Editor’s note: The following post was written by the Lovefraud reader “IMarriedIt.” Names are changed.
Thirteen years ago, I was an attractive, confident single woman. I owned a small house with 2 cats & a dog. I wasn’t looking to date when I met a charsmatic man at work, Simon, or rather, he made a beeline for me. I told him I wasn’t interested in dating. He then chose the words he knew would reassure me, that we could spend time together as just friends, but it wouldn’t be dating. We did things together & had dinner as pals (so I thought). He amped up the charm and was likeable & witty, though I thought there was something a little strange about him. One night he rang my doorbell, saying his former girlfriend had thrown him out, putting his belongings in the front yard. They’d supposedly broken up but he still lived in her house.
Red flags ignored
WHY WHY WHY didn’t I tell him to go to a motel? My alarm bells were clanging like a ship’s bells approaching an iceberg. Why did I ignore them & let him come inside? He said it was late at night & he had nowhere to stay.
Well, he never left. He made himself my right hand man, helping with housework, mowing the grass, etc. I liked to hike with my dog. Really? So did he! I loved to sit on my porch & watch the sunset on a summer eve. Wow! He did too, & he loved talking for hours. We had SO much in common.
After a few months, I ran into the former girlfriend. She was a nice lady & gave me her number. She tried to warn me about Simon but I thought she was just bitter because they broke up. Soon, I had some serious reservations about Simon so I called her. She said Simon was really good at figuring out what you want to hear & that’s what he tells you. She said Simon had an anger problem & drove recklessly. He never felt bad about scaring her. After we were married, I noticed Simons’s road rage. He tailgated & flipped people off. Once, Simon tried to run a car off the road while I was with him, I told him never to do that— what if the other driver had a gun & I got hurt? Simon seemed exhiliarated & laughed at the fear on my face.
Sexual desires revealed
Former girlfriend warned me that Simon liked to do some kinky things in bed that she just didn’t want to do. While I was on the phone with her, Simon came in. He stared me down, arms crossed with eyes like lasers. He never said a word but I got nervous & ended the call. In hindsight, I see that Simon was running off my friends, becoming my everything & getting very controlling. He started bullying me so subtly I didn’t notice I wasn’t independent or confident in myself any more. I ran every little decision past Simon for his approval. Simon liked that. Once, on a flight, Simon remarked that he hated flying because he wasn’t the one in control. “I have to be in control!”
Within six months of meeting Simon, he was pushing to get married. I wasn’t keen on that but Simon kept asking. My red flags were flapping as if in hurricane winds. WHY WHY WHY did I say yes one afternoon? It was too soon, and some things were bothering me about Simon, such as his porn use, but I thought it was occasional so I didn’t make a big issue of it. I figured no man was perfect & we had so much in common. I’d never find that in anyone else.
Sadly, I learned after twelve years of marriage that Simon has accounts on several swingers websites & had been running personals ads for several years. He described himself as seeking, searching or looking for men, women, couples & transvestites. So my husband was bisexual & I found condoms in his shaving kit when he returned from a trip. I went through the agony & humilliation of getting tested for STD’s.
Wedding jitters
I was the perfect target for Simon; my family lived out of state & I had no friends left to take me aside & express concerns. Simon suggested a simple wedding in a Las Vegas chapel so that’s what we did. I felt nauseous & clammy during the brief ceremony, which I thought was just jitters. Walking the strip, Simon seemed really fascinated by the guys slapping the hookers cards in tourists’ hands, but I thought, aw, he’s a guy. Soon, Simon & I bought a bigger house with the downpayment from selling my little home. I also made Simon the beneficiary on my investments. Now I see how Simon used me financially.
Soon after our marriage Simon got in trouble at work for sexual harassment. Simon said he didn’t do it, it was just some disgruntled employees making up lies so I accepted his explanation. A few weeks ago, my friend told me he’s hit on her too, & she warned Simon to cut it out or she’d tell me.I learned more things about Simon. He said he’d always been the black sheep of his family & had got in lots of trouble as a teen. His sister accused him of molesting her. Their mother believed his sister so Simon hates them both. I think it’s a classic case of gaslighting because Simon blames his sister for reporting him & said his sister was mentally ill. Simon got in trouble for having sex with a neighbor girl too. After that, Simon’s father put him in the Army.
