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!
Darwinsmom, thanks. I wish what you say is true but honestly…. I think in my heart of hearts, I did know he couldn’t change. I always had that nagging suspicion. That feeling that just wouldn’t go away!! That doubt! That’s what I mean…..I could never relax into knowing I was safe. The signs just kept saying…NO YOUR NOT! It’s like I just thought that somehow I could will the writing on the wall to say something other than
S P A T H ! I was wrong.
Dorothy, I had my doubts about him too always, including about the assault robbery I described. I just had no information, no real knowledge to support the nagging feeling.
Think of it this way: let’s say you enter a room full of aliens disguised as humans. You know in your gut that something is not right about them, but you CAN’T exactly say why. It’s in the way they move subtly different. It’s in the way their skin shines differently. You notice it, but think it’s a trick of light. And you certainly were not gonna run out and cry “these people aren’t real humans”, because to do that would just be madness. Not until you see one taking off their human suit do you have evidence of what was nagging you all along. But how in the hell could you have known that? Well, there was the movement, the gut feeling and the skin colour and shine… but at the time you didn’t know these were the signs to recognize an alien pretending to be human.
It’s NOT WRONG to prefer to see evidence before accusing people of not being human. It’s NOT WRONG ether to refuse to get to know someone better after he or she made your skin crawl. But by all likelihood. Once the skin starts crawling, you’ll be looking for red flags and notice them, and decide not to acquaint them on the basis of the red flags, not just the doutbs and gut feeling alone.
Darwinsmom….I understand. There is no doubt that I didn’t want to falsely brush him off without a chance but that’s the problem….too many chances. Like the movie Groundhogs Day. It just kept happening over and over and over!! How many times does it take? The very first day after I met him he called me no less than ten times during his work day. Even back then, under the fog of alcohol I KNEW that was a red flag!! And that he’d been married four times! I knew that was a do not enter sign!! LOL THis is all before I knew what a Spath was. Those signs should have told me to RUN! Then the real troubles started, and the multitude of chances that fell on their faces.
No…..I knew he was an alien from the get go but he was so fun and sexy and………I was asleep at the Dorothy wheel. Seriously……when he told me he lived with his mother? At 46?? RUN DOROTHY! RUN! ( I got that from Skylar!)
Dorothy, There were red flags ALL OVER THE place before I even got involved.
I had a choice: to go by my first gut thought the first time I ever even saw him walk by on the street (bad man! dark! don’t ever get near him) OR to see why he didn’t even deserve a chance to be even near me.
In honour of myself: my optimistic self I could not go by the first option back then. I would have been untrue to myself if I had not given him chance after chance to prove himself the opposite of my first condemning opinion of him.
I’ve got my optimistic self back, but I am also wiser now, and know and trust in myself that my gut can see the truth as well as armed with knowledge to look for the evidence to support it. I now know there truly are humans who do not even deserve 1 chance at all.
Can you blame a child for hoping and believing in Santa Claus? And even when a child is told that Santa Claus is but a story made up by grown ups, it needs time to let go of that belief. It might cling to the existence of Ruby the red nosed reindeer. Eventually, the child will let go of that too.
We have the original version here: Sinterklaas in early december. My father one evening around that time donned on a red curtain over his shoulder and put off his glasses. He didn’t make a false beard (he’s always been clean shaven). He didn’t use a wig (typical accountant haircut, to the side). He appeared to me as my father, with no glasses and a red curtain over his shoulders. I was extatic. Because Sinterklaas was there, coming to visit me and greet me. My father stepped out of the room, put his glasses back on and put away the red curtain. He entered the room again and I ran to him crying, “Daddy, daddy, You’ve just missed him. Sinterklaas was here! He was here!”
My father was actually flabbergasted. They could not believe I actually believed what I was saying myself. My father had been so recognizably my father. My parents were doubtful about whether to deceive a child into believing some fantasy story about an old saint who came from Spain on his steamboat to ride on his horse on the roofs and have a servant, black from the soot, deliver his gifts. My father did it as experiment, a joke. My parents decided afterwards to let me believe it, and not go against it.
I believed in Sinterklaas until I was 5. And then I started to really question the whole thing. The fantasy story went against al that was possible and logical. So, I confronted my mother with my doubts and she agreed with my doubts. But I still couldn’t let go of the magic regarding the story, the beauty of it, so I then said, “Well I can’t believe Sinterklaas still being alive and climbing all those roofs every year. But Black Pete (the name of the servant) is still a young chap. He can exist.” I clung to the soothing belief of Black Pete’s existence for a few months more. Then I was ready to let it go, and just ask my mom, “It’s you who’s giving me all the gifts, isn’t it?” And she admitted it. Nevertheless we kept up the ritual until I was 12 or something. We all knew the thruth, but we still all three pretended the story. My parents would still wait for me to be asleep, before laying everything in readiness for me to discover in the morning. (I had no brothers or sisters to keep the pretense game up). And sometimes we still play at it (but now I do it to them as well). “Oh, look! Look what Sinterklaas dropped through the chimney.”
