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
Alive if you peek back, you sound great and Happy Mother’s Day to you as well!!!!!
Agree, Skylar, that was chilling: “addicted to shameful behavior” ( it feels good to them ) and are actually capable of not feeling fear…I wish I had that particular capability. WOW
BASTARDS
Thx for the explanation Skylar…indeed these things do not seem to carry even one human characteristic. When I picture Godzilla, it’s just plain frightening. To think…..what I thought..what we all thought…is unthinkable.
Applying like mad for jobs and trying to figure out health care….I’d give anything if this corporate greedy crap would cease. I was around and working when things were the polar opposite. And guess what, there was still great wealth, unfortunate poverty but also a *middle class* which is going away. Hello third world. No one seems to care about anything but themselves. I get it…survival!! But you can’t survive that way. I hope to hell I don’t have to be alive to see what’s going to happen if things don’t change *back* to an employee/customer-centric nation.
Folks are accepting insidious conditions in the work force as the norm as the filthy, filthy rich get richer and the rest go under. Being laid off is also the norm. How can we allow this to happen in this country????
Anyway, didn’t mean to blow my cork there but I’ve just about had it and I can tell you corporate America has changed me in a bad way. There is so little I care about anymore, esp co-workers *or* my place of work. This is also going to be the norm. Kids today understand a new job just means 2 yrs to find a better one..the lack of loyalty is going to kill what’s left of corporate America. Good. Ya gotta start somewhere. I just hope and pray all perpetrators go to jail or wose. They are total paths btw. Have to be, from Kenneth Lay to Richard Scrusshy and that despicable Dennis Kozlowski asshole. I have HAD it having been right in there watching it happen at 2 Fortune 500’s, IBM being one of them…I saw the whole deal and it was NOT pretty.
When I had my first perf evaluation there, I was told, “You, Reeling, will have a job with Big Blue for as long as you’d like. Encourge any family members as well.” F’ing, F’ing liars.
I did not come out here to go there..but I am so tired and so down and so exhausted from this work shit and path crap and all the rest, I’m just plain done. I am going to move forward, but every time this happens, I am OLDER and angrier and this time, I just don’t know if I am able to learn another job!! Gotta get positive. Gotta.
I came out to say that I had this weird feeling last night about Godzilla. He can drown for all I care, but somehow he jumped into my head and the first feeling I always get about him is that he’s smarmy…I felt that the first time I interviewed with him…very unattractive smarminess that left me feeling like I needed to shower even before a workout.
So that feeling came to me last night and my reaction was to shudder as always and feel this slight pinch of recognition or something that I always throw away. Last night, that recog kicked in. I realized that he is the embodiment of a man (creature) I encountered at age 11 or so in a movie theater that tried to get his hand under my thigh and into my underwear. I was sitting next to this guy who was all alone (such a no no, and I don’t recall why I sat there….I don’t think we worried about that stuff when I was a kid). Next to me on the other side was a girlfriend.
After the movie began, I felt something going underneath my upper leg. I could not even imagine. I looked over and this sick sick creep has his face covered with his jacket, as well as his hand covered with the sleeve, I guess and he proceeded to go it again. I whispered to my friend (we have to move, this guy is playing with my leg…I had NO idea what he was aiming for…..NO IDEA at all but it was sick and I knew that). We got up to move and I said “Excuse me,” he said, “Surely.” Definitely a word Godzilla would use. I so wish I would have kicked, then punched him in the balls, and while he screamed and grasped himself, broke every bone in both hands, rendering him both castrated and unable to ever use either hand again.
Would be joyful to know that Godzilla was castrated, that son of a bitch. They are two peas in a pod.
Did I get too raunchy for you guys? Sorry.
StillReeling, no – not too raunchy, just truthful. 🙂
I’m searching for employment, as well, in every field that I can and I’m not even being called for interviews. BUT – we are never “too old” to learn something new. We really aren’t.
Maybe, it’s time that you explored something that you wish you had always done? Like……an art class, or acting class, or a creative writing class, or master-gardening class? Perhaps, this is YOUR time to attend to YOU, StillReeling. Yeah, it’s all pretty scary, but I’ve learned something about myself, recently: no matter what kind of fears, pain, or emotional issues I’m facing, this earth is still going to spin on her axis and billions of people around the world are experiencing their own type of issues.