During our marriage Simon’s brother got upset because Simon owed him money & wasn’t paying it back. Simon said it was ridiculous because his brother was wealthy & didn’t need it paid back. He wasn’t concerned about the rift this put between him & his only brother. A man at work asked me to give Simon a message that he still owed him money. Simon said that was a lie.
Juggling me and the porn sites
Simon’s mask of mild mannered indulgent husband slipped pretty quickly & we had frequent quarrels. Simon went for days at a time not talking to me. I guess when he thought I was distraught enough, out of the blue he’d call my cell saying “Hello, wifey!” in a silky voice, like nothing happened. He acted loving & bought me jewelry until the next cycle. I think now he bought me jewelry because he’d cheated on me. Simon spent lots of time in the den on his computer & minimized the screen when he heard me coming. I googled Simon’s email & screen name & found his personals ads on some dating sites.Now I know Simon was juggling me & his hook ups too.
I developed a sleep disorder which affected my job. Since Simon’s moved out, I haven’t had trouble sleeping normally. Simon was keeping me on a roller coaster of anxiety. My charming, smooth talking husband was really a monster. Simon also gained a hundred pounds over time. The more I urged him to lose weight & take care of his health, the more weight he gained. Maybe he did it to hurt me, I don’t know.
Bullying and sexual harassment at work
A year ago, Simon’s brother told him their mother was terminally ill & urged Simon to go visit her. Simon said he didn’t want to, & his mom passed away a little later. Who could be so cold as to refuse to see their dying mother? I expected Simon to show some grief after her death, but he acted like nothing happened.
Simon recently got in trouble again at work for continual bullying & intimidation of his employees, & sexual harassment again. One of the females he sexually harassed was pregnant. I told Simon the she could’ve lost her baby from the stress he caused her & he said “Yeah right. Pffft. I never touched her or did anything they said. They’re all a bunch of liars & set me up.” There were several witnesses & the case against him was strong enough for Simon to get demoted & transferred to a town a hundred miles away.
Because of Simon’s misconduct again at work, we had to sell our home so Simon could relocate. I moved to a condo & Simon came “home” on weekends. I found females’ phone numbers in Simon’s suitcase & some DVD’s depicting bondage & violence to women. I finally told Simon I wanted to separate due to years of grief & misery with his cheating, bullying & deceiving me. I was also afraid of him now. Simon said phrases like, “There is no one else, I’ve never loved anyone like I love you & you’re the only woman for me.”
I thought he could change. NOT!
WHY WHY WHY did I give Simon another chance when he promised for the umteenth time to change? I really loved my faux husband & couldn’t seem to break it off. In a moment of weakness I let him come back. He actually had me convinced that long distance marriages can work, if our love is strong enough. Finally, the light bulb came on for me:
- Why is it a long distance marriage in the first place? Because he got in serious trouble at work for which he blames everyone else & is not sorry
- Why does my husband live in another town? Because he got demoted & transferred for hitting on women & being a workplace bully
- What a sorry excuse of a marriage this is, with us living apart & him visiting me on weekends & what is he doing Monday through Friday?
I found evidence he was juggling me & the hook up ads. This time I told Simon I wanted a divorce because I don’t think he’ll ever be honest or faithful or change the cold blooded person he is inside. He’s shown no remorse for hurting so many people, including the severe damage he’s done to me, his wife, & my ability to ever trust another man.
Divorced and starting over
Now I’m about ten years away from retirement, starting life over as a single woman supporting myself. My husband & I were supposed to be life partners & travel together during our retirement. It was all a big con by a sociopath, the appearance he wanted of a normal decent married man. I was just an arm piece & a source of sex & a good income. He never loved me, as evidenced by all the hook up ads, probable adulteries & even hitting on my friend soon after our wedding. His family has cut ties with Simon too, because he’s gone through three marriages, several girlfriends, & has burned his family too.
I looked at some pictures I took of Simon recently, & was creeped out by how he was looking at me. His eyes were predatory & he stared a hole through me. There was no tenderness in those eyes without a soul. He almost looked evil.
Looking for feedback
I welcome & appreciate any feedback! I’ve read the Lovefraud books & read the blog almost every day. I’m making progress from the paralyzing fog that barely let me function at work. My boss has been kind. I have many more good days than bad now, & am working to get back the strong, confident woman I started this story being thirteen years ago.
