UPDATED FOR 2024. Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following from a reader who we’ll refer to as “Tanya” about her experience of trying to expose the sociopath.
I was 35 when I met my sociopath — we’ll call him Dave. I was in a top twenty graduate business program — a magnet for narcissists and sociopaths, by the way! A culture that so prizes appearances, financial accumulation, and power must seem irresistible to people with those disorders.
Dave seemed so great at first — attentive, interesting, intelligent, open, honest, fun. My friends warned that he was too flirty — but I only took that as a sign that he was desirable and, hey, I won him over when others had failed.
We were off and on for a few months — the usual drama of dating a pure sociopath took its toll right away. He did very scary things early on, like drink and drive, show up at my door in the middle of the night, call a dozen times a night, etc. etc. In the alcoholic daze that is your typical business school culture, his behavior didn’t stand out as much as it might in real life — but it really should have at the time.
He’s engaged
Finally we broke it off completely. Then one night I got a call from him — he was in Brazil on holiday (he lived there for a few years before coming to Business School) and he was calling to tell me that he was engaged to a girl he’d met there. He put her on the phone so that she could be reassured that he was no longer involved with me. I thought it was crazy, but in my own attempts to CONTROL the crazy (always the first mistake), I took it upon myself to tell his friends at school about the call. I framed it like “Congratulate Dave! He tells me he’s engaged!” He was furious with me when he came back and his friends no doubt thought I was insane.
Later, his “fiance” called me a few times trying to find him. I “googled” her name on my computer — again in an attempt to control the crazy— and found that he had been emailing her from my computer during the time we were dating. Then I found emails he had sent to a sex tourism site called Club Hombre. Over the previous two or three years, he had posted HUNDREDS of emails to this site, explaining his sexual exploits with prostitutes all over the world. His “fiance” was a prostitute. On the boards, he talked a lot about having unprotected sex with prostitutes in Rio and Turkey (both high HIV areas).
I reported what happened
I was so petrified. I went to the school clinic and explained my situation. The nurse told me that I had a one in thirty two chance of having HIV and I had to wait a week for test results to come back (thankfully, negative). During that week I went to my school counselor (a 27 year old kid new on the job) and tried to explain my situation. I brought in print-outs of the postings Dave had made to the sex site, and a note from the clinic explaining the risks he had exposed me to. I wanted to somehow get this guy on record before he put other women in our school at risk, even if it meant humiliating myself. The counselor was skeptical. He asked me if I wanted to file a restraining order and I said “no.” I thought that would only make things worse.
As per procedure, he had to bring Dave in as well. When he asked Dave if HE wanted to file a restraining order, Dave said “yes!” So, as a reward for my efforts to work within the system, I got a restraining order filed against ME for harassing DAVE. One of the worst days of my life.
Can’t control the crazy
That was three years ago, and I still definitely bear the scars of the experience. I try to put the details out of my mind and, even as I read this, I can’t believe it happened.
I do my best to not fault myself for getting involved in the first place. As so many others on your site have said, I was behaving normally in an abnormal situation. What I DO fault myself for is trying to CONTROL the crazy. Every time I tried to control it and expose the sociopath, I only made things worse for myself. The true trauma wasn’t the stuff that happened between me and him, but the stuff that happened when I tried to expose him to others. It was so awful to see how easily sociopaths can bend the system to their will. Before then, I believed I lived in a just, fair world and that I could trust the system to protect me when I needed it. After Dave, I know now that I have to protect MYSELF.
When I’m philosophical about it, I just think that it’s only human to want to believe that we live in an ordered, just world. We want to believe it so much that we ignore the disorder and unfairness RIGHT IN FRONT OF US, and this blind spot is where the sociopath functions. I’m so thankful that I emerged with much less damage than some others. I only wish that there was a way to constructively deal with this — to raise awareness about sociopathy in the same way that people raise awareness about cancer or drug abuse.
Thank you again for your site — it was cathartic to share my story.
Learn more: How to report your abuser’s crimes so the police take you seriously
Lovefraud originally posted this story on Dec. 16, 2009.
How the messages we hear all our lives keep us vulnerable to sociopaths
one step,
on my, i just want to reach out and hug you. i, too, have been in the position where i am afraid to make a move one way or the other for fear of the consequences (most of which wouldn’t happen, i just have a wild imagination.) i also know what happens when you do nothing and that’s probably been the worst for me.
please know you aren’t alone.
as for not calling your mother, it’s OK to not do something that will just add to the full load we are carrying at times. you, as well as others, know that family has been a huge issue. i had not read through your post when i was on here earlier.
i’m sending solace, strength and courage as well as prayers,
cat
One and only:
Welcome.
I would suggest you read, read, read……and not so much concentrate on the revenge part…..
It it about YOU now…..healing from the pain of betrayal….
I have found, the more education I have the more apt I am to avoid trouble in my future. I have also become aware on how to keep myself and my kids safe from various attacks from the ex S……
Financial, emotional, physical……
I don’t have any trust for anyone associated with him….yet, I ‘play the game’ when need be…..ie Thanksgiving and Christmas when the kids receive calls from his trojans…..
Awareness is key.
Empower yourself, educate yourself and keep your eyes wide open……
Karma is a bitch……they’ll get theirs from the universe!!!! No worries.
Welcome to LF!
