Perhaps, deep in our hearts, we always believed in “love at first sight.” Then we met that person who seemed to be everything we ever wanted, and who felt the same way about us. It’s destiny! We’re soul mates!
If this is what you’re hearing, you may need to watch the newest Lovefraud video.
Cappucino Queen, Mo Mac & Donna:
Great video, Donna!
It was the end of an 8 year marriage to a man who claimed to be my soul mate that first brought me to LF over 6 years ago at the suggestion of a therapist. And, like capuccino queen and mo mac, I HAD to understand what had happened to me. I was left totally bewildered by his sudden discard. I certainly wasn’t wearing my heart on my sleeve when I met him. I had a wall of protection built around me and hadn’t allowed anyone to break that barrier for a long time due to the hurt of past relationships. He managed to tear that wall down with his claims of our being soul mates. I didn’t catch a single red flag in the beginning…he moved fast…it FELT right and I married him 8 months after the relationship began. It continued to feel right most of that 8 years. Looking back, I now realize that there were red flags that I allowed him to explain away much too easily. The sudden discard left me devastated and totally baffled. During the discard, he removed his mask and with great delight allowed me to see who he REALLY was. A stranger stood before me that I had shared my home, bed, money, time, energy and life with. I didn’t even LIKE this stranger and could never love someone like him.
Shortly after the discard, I learned that he had led a double life all of his adult life. He was seeing other women before he married me, throughout the the duration of our marriage, left me for a woman that he claimed to be his REAL “soul mate” and still continued to see other women…not one woman but a harem of women. However, I and the “other” soul mate had much more to offer him by way of financial security and luxury items. I realized that his goal was to have a constant woman to provide his financial needs and to be a ready and available sex partner while using her time away working to have sex with multiple partners. However, I didn’t know there was a name for this kind of person until I sought understanding of HOW in the world I could have allowed myself to be deceived so badly. My therapist explained WHAT he was and suggested LF and other resources about sociopaths.
It was during my research that I realized that he was far from the ONLY sociopath that I had crossed paths with or that was still a part of my life. I learned the reasons behind my mother’s behavior as well as my first husband’s. They controlled me by fear while the spath “soul mate” had love bombed me. I also recognized what had driven a former co-worker to behave in the manner that she had as well as a bullying boss!
As I reflect back on that time of learning, I feel almost grateful for having the run in with the spath that led me to my therapist. I learned a lot about myself and the behavior of the other spaths of my past and present. I allowed each and every one of these people to lead me to believe that their behavior was MY fault. I’ve learned a lot about romantic relationships with sociopaths, but still struggle with people who are a part of my life that are more difficult to go NC with like my mother. Coming from the Bible Belt and having lived in the same community all of my life, it is considered unacceptable to go NC with a parent…especially one that doesn’t allow anyone else to see her dark side and ensures that she tells everyone she comes into contact with just what a terrible daughter I am simply because I will not allow her to control me and no longer fear her threats of physical abuse. It is expected that everyone honor their parents no matter WHAT. But, regardless of public opinion, I HAD to go NC with in order to preserve what is left of my sanity. I wish there was a way people could be educated BEFORE they are nearly destroyed by a spath. If only the media and the LAW would recognize the need to focus a bit more on the everyday sociopath in addition to the extreme cases…sigh.
Perhaps it should be a required class in high school. Women are too easy and too trusting. I had all the above happen to me at age 51! The lies, charming attention and compliments, which very soon caused me constant confusion (all the red flags) and how it controlled my thoughts, trying to figure out WHY? And who is lying- him or the others? All the time he has no conscious? He works the same way on others too. He has bragged to guys he works with about making other women look like fools, for money or whatever help he needs at the time. Big man? No, just a big lying loser. It is his only way, since he has no self esteem of his own. CREEP! Luckily I never got involved with this black turd, as much as he tried, and as much as I could have liked him. First I asked others and they all gave me the same story-which in short was RUN- he is a piece of S$T.
My exspath started putting out those vibes in the very first phone conversation. We were going to meet as friends, but he was acting like it was a date. He bombed me with compliments on the first meeting – everything from how beautiful I was to my great taste in decorating my condo (which is true LOL). The simple Caesar salad I made for him was the “best salad he’s ever had”. And then he kept coming into my personal space and trying to touch me. It felt really strange and was a big red flag. I actually had to have a conversation with him to tell him I needed him to back off if he wanted to be my friend. I did like him and we had the snakes in common – I met him on a reptile site. Do you know how hard it is to meet people who like boa constrictors?
Nowadays, I am very skeptical of any guy I meet who acts like we are soulmates or like he wants to fall in love with me, etc. I’m very clear about developing a solid friendship first without any red flags. For this reason, the dating sites don’t really work for me – they are too unnatural. But I still occasionally activate a profile because it’s just one more way to meet people. If I had honored the creepy feeling I had the first day with the spath, I would have saved myself a year of aggravation (that’s how long it took me to get over the 3-month affair).
I really like meeting guys through shared activities like salsa dancing. You can get to know them, have fun with them, and enjoy them in a group setting, without the pressure of dating. It’s very possible that I will meet a special person that way. But it will probably happen very slowly.
Stargazer,
I agree. It’s way better