I still have the cats! “Living well is the best revenge” is my motto. I’m reading all I can find about sociopaths & am getting healthy again mentally. Please know that there have been times the web site & the books have kept me sane!
Dorothy2, spaths tend to drag their victim targets down to some very dark paths – this happened with both exspaths. They each had their own deviances that would have dissected my own “Self,” and left me bare-bones had they each succeeded in their efforts.
They are ONLY as “good” as we are, folks. They MIRROR what they perceive our own desires and abilities are. If THEY seemed to be “good” lovers, it’s because they mirrored – reflected – acted out – what they saw in us. They are not imaginative BECAUSE they are unable to make any emotional connection. So, in lieu of emotion, the physical connection is formed in the way of sex.
It’s not THEM that were so “good” in the sack. It was US and our EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT and the belief that sex was an expression of LOVE that they glommed onto and reflected.
They cannot connect, on any level, that is anywhere beyond the immediate, physical experience. Even that leaves them disdainful and belittling BECAUSE they do not experience the emotional bond.
Dorothy2, right now, you’re in the space where you NEED to know about spaths – I’ve been there to the point where it had nearly become an obsession to learn as much as I could. The motive behind this was that I believed that “understanding” would bring some sort of closure for me, and hope for the exspaths’ recovery into humanity. It could NOT be possible that any human being was devoid of a soul – it didn’t factor into my own system of beliefs. Well, the more information that I absorbed, the more questions that I developed. There finally came a point when it no longer mattered because I had finally “accepted” that both exspaths had been predators, without conscience, without remorse, without empathy – without souls. I finally understood what I needed to know: I had no power or influence to help, change, heal, or alter these predators.
You’re NOT doomed. This, too, shall pass.
Brightest blessings
Truthspeak….that’s what is weird though. Not to sound conceited but I am good in bed. I was probably better in be with him than I have ever been with anyone. He on the other hand sucked for the most part. He just didn’t seem to want to be bothered. If he did try something, he put such little effort into it there was no point. He just didn’t have IT that way. But since sex isn’t the begin all and the end all for me it wasn’t really that important to me and I enjoined pleasing him..but I did need to see some effort or desire to please me in SOME way. So how about initiating a back rub, lighting a candle, drawing me a bubble bath? Nope. I could go on and on. It’s so friggin sad.
Hey Dorothy2,
We are not doomed…b/c cause …DING DONG, the WITCH is DEAD….i.e., the spath is no longer controlling and using us. A long but freindly path of healing ahead : )
I too miss the sex with spath-a-zilla…but really, was it great or just part of the illusion? Illusion, I think. There is nothing great about giving my body to a man who viewed me as a peice of flesh…and thought nothing of sleeping with others while he was still intimate with me. YUK
Peace n hugs,
Blue
Dorothy2, it’s “sad” because it’s ugly. But, this is the truth about spath sex: it’s only as much of a physical act as evacuating their bowels. There is NO emotional connection, and therefore just a reflection of their targets.
Sex with the second exspath was so dismal and oddball that I finally gave up trying to initiate lovemaking. It never WAS lovemaking, on any level, and I didn’t know enough about these predators to connect the proverbial dots. I became utterly bored with “his pleasure” because it was NEVER reciprocal. And, in retrospect, there were glaring indications that he was NOT connecting on an emotional level that I simply ignored.
Then, when I began to get sicker and sicker, sex simply didn’t factor into my life, at all.
Today, I am struggling in extracting Truthspeak from what the exspath is on a sexual level. Once his mask of respectability fell and I discovered what he was truly interested in, my sexual identity disintegrated, and I cannot continue to associate MY sexual identity with what HE is, but I don’t know how to accomplish this.
Brightest blessings
Truthspeak, yep. As soon as we were married, spath could no longer get it up. We tried and tried and tried, and tried….and tried,…..we tried and tried. It became all about his Dick and how his Dick refused to respond to me. Just another way to totaaly devalue me. Not sure how his body was so able to align itself with his narcissism, but it did. I have read, though, that many men with ED are actually narcissists who have a fear of intimacy, or are sex addicts whose addiction is escalating to more and more shaming shocking ugliness and perversion. Makes “making love seem pretty boring, and especially making love with someone who wants intimacy…..
Oh, he was able to fall in love again, and again, and again, he just couldn’t stay in love. He could idealize, for awhile, but then the fear kicked in, and he had to devalue.
