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 Louise,
Something you said clicked in my brain:
“I don’t think I ever will be the same. I really don’t. I may heal, but never the same.”
I’m on the 8th day of my breakup. We’re almost completely packed. Today we’re having a huge house/yard sale. We’re both selling everything we own in order to have the cash needed to sustain ourselves, separately, in the short-term. He’s so angry at me…for breaking up with him, for standing up to him, for depriving him of my money. He keeps making snide/hostile comments about losing everything important to him (inferring that he is angry about losing me and our life together). It took me a few days to realize that he’s really angry because I won’t hand over my disability check so he can get himself and all his possessions to his mother’s house in Indiana.
Last night he reached a new low…the low that made me agree with your statement about healing but never being the same. I have Early Onset Parkinson’s Disease. My symptoms tend to get worse during stressful events. Last night, when he was lecturing me about something I’d done I experienced an increase in symptoms…and he laughed at me…made fun of me.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought, despite it all, that he loved me. No matter what he’d done or hadn’t done, I thought he actually loved me.
Now I wonder whether he knows what that word means.
I have begun not to trust myself where he is concerned. I fall for his bait even more often as we negotiate our break up. While I *am* catching on, more and more as I read posts here, I still find myself buying into his trap – specifically the one that gets me to engage in emotionally charged conversations. He pushes all my buttons until I react and then turns into “the reasonable one”, making me look like an hysterical and irrational fool. Then he “forgives” me for being so reactionary.
I have finally realized that I can’t keep trying to have rational conversation with someone who has no intention of being rational. That knowledge doesn’t do away with the fear that I’ll slip up and find myself continuing our relationship. It’s bad enough that I love him — or that I’m addicted to him and that my addiction *feels* like love to me. After 4 years of roller-coaster style living and losing myself in the process, I don’t want to spend one minute longer than necessary with him, no matter how much my dysfunction tells me I do. At this point I’ve begun to treat myself as untrustworthy where he is concerned. Everything I want to say to him has been put on hold because it’s the best way to stay out of the situations he creates. I speak to him only when necessary and keep our interactions to a minimum. Thank God for our roommates who provide a good mirror for everything…and give me witnesses when I need to be reminded that he’s gaslighting me…and that I’m not crazy.
There’s a part of me that still wants to believe he doesn’t understand what he’s doing when he’s manipulating me. I want to believe that he’s just clueless and needs therapy/education/12-step groups…something…anything. And then he demoralizes me again…and I find that I really don’t care what he needs anymore.
Like you, I will quite literally never be the same. I am already a different person and, for better or worse, there is no going back. The one thing I do know is that I *will* heal…and it will be MY needs that are my focus. Not his.
Truthspeak, it has helped me so tremendously to finally let it all out. I am changing my ID today. I really feel like I have crossed over into true healing. Thank you for the encouragement I desperately needed. 🙂
~ Newandimproved
I’m trying out my new name. Just want to see if I changed it right.
zootowngirl:
I’m so sorry to hear you have Parkinson’s Disease and this guy is laughing at you. That is the ultimate betrayal. That just makes me sick.
You said something that resonated with me also when you said you thought he loved you. I am coming to the conclusion that they didn’t. No one who loves someone treats them the way we were treated. Maybe that’s the whole crux of all this for us all…they just didn’t care about us. MAYBE, just maybe if they met someone they loved, they would treat them better, but then again, they are incapable of love so what am I saying?? I don’t know.
It sounds like you are really getting strong…I love that!! Just keep going, one foot in front of the other and don’t look back. You will be fine 🙂 Hugs to you.
ZOOTOWNGIRL: My Spath did the same ‘low blow’ as your’s did to you. When I was 15, I was in a car accident that resulted in multiple fractures from head to toe. It was a long recovery and as a result 24 years later I limp when I am tired and my leg hurts! (I live with daily pain and osteoarthritis) During a gaslighting argument (which I only learned recently most of our arguments were gaslighting) he laughed at me too! He immitated how I walked down the stairs ! It was insulting and so hurtful when he did it…that was many of his low blows, but one I never forgot. I did put it out of my mind and thought to myself what a good person I am inside and out…and, so what if I ‘limp’ sometimes.
One word ZOOTOWNGIRL..one word…Karma!! lol
zootowngirl,
the only thing a spath likes as much as a victim with a trust fund, is a victim with a disability check.
My spath had friends who were with disabled women. None of them worked.
One was with a quadraplegic, another was with a woman who lost part of her arm.
I truly believe that there should be a government agency that warns people who are going on disability to watch for parasites. You would never imagine that anyone would go around looking for a love interest with a disability, but yes, they do look for the “limp”. It attracts them.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/take-all-prisoners/201001/vulnerability-and-other-prey-psychopaths
Skylar, you have got THAT right about trust funds and disability income! If a spath has ANY idea that there is an inheritance in the offing or already in existence, they set up their scams with incredible immediacy and detail. Of course, when it comes to attending to their legal obligations, immediacy or detail apply to others. Disability? Oh, boy – in their minds it is a permanent and never ending source of income. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr
Skylar,
There is that ‘limp’ thing again. Yep, they like it when a person has any type of limp, emotionally or physically.
shiat stains!
Ana, perhaps the “limp” is attractive because it represents frailty or vulnerability? I mean, they certainly don’t go up against their own kind, now do they? 😉
Truthspeak,
NO, they don’t! I’m thinking it would be a real bloodbath ;0
and probably quite nice to watch, with popcorn and everything! I’m in a crazy mood today 🙂 in a good way.