HUGS to you, StillReeling!
Thanks Truth! I did think my last sentence was rough – but I do believe it. I think they would get in less trouble if they didn’t have genitalia. And they wouldn’t pass along their genes either.
I wish you good luck in the job search, Truth! I am doing all I can, and am so busy searching, figuring out health ins, umemployment compensation…G-d, ins is so expensive…that is my biggest worry.
Again, best of luck to you and I appreciate your response back to me….I didn’t want to put anyone off…just got a little infuriated back there…..take care
“no matter what kind of fears, pain, or emotional issues I’m facing, this earth is still going to spin on her axis and billions of people around the world are experiencing their own type of issues.”
Yes, Truth, these kinds of “epiphanies” are so important. Stepping out of oneself is so healing. When I can do it, it feels so peaceful and empowering.
Big hug back atcha, friend.
StillReeling, I sure hope that I’m getting into the healing process – thank you for your encouragement! I don’t “feel” as if I’m healing, at all – but, I can see where I was a few months ago, and I’m changed, for sure.
As an aside, I’m still having really strange and disturbing dreams, and I want to relay this most recent one simply because I believe that it’s “saying something,” but I can’t seem to decipher it (again).
The dream was brief, but I was in the body of a woman who was to be noted in History – an historical female figure, though unidentifiable. I was cognizant that I was this un-named woman and that there was going to be an historical event associated with her. I (as this figure) was in a concentration-camp-style uniform complete with a cap (which I NEVER wear), and I was standing in a line with other prisoners. Something had ocurred and everyone was being questioned – nobody was answering whatever the accusation was and I apparently presented a demeanor that the questioner did not like. He came at me with a riding crop and struck me on my leg – I could actually FEEL the pain of this, but my character did not cry out or react, so he struck me harder. I still did not react or cry out in pain. Then, he handed me off to a couple of goons who were going to “teach” me about respect. I had the feeling that I was going to endure something quite horrible and that people who would read about my character in the future would never know THIS part of the character’s history. I had the feeling that I was going to be brutally raped by either the goons or someone else.
SO……does anyone else experience these types of cryptic dreams? I know that a lot of emotional stuff is decompressed or released in random dreams, but I’ve been experiencing a lot of this, lately.
Sheeeeeeeesh, I’m just done with all of this and I SO want it to be over with for good or ill.
Thanks for a place to vent! 😀
Truthspeak, Yes, I had a lot of crazy dreams. In one I dreamed my hub (at the time) Fred, the reqruiter, was, Freddy Krugger, (from nightmare on Elm Street.) The dream startd in a lovely place like a park on a Spring day, but suddenly everything changed…the weather grew dark and forboding and I became afraid…and my wonderful hero husband turned into Freddy Krugger…I knew I was having a nightmare and so struggled to wake up, only to fall asleep again and fall right back into the dream turned nightmare.
About your dream…I think it is warning you of a possible Charictar assassination…are you being held prisoner by your thoughts? I am associating with the word “concentration’ as in concentration camp. I am also associating with the cap you never wear…could this be a thinking cap. You are in line, (on line?) with other prisoners, (us?) you are nameless, and will go down in history…go DOWN in his story? Just some thoughts…might help.
Oh, I can so identify with still reeling’s frustration over what corporate America has become. I just avoid it altogether feeling like my time has come and gone. My resume has been devastated. I’m thinking about going back to school (at my 50 plus age) for a master’s in social work. I figure it’s a field where age isn’t held against you and God knows I’ve been through enough to identify with anyone else’s pain.
I feel like I’ve lost any skills I had and do not want to report to another 20 something only to be told I need to manage my time better. In all my years working that was a first. I was actually written up, written up! for being sick WITH a Dr’s note. My how times have changed. Anyway, it’s a subject that provokes great anxiety in me. I guess it makes me think of my last GOOD job where I was targeted by a sociopath (as a sidenote, I once overheard him telling a coworker that if he went to Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous – a 12 step group, that one can even get some of those women to commit suicide! How SICK is that?!) Yup, this is the S who ruined me there.
So what did I do? I dropped out for awhile and decided I was going to do something good for humanity. I started volunteering at a homeless shelter where I met the BIGGEST narcissist of my life! He had charisma, charm, had never been married and told me I was his soulmate. Because he worked in homeless outreach (basically going out in the community to find the homeless and help them get on their feet) I thought NO WAY could he be a bad guy. That man put me through the wringer. Of course, the red flags were there, but I still could not believe he wasn’t a good guy because of what he did for a living.
I’ve looked at his LinkedIn profile. Lots of lies. He told me one thing and has posted another. All of a sudden he now has an education at a different school instead of the community college he really went to. I find him signed up on all these high school reunion sites (no doubt looking for a woman who married rich or got rich in her own right) to hook up with so he can live the life he so deserves because he is so SPECIAL.
Ugh! The whole thing just makes me sick. All the lies, all the letdowns, all the weekends I spent alone. The really warped thing is this guy made me want to become a better person – drop all my bad habits so I could grow old with him. When I quit my job and was moving out of state (when I still had that opportunity), he brought up marriage. Me like a fool stuck around until I became SO LOST I could not find my way out. I even wrote down all the horrible things he’d done to me and STILL could not get over him. I need to order that book “The Betrayal Bond” as it is the ONLY thing that can explain my never ending love for this person who was so horrible to me.
As recently as a couple of weeks ago I even considered calling him! Then I remembered our last conversation and how he said the Internet is Satan only to discover that guy has more interest generated in him on the Net than I do!
kathy0707: internet predators. They are everywhere. As soon as you see that, it’s an indication of something not so very good. I have learned that the hard way.
We are targeted because of the strong individuals we are and perhaps what we may have to offer them and their benefit. While it might ‘sting’ a bit to realize we were duped, better it should sting a smite over that than say, perhaps, ending up murdered and stuffed somewhere never to be found?
When it came to this point for me, in this ‘relationship nightmare’, I didn’t slowly exit the building…I RAN. Sure, it took me a few times to go back and check myself and what I was seeing and experiencing because they play on our conscious and our sense of what is right and good. I have heard mine mock anything good and right…even God Himself. “IT” is the God. I have been told so many times and all through this overpowering mind control and conditioning, I still hung on, thinking it was the ‘right’ thing to do. It wasn’t. It was a dead end road. So I let the hatred and upset almost consume me and my life. Ended up having a massive heart attack that is now sudden and fatal. Although I am sure I could argue in a court of law as to “ITS” involvement in my heart failure, I don’t have time for all of the drama and chaos to consume what is left of what life I have left.
I didn’t forgive but I absolved. And, since I have walked away from that hatred and bitterness, now, and the ‘roadshow’ entirely, by way of official request to cease all further communications, in any way and have blocked and taken much needed precautions to defend myself, I have found a great sense of peace inside. “I” walked away the bigger person.
“I” was the one who won this battle. And I very accurately explained the way things will be and that is the way they are. If they are not, we can take other measures to make that happen.
“I” was stalked for ten years by one of the most ‘smooth’ and ‘skilled’ con artists I think exists. After doing much reading and research, I would say I would liken him to the Richard Ramirez, Night Stalker, case, which happened in Los Angeles. Such similar traits and cruelty lurks underneath that very charming personality. They must have a school for them somewhere, where they like get certified in screwing people over and/or something and finding it amusing. To them, it’s amusing to see others suffer over something they done or/are doing because it makes them feel powerful which is something they seldom are. THAT is why they targeted us in the first place: their jealousy of us. They want to be like us but don’t know how because they are twisted. Whether it happened at birth, through genetics, or it was acquired, the fact still remains that they are twisted and as long as you have that around your life, you will be twisted too. Period.
Don’t follow him; ignore him. Consciously force yourself to move on past this. Empower yourself and be strong and brave and courageous. Look at things in a different perspective. In the way they are and should be looked at, stepping outside your emotions and seeing the real truths about your situation. There you will find some peace. It was the only thing that really worked for me, was looking at the real truth and accepting that and making peace with it. They don’t ever change, they only get worse. More skilled and ‘learned’. I believe this is true more so now, than ever before. I believe evil is alive and flourishing among us and that it is up to us to recognize that and protect ourselves and those we love and care about. Like a new breed of beings, with no conscious nor remorse. Feeding off others like a shark in the ocean, with only that ‘eating response’ going all the time…
Boundaries go right along with that ‘acceptance’, though. It has to. It just must.
Blessings…keep safe
Dupey