There is always fresh supply around the next corner. Always. Nobody’s special….just strange.
Truthspeak,
Thank you for saying that we are the mirrors and the sp just reflected what we had in us. That is a very comforting thought….
I think I’m also in the space where Dorothy2 is. I have done lots of research on sp’s and in doing so was able to pinpoint that my exhusband is a narcissist with antisocial tendencies. It totally explained a lot and also why I was so attracted to the sp. In the beginning he was so attentive to me, yet now when I really think back, he wasn’t attentive sexually. I always felt like I was some kind of experiment and sex was almost clinical (mainly him getting off and me faking it) He was always pushing for more and more and his requests were more and more depraved. Because I was always trying to prove that I wasn’t like his monsterous exgf, I would comply with the requests even if they went against everything I believed in. The only difference between her and I is the fact that he beat her down enough to do the swinging thing.
As a side note, the sp always talked about how his exgf cheated on him. Later, when he was pushing for the swinging and demanding he had the right to sleep with other people “should the occasion arise”, I questioned him about his relationship with his exgf. Since they were into the swinging and according to him, she “allowed” him to sleep with other people, I didn’t understand how he could say she was cheating. Doesn’t an open relationship mean you can sleep with who you want? When I confronted him with that, he got really angry and told me that she wasn’t allowed to sleep with other people, only he was. LOL! The insanity….
I too struggle with sex. I wonder if I will ever have a “normal” sexual relationship…what ever that may be. Is it fair?? Nope! I do know that I cannot be one of those women who have mindless sex to fulfill a need. I get too emotionally attached and have a hard time differentiating sex with love. Logically I know that not every man who has sex with me loves me, but I still hold onto that Disney dream where sex seals the deal to an emotional and physical love. I read a lot as a child. It was my way of coping with the chaos that reigned around me. Maybe I should have stuck with the text books instead of the love stories..lol!
OMG Kim. The beginning of your post made me laugh out loud. The trying was probably just a game to it. To see how many hoops you would jump through to get his pee pee hard! I’m sorry, not making light, it’s just so absurd sometimes it boggles my mind!!
Truthspeak, Blue, Kim….I can’t keep up with all the comments and posts but want you all to know that I hear you and I appreciate you.
Thank god there is this site. I honestly think I would have lost my friggin mind if I wouldn’t have found 180 Rule and LF. It helps so much to know I’m not alone in this experience. The truth of these creatures is so bizarrely absurd no one could imagine it unless they had been through it. Even now, having been through it, knowing you all have been through even worse….there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t read something on here that is even MORE bizarrely horrific.
So yes Blue…. The fucking witch is dead. Long live Dorothy!! LOL
Saskgirl, I’m 54, and at this point in my life, I think it’s entirely possible that I will never engage in intercourse again. I’m ok with that. I have BOB. When I was young, I was the perfect target for sex addicts. I was hot, and stupid. I looked good. Preatty face, nice figure, and stupidly, I put it out there. I also, just wanted to be loved.
Now, I’m not good bait, anymore. (a blessing, really)
I don’t flirt, I am flabber-gasted if I smell a flirtation….which is almost never.
I realize that as a child-hood sexual abuse survivor, a lot of my self worth was wrapped up in my sexuality. So, why on earth would I not attract a jerk, who could only value me on that level? Then, of course devalue me, completely?
Now, it’s about my spirit. Finding, loving, honering and healing my spirit.
Skylar posted a link about sexual differences between men and women, and how we bond differently. I think you might find it helpful.
One of the main take-away’s I got from it, is that women bond through the oxitocin cocktail we’re bathed in during orgasm, but men don’t. Men bond over time. They like the courtship, and the time it takes to woo and win a woman. Having sex too soon actually derails their bonding, and amps up ours.
I’m focussing on healing my spirit and if I’m bonding at all, it’s with BOB. 🙂
My brother who is 66 told me once, that women put the cart before the horse. They jump in with both feet, seal the deal, then work their way backward to fill in the blanks and build a relationship. I think, for the most part, that’s true. And it’s self defeating, isn’t it?
Kim….me too in younger years. I prostituted myself for companionship, male attention, physical intimacy or the illusion there of. You said it all so well like you read a page from my book. 53 for me. Holy cow….your words.
Um….what is BOB? Is it a battery operated something?? LOL