Of course the Santa Claus and Sinterklaas myth are benevolent lies and rituals. They are harmless. The mask of a spath is not benevolent and is very harmful. But the need to believe in a soulmate, in a person who thinks you’re special and whill change for the better because of your love has an equal mythical power and beauty as that of Snata Claus to want to cling to it for as long as you can bare it.
When it came to factual knowledge about humanity, what makes someone good and kind, and what makes someone malicious… you were but an innocent child.
Dorothy2, it sounds like you’re wrestling with the Cog/Diss Bull – I do the same thing, from time to time, especially when I fall into that “I should have KNOWN! Shame on ME! It’s MY fault that he/she did what they did! I HAVE to take responsibility – for everyone, and everything!”
The Cog/Diss Bull is a wily and sinewy adversary. The mind simply cannot process the facts in a way that fits into my flawed system of beliefs. I would not defraud someone of their private investments or live a double-life, drain them dry, and discard them after they no longer had cash value. I just wouldn’t. Because I wouldn’t do this to another human being, anyone that I love or care about should (in MY mind) share those same values and abide by them. Instead, I could love and care for even the most heinous that humanity has to offer IF – and, I type this without the benefit of bold, italic underlining – IF that person is crafty enough to exploit my vulnerabilities, core-issues, and pervert my strengths and values to THEIR PURPOSES. Now that I have been educated, I am wary. PRIOR to accepting the brutal, ugly fact that I had been duped by a very sick, twisted, perverted, and vicious predator, I did not realize that I had the power to alter my system of beliefs to reflect FACT and not FEELINGS.
I think that it might be an option for you to avoid using the term “responsible” or “responsibility” in reference to yourself until you’re able to wrap your head around the fact that the spath perpetrated an ILLUSION that you had no reason to doubt – did any of us doubt the illusions? Sure, there were little voices chanting in very soft voices, but my broken “inner child” wanted love, acceptance, and validity, and if that meant overlooking certain “red flags,” my “inner child” demanded that I accept the “flaws” as part of his humanity because the ILLUSION spoke and acted (Oscar-winning) as if he cared.
This, I think, is where I became triggered, earlier. I’m okay and the triggering is NOT your fault, Dorothy2. I will always be susceptible to triggering and I am duty-bound to myself to learn to manage them.
Read up on cognitive dissonance when you have a chance. Then, ponder what my counseling therapist told me when I kept approaching her with the same feelings of “responsibility” that you’ve been expressing. These are HER words, not mine: “Truthspeak, you didn’t KNOW what you didn’t KNOW. You aren’t responsible for HIS choices.”
Brightest blessings to you
Darwinsmom, that is the sweetest story, and so well told.
It’s true….I did want to believe him……and I spite of my doubts, every time he said that he wanted to make me happy and that he loved me there was part of me that did believe him and that it would be different this time because I WANTED it to be different each and every time he said it. In that moment, it was like he’d never promised it before. And I’d be so hopeful and tell my friends that had heard the same thing over and over and over again that he really seemed to mean it. I’d tell them that this feels different than the past times. It wasn’t.
Ok, that made me cry.
Thanks for the story and your kind words.
{{big hug to you}}
Dorothy
Truthspeak, I’m going to reread your post. And try to take it in on a deeper level. I’m just all over the friggin place with the Spath experience. Roller coaster, say what!? And I’m off Prozac for three days because it was really agitating me.
Thank you soooooo much for your words of wisdom.
Hugs to you Truthy
Dorothy
Dorothy2, google search: “cognitive dissonance” and read a few of the explanations of what it is.
Once I understood cog/diss, I realized (like a lightning bolt) that ALL of my beliefs had been based upon what others demanded INSTEAD of facts. Such as, if I love someone, they will love me back. Or, anyone that I care about wouldn’t use/abuse me. Once I was able to process the fact that even some people that I’ve cared about and loved over my lifetime were human predators, I stopped feeling responsible for having been left for dead.
There’s no deep insight, here. Just a term that I was introduced to that took the burden of what THEY did off of my shoulders, forever.
Brightest blessings
Truthspeak, one thing I will say….I do not take responsibility for his choices or resulting actions. I refused to during the relationship and will not now. One other thing…..even though what happened later in the relationship was very hard for me to navigate and understand…..In the beginning of the relationship, it’s not a matter of thinking I should have known better…..I DID know better!
I burned them a long while back and now regret doing it, BUT, I had lists and notes about all the concerns and red flags I was seeing. Oh I wish I would have saved them now!! Right off the bat I was seeing things and telling friends and they were freaking out about his four marriages and him living with his mother,,,,,
I have read some about cog/ dis hear and there…..enough to know what it means…..I think! Lol!
Ill go read about it on the narc site I’ve been reading on. I posted a couple links to it above, maybe the previous page or the one before.
D2