Hi guys…not doing great right now… I checked a sex tourism website mentioned by someone here (bad idea) and now I’m thinking that what I found out about my sociopath ex boyfriend was bad (multiple relationships etc) but what I don’t know (and hopefully never will) is probably worse… now I believe he was seeing prostitutes too over the time we were together…I know I shouldn’t care because I’m away from him and safe (more or less) and miraculously still hiv negative but still it’s making me sick – 3 months after finding him out, I’m still disgusted by the fact I was sharing my bed and my life with such a scumbag. It’s a really creepy feeling…
Ok better now – phew – wow, hadn’t been overcome by such feelings in a while, anger and sadness ok, but that big YUK feeling not very often – didn’t last long – maybe writing it down made it go…
Eileen:
I am sorry about the deep down fall down nausea you felt….
But, I think you ought to be proud of yourself for regaining control over yourself so quickly.
I remember finding out about the ex s bisexual escapades….uggghhhhh! This was my husband of 19 years!!!
I find, when I tell people, embarrasment as if I don’t respect gay/lesbian/ or bi’sexuals…..and that is so not the case…..
Here I am feeling ‘guilty’ about my own statements…..excusing the fact that I am certainly OKAY with whatever anyone else on earth chooses to do….as long as they do not harm children or others…..be whtever you like….
BUT IF YOUR MY HUSBAND…..YOU MUST BE HETROSEXUAL!!!!
This behaviors wasn’t the ‘end’ of the end for me….I found this out after separation and quite by hapenstance…..
It totally grossed me out, because after 19 years….we didn’t wear condoms!
I found a pic of him on his knees with 2 men on a couch neked from the waist down….on Craigs list……OMG….right in my face…..I did go looking….at the prompting of a friend…..and low and behold……YIKES>…….eeeekkkksssss….sshhhheeessshhhh….ooooooooeeeeeeewwwww! YUCK!
To me, it was just ANOTHER confirmation I filed of WHO this freak was…..so when he comes back to me with the “I LOVE YOU”S” etc….. uh, yeah….NOT!
Glad you recovered……it’s amazing what we DON”T know….as much as we find out.
Writing does help me….I tend to go on and on….
Well, first of all, the spell finally wore off with the latest spath that I liked for only a few days to a week. What happened you ask? I was geeking around on my reptile site and saw an old post of his (he is now banned from the site). But before he left, he changed his signature to 2 nasty comments: one about me and one about the other woman. They were so nasty (calling her fat and me crazy) that I instantly felt sick and realized there is not nor could ever be anything between us. He is disgusting. End of story. Too bad that’s what it took.
Eileen, I guess that was the lesser version of your finding out your spath was indulging his sex addiction to the nth degree. Generally, I think it’s better not to know what they’re up to, but that also allows for a certain amount of slippage into denial–at least that’s how it works with me.
One step,
I got the feeling reading your last post that you are carrying so much burden on your shoulders and need some help. I wonder if there is a support group out there who could help you? A church (can be non-denominational), women’s group, or any community-based group? There are some very kind caring people out there who are willing to help with rent payments, food, maybe even living arrangements for people in need. It makes me sad that you are struggling so much, and you remind me of the many years I had of poverty and near homelessness, dependent on toxic bf’s for support, living in my car, going from one bad roommate situation to the next…..
The thing that finally got me out of poverty was becoming a private exotic dancer for 2 years. In some ways it was the best thing I ever did. In other ways it was very difficult. I wish I would have/could have just reached out for support back then. I’m finally doing it now that I’m 49. But it would have been nice to have a support network to help me shoulder the burden instead of trying to do it all myself. It’s so hard to reach out to others when you have been betrayed over and over by people. But I do believe there are kind people out there and that they will help, even if just to ease the sense of isolation.
EB and Star: thanks for your comments…
Sorry EB about what you went through…I also suspect my ex of being bi, potential rapist, peadophile and what else…I really hope I don’t learn anything else about what he did while we were together – what he did before I could handle fine, but the level of deceit and betrayal, to think of what he was doing to me without me knowing at the time…uugh
Stargazer you had a lucky escape it seems!! He retaliated like a…, well, like a sociopath, I guess…
Yeah, I lucked out with the first sociopath. There was only a discard and no devalue. Guess I got it the second time around. So grateful I saw it cause it really broke the spell he had me under.
Hi, All:
This article was a reminder for me.
I went home to the family manse for XMAS. Over the course of 3 days my Malignant N-mother was on an absolute tear about my S-father having blown his credit cards through the roof. Have to give her credit. Everytime she put the misery index through the roof she’d announce “I really don’t want to ruin everybody’s holiday.” Right. Thanks.
Thing is, my father has never carried a credit card balance in his life. Granted he is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, but there is no way he ran up these bills and has nothing to show for it. What was VERY interesting to me is that my conman brother, who has no discernible source of income, announced to me that he had “cleaned up” his balance sheet (we’ll ignore those 2 pesky foreclosures for the moment) and paid off 40 grand in credit card bills this year?
Coincidence? I think not.
To try to calm things down I offered to run an investigation on my father’s accounts since — HELLO! — I used to run criminal investigations. I said perhaps SOMEBODY had gotten his hands on my father’s credit card checks or was using his number. Of course, my gut tells me my sibling is the culprit.
While I owe neither of my parents any loyalty for the treament I received at their hands over the years, my desire to expose my brother is boiling over. And that leads to the crux of the matter. If I expose my sibling, there will be no thanks. This messenger, however, will be shot. Maybe I should go out and look for a dog that sings Wagner.