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
Hi Alivetoday,
I am so happy to hear you and your husband survived. So there you have it…you won and he lost.
I am in my late 40s….he is 6 years younger chronologically anyway…lol
I’m sure he would have gotten me to move in with him securing the demise of my marriage and then cheated on me…..possibly spreading diseases with his chronic Narcisstic need for sex and affirmation…..and then dumped me.
I think in the end you and I have both won:))
Snow
Ugh, the IT was 5 years younger then me and also was a body builder. He had affairs with women 15 years older (and younger) then himself while we were together and men also. He didn’t discriminate.
All the similarities SPOOK me!
Yep….I’m substantially older than the exspath, too. I was the “safe mommy” and the cash cow. Once the cash cow went dry, “safe mommy” was figuratively laid to rest.
So…..looking back on what happened, and their subsequent behaviors (men AND women), does anyone believe that they might have met an untimely end if they had remained? Just curious – my feeling is that I would have probably suffered a sudden and unexpected “accident” or illness that would have resulted in my death. Just curious….
Brightest blessings.
Thank you Snowwhite…when I think of him, I think of Silence of the Lamb…i dont think he is far from this…it terrifies me now…I have to look at my masochistic codependent self and get myself right…and I am so excited and have already made progress!!
Woundlicker, it SPOOKS me so much too…. some other species perhaps?
also, i thought i was fooling myself, when i saw a 14 year old responding to him with such joy, love and gratitude on FB…i knew underneath, he was attempting to secure another victim..the girls mother blocked him, but the girl set up another FB profile to remain in contact with him. he then blocked me…I am getting sick…when i see how weak i was not taking any responsible action…..i thought i was building stories because of the jealousy i had that he intentionally created…playing one against another (other women that is)
At Panther, just read your add-on…my heart skipped a beat ..it is all so identical…exactly..He said he was a King/God,,others are just puny mortals, objects for his use..I remember how he signed an email in the initial romance phase..”Conquered King”..he always used music as well in his seduction..
Panther, i was ready to be a “sister wife” anything he wanted to keep our love alive..he didnt want “conventional”..you and snow white expressed the journey perfectly…
Donna wrote an article a while backk about the fact that many Ps are neither gay nor straight but will fark anything that will go for it, man, woman, child or animal….so taking yourself to bed with a psychopath is playing sexual roulette with all the chambers of teh gun loaded. Sometimes they will even KNOWINGLY SPREAD HIV or other diseases. So CARE is needed in many ways in dealing with these creeps.
My ex-spath was 9 years younger in dates… At first I thought he was more mature than his age, but that was part of his mask. Ugh. Mentally he turned out to be no older than a 5 year old.
Hello Everyone,
It just amazes me how all of your comments exactly match the behaviors I noticed. “Prince Charming” was not really the macho type. He is very soft spoken and to most people very quiet–silent but deadly. Never showed much emotion. At first he lied and said that he had only had protected sex with the women he was with. Eventually, when pressed for answers, he admitted to having unprotected sex. Yet he refused to get tested and put me in danger. When I told him I was getting tested and said that he should, too. I didn’t hear from him for days….this from the man who texted continuously day and night. That was the last straw. I realized that he would never be responsible and all responsibilities in life would be up to me to handle. He was very impulsive and given any attention to any woman, he would act on it.
Regarding the financial stuff–I am substantially more well off than he is. I never really thought that he might be using me for money. But after reading all the blogs, I’m certain that would have been an issue as well.
It’s also ironic….before we became involved, I would tell him he pretty much could have any women from 25+ and that he would find someone. We should remain just friends. He persisted that I was the ONE….his soulmate…his future wife….what a joke. Anyone is the one….that is anyone who will tolerate his cheating and controlling.
At one point he told me that he would have to monitor my texts and emails if I gave him cause. I thought he was joking. Total Control Freak. After talking with his ex….that is exactly what he did to her. He found out her passwords and would spy on her, all the while he was on dating website and hooking up with other women.
The pathetic thing is that he believes that “you women are all the same” He believes that he is the victim and always will. I truly believe he hates women.
Today we’re packing up our lives, getting ready for a house sale in which I will sell everything I own in order to survive the debt I’ve incurred while supporting him.
I’m in default on my student loans. I have no phone anymore because I was paying his bills (so that he wouldn’t be so stressed out) rather than mine. I moved him here a year ago, spent nearly $6000 doing so. And another $4000 keeping him fed/housed/comfortable. I paid his credit card bills, his student loans, his car insurance, his medical bills, for birthday presents for his nieces and nephews. I am on social security disability. My entire savings is gone. Not just depleted. GONE. I’m overdrawn about $80 and I’m out of 2 medications.
All this time, he’s been so….fragile. So exhausted. In so much physical pain. Just ask him, he’ll recite the litany of things that prevent him from looking for work…making any effort to participate in our relationship whatsoever. He said we needed to get roommates so that I would have help paying the rent. I agreed. The people he chose moved in. And he got even more abusive because (he says) the stress of living with people makes him anxious and irritable. We went round and round, for three years before he moved in, about whether or not he could commit to a future life with me. I was concerned that he lived too much in the past…that he couldn’t process his issues, let go, and move on in a positive way. Even on the day he moved I was worried…I had second thoughts. But I’d waited so long….had faith for so long…believed that if I was just patient enough, worked hard enough, proved my devotion and loyalty…he would choose me.
I don’t understand why I’ve agreed to be treated this way for so many years. It’s not who I ever was, as an adult. It’s complete childhood behavior for me…my first betrayer being my biological father. Last year, my wonderful loving step father died and I just…disappeared. I’ve realized now that his death opened some kind of door for my partner to walk through…and to exploit….and I’ve become that little girl who just wanted her dad to love her. The physical, emotional, verbal and sexual abuse that was part of the first 6 years of my life built that door…but I thought it was closed forever now. I did years of therapy to close it. I don’t understand how I could let it open again. I don’t understand how I could let this happen…because I feel like I need to be responsible…accountable…I’m not a victim. I volunteered for this.
But most of all, I don’t understand how someone who says they love me could be content to watch me flounder….and be buried under the debt and the pain and the loneliness. How can anyone be content to let that happen?
He made me give him all my passwords..email, phone, FB.my daughters number, my husbands number (to prove my loyalty to him)…he would always review my text messages and then pretend it was me texting my female friends to “see what was really going on”..
He said we were soul mates… but i believe we were soul mates but not human mates…our souls had work to do…so that I could evolve..so that I could gain knowledge and not be the naive girl who thought that everybody really has good intentions,,,(it took 3 1/2 years of torturous hell before i bottomed..the last year wanting to die to stop the pain)…in fact, in retrospect, i am thankful(try to be) for the experience…i am gaining self-esteem, self-respect, an identity, learning to trust my gut, be assertive and implement boundaries….of course, i wish i could of evolved without the psychopath but somehow this was the wake up call..the other little signs along my journey were not doing the job so i got the psychopath and he did it!! With this outlook, I was able to stay alive…to try to have some type of understanding, some sanity to the experience..it took so long for the obsession to stop and I fight it by replacing quickly an affirmation or a happy thought,,,,i hope all of it will be deleted from my emotions so that I may thrive 100%…lately, i cant sleep because i fear he will break in my house and attempt to hurt or kill me..he is very dangerous…i fear this, because i did rejected him on his attempt to reconnect……
thank you all for letting me purge..i wish i knew about this site before today, but hopefully, i will be able to aid another in their healing
Hi Zootowngirl,
When you google, “what do you call a person without a conscience?”, websites with the terms sociopath and psychopath pop up!
Those are the people who can be content with destroying others.
Picture yourself in the future….what do you see for your self? Capture the image of whatever that is…….it will be come a reality:)
Snow