UPDATED FOR 2024. Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following essay from a reader whom we’ll call “SnowWhite” describing the heart thief she encountered.
He is clever and cunning. He has many talents. He sees you before you see him. It may be something you are wearing that attracts him. Maybe it’s your laugh or your spirit. You are vulnerable. He knows it. You are trustworthy and caring. He knows it. You have only been with two men your whole life. He knows it. You are lonely. He knows it. You have been married for 25 years. He doesn’t care.
He is a carpenter. He builds your trust and friendship. You see him weekly in your workout class. One day he smiles at you. The next day he says hello. Months go by. Each day he shares his story and hardships with you. You are compassionate and feel his pain. He knows it. He becomes your friend. You start to text each other. He becomes your confidant. Before you realize what is happening, he is becoming your best friend, one by one replacing all others. The bond with your husband begins to loosen. He has been saying good night to you for weeks in his texts. You are addicted.
One fateful evening he tells you that there is something special between you. It is more than friendship. You agree that there is an attraction but cannot act on it. You are married. He persists. You are confident that the friendship is more important. You are strong. You can handle it. He is stronger, more powerful. You don’t want to lose the friendship.
He is a gardener. He plants the seeds of doubt telling you your husband and marriage is broken. He cultivates them until they grow, taking root in your mind. You start to believe.
He is a poet. He tells you it’s love. His words are sweet. You start to fall.
He is an architect. He builds and lays out what your life would be like with him. He will give you everything you need as a couple. You will be happy.
He is a painter. He paints a beautiful picture of what could be, a picture of you his “future wife”.
He is relentless. For months you resist but are afraid of losing the friendship and connection. He knows it. He wants more. He threatens to end the friendship if you cannot be with him. You seek therapy. It doesn’t help. He is powerful. You feel helpless in controlling your own emotions. You agree to stop talking — one too many times. You agree to end it and meet one last time. Then it happens. You have no control. The connection is too powerful. He now controls your mind and body.
The weight of him telling you he is waiting and alone bears down on you. He tells you that you must leave your husband. The pressure builds. You feel his pain and want to heal him. You are confused. Your life starts to unravel. You start to lose your soul. You are confused.
He is NOT a cardiologist — he cannot fix your heart. For the heart will always find its way to love that is true, real, honest and everlasting. The heart knows. It is resilient. My heart will recover.
Learn more: Beyond Betrayal — how to recover from the trauma
A sociopath explains how she loves
Oh, and one more point. The BIGGEST red flag, which was NEVER to be discussed was why he could not see his daughter and had not for five years. My understanding is that even if you don’t pay child support, that isn’t grounds for complete denial of visitation. So I really wonder about that. Here he was and is saving strangers but his own flesh and blood grows up without her father. Every time I tried to mention his daughter he’d get all teary eyed and that shot down any conversation.
I’ve even thought of hiring a PI to get closure. I so want to know the truth about him yet I’m afraid to find it out. I think it could bring closure or it could make things even worse. Has anyone here ever hired a PI to find out the truth about who your S really was and is?
Oh, and another really bizarre thing – I was absolutely, positively forbidden to EVER ask to go out to dinner. Nevermind that I cooked for him non-stop. One day I did not back down, as he’s suggested we might go out for dinner. He came over that night and I meekly asked if we were going to. He became enraged. He started pounding on my kitchen counter yelling “what did you just say?!” I repeated myself calmly three times. At this point he picked up a big container and threw it at my dishwasher (new dishwasher) shattering plates. I then changed my phone number. A month later both of my parents ended up in the hospital seriously ill at the same time so in a moment of weakness I called him. It started up the cycle again. It was complete insanity. Does this make him an S in addition to being a giant narcissist?
kathy0707: I can’t say “WHAT” he is. But obviously, he is not something/someone I want around ME. It sounds like a totally abusive situation and one you don’t need around you. We all ‘fall’ and make mistakes in going back…but we learn, sooner or later, that there is no change.
Pick up the pieces of yourself and move forward.
I am sorry about your parents and do hope they are alright.
You need to stop focusing on him and focus on you.
Dupey
Thanks, Dupey.
This presumes there is a “ME” still left to focus on. I just want closure, but I have to accept there may never be any.
My Dad passed away two years ago after a 10 year battle with Alzheimer’s. The last four years of his life were spent in lockdown. The nightmare in that (aside from losing him but what kind of life does one have in a lockdown ward?) were the reactions of those I trusted the most. Let’s just say those closest to me were cruel. So they are no longer in my life anymore.
I am a Tabla Rasa at this point. Everyone I trusted betrayed me so I’ve no idea where to go, what to do in order to reinvent myself. I had hoped for friends in my new residence, but no one wants anything to do with someone who has been stalked.
I think at this point I am going to look into master’s programs out of state. This place has never been good for me anyway.
Best wishes to you BFTE. If you have kids (even the furbaby kind), Happy Mother’s Day!
Closure is something we aren’t likely to get from people like this so we have to reinvent closure within ourselves. There IS a ‘me’ left to focus on. As long as we are breathing and alive, there is a ‘me’.
Sorry about your father. I know all about that cruelty. I grew up in a very dysfunctional environment and left it behind me at the age of 16 and made myself who I am and chose where I wanted to go….I know how cruel people can be.
Betrayal is what my life has been about but I guess I have to admit I allowed my kindness and ‘over the top caring’ lead me there. Here I am, almost 61, and I am having to reinvent myself. Having the medical stuff I do, knowing what I know, it is a very daunting task to work on a future you know you may not have. I may die from a heart attack but “IT” isn’t going to take my life from me. I can promise that much.
Yes, look at education to reinvent yourself. Education is the key. You will do fine. It just takes time to get over the hurt. To recognize that we CAN stand up on our own merits and be the people we are. We need to set those boundaries down and work from there.
Love and best wishes to you, too, kathy0707….I do have children; four grown ones…thanks for the Mother’s Day wishes. I hope you will enjoy your day as well.
In the struggle ~ Dupey
G-d Kathy 0707 —- your stories are horrendous. I don’t have much time before I have to sign off, but I just wanted to say I *feel* you devastation….the experience you had w/corporate America makes me sick. I feel as you do, but I am older. I really hope you go back to school and do the social work thing, if that’s what you really want to do. Having some pacifier-sucking baby tell me what to do is NOT going to happen to me again. I will NEVER forgive the demonic way I was treated after giving my life to HP. Oh well, I won’t bore you guys with my grave, grave ire.
Kathy, for you to have met *2* paths in a row, one at your corp job and another volunteering…..wow. Indescribably terrible. Daunting really. I did not realize it at the time, but I dated a path yrs ago who was my “trainer” for a volunteer job I decided to undertake. I thought exactly as you did, that this guy has to be upstanding because he’s soc. worker, working on his Ph.D in social work, interning by training folks for this volunteer job. He *has* to be fine! A HUGE socio! HUGE!!! The worst part is he’s still practicing and the reviews on him are chilling. OMG. He treated me so insanely, gaslighting, etc. Thank heavens, I was not in love with him, but I was so naive and took it so hard. He knew exactly where/how to hurt me and just jabbed me constantly. I was so glad that other women at the vol. ctr let me know he was an a** to the max and I turned off to him immediately. He approached me one night when I was working and I told him to get the HELL out of my face. And BOY I meant it.
Lesson learned, really, until I started working with Godzilla in 2011. And by then, 30 yrs later, that lesson was forgotten. They were different types.
I agree with Dupey (Hi Dupey!). Focus on yourself. Abuse is never acceptable in any form. I know we all analyze and want to find a nice neat way to tie this shit up with a bow but it just isn’t going to happen. Understand that. I’m having trouble too. We all are.
OK, listen take care, Kathy, Dupey, Truth and all the rest of you “chosen women!” Truth, I read about your dream….
More later! Happy Mom’s Day to those who qualify!
MANY HUGS to all!
Thanks, still reeling. Make that *3* paths in eight years, if you figure in the stalkers and they have been relentless. However, I must say I think things have settled down a bit on that front. They are getting NO reaction regarding things so maybe they’ll just move on and figure it’s not worth the risk to come here. Every car in and out of this place is videotaped upon entrance and exit so that works in my favor.
It’s so eacy to view those in certain jobs (the clergy, social work – even police officers) as being the good guys, but as we’ve both discovered, it just ain’t always that way.
I still struggle with the N/NS I met as I really fell hard for him. Because he worked in mental health doing God’s work (as he puts it) I just assumed he was right when he blamed me for everything. He’s never been in therapy, never taken any medication, so I assumed I was the one at fault with all the issues. I now know better and boy that guy has issues.
What really hurt was his pronouncement of me as “delusional” last November regarding the stalking, in spite of my well trained therapist KNOWING it was happening, but then to tell me in so many words I’d lost my looks was slightly devastating. Well, my dad had died, there had been several betrayals by friends of many years, I’d gone through a nervous breakdown of sorts, plus I was being stalked EVERY single night all night long! Of course I looked different.
I am taking time now to “rest” and recuperate from it all. I am worried about my Mom but finding ways to take my mind off that. Reading on the Net helps. She lives in another state and I have to go visit her, yet she is saying not to until she is better. Well, she may not get better. I am nervous about leaving this place even for a few days, as my stalkers are vandalizers and I fear a break-in, alarms going off, police showing up and I won’t be here to deal with it. I’ll worry about that tomorrow.
BTW, I do have two ADORABLE Shih Tzus and a fluffy cat, so I am counting myself as a Mom too! 🙂 Sleep well to all tonight! Peaceful dreams!