cash that just so happened to land up in my purse etc….. I turned the tables on him and he was putty. Once I got what I wanted, I left him in the bedroom and ……I went NO CONTACT!
See ya sucker!
That put an end to almost 30 years of hell with this man, and I WAS IN CHARGE and I was the One with the motive, using him as an object!!!
As wrong as it may have been….I have no regrets!
Kick2curb said
I now realize about the same time that I witnessed some drastic changes in his disposition toward me. BUT I DIDNT UNDERSTAND IT AT THE TIME. He was becoming quite distant with me (for no apparent reason that I could come up with) and he was very aloof. We went from QUITE THE ACTIVE SEX LIFE to not even a good-night kiss. He would wrapped himself up in a blanket, turn onto his stomach and move as far away from me as he could possibly get.
I hear you. I didnt understand so many mixed screwed up signals I was getting either. One minute perfectly wonderful and the next shut down and shut out.
Ive learned that Sociopaths/N’s/Toxics are unhealthy SELFISH people. The kind of selfishness that has to care for others and no concern.
I am/was an Empathetic person. When I met him I was an unhealthy SELFLESS person. I had no clue what self-respect, self-love, self-trust was with practically everyone in my life and now I was with a bad man and spinning in circles being incredibly and detrimentally selfless about what was going on. At the time, I thought wow what an amazing person I am for giving and doing and being so understanding.. No. No. No….not when its not reciprocated or when its given and used and abused….
I had to become a healthy empathetic person. With healthy selfishness and healthy selflessness. I had to LEARN what both were, how to implement them and how to live differently. Because it would be detrimental to my health and sanity (and it was) to trust every living person.. and it would be detrimental to my health and sanity to be unhealthy selfless ever again. I am the most important person to my health and sanity — not anyone else.
I continue to meet and greet new people in my life. I pick and choose my circles now. Thats ok. Cant be friends with the world cant save the world. Especially when Im trying to save myself!! I make sure people earn my trust…I go slow. I listen more. I enjoy more. I trust more…MYSELF.
I was taken advantage of as well as I allowed myself to be taken advantage of when things got strange/weird/odd/mistreated…I didnt have the tools to deal with it and I stayed and got taken for thousands of dollars and lost my way.
He is responsible for misrepresenting himself to me. But once the jig was up… I held on. I hoped (falsely). I tried (hopelessly). I forgave (endlessly). I lived in denial (realistically). Because thats all I knew to do. Thanks to LF, and my internal desire to learn and grow and go through every single process from saddness to hurt to shame to anger and on and on…Im slowly making it to the otherside.
A person who learned a lot about life through trial and tribulations with healthy and unhealthy people…a person who recognizes her strengths and weaknesses…a person who will continue to make mistakes and learn…but a person who will avoid toxic people esp. in relationships by being aware of the red flags and acting on them…a person who will never lend money to anyone without accepting that if I do I dont expect it back…a person who knows it was not my fault – he lives his life making bad choices, bringing people down, stealing, lying, cheating etc. – and finally a person who knows I had to change my way of life my unhealthy view of life (in the sense that everyone came before me and everyone is honest and true and good) and I had to mature and grow up and live and learn about life to the best of my ability…balancing my happiness with others who share the same views and values and SHOW IT BY THIER ACTIONS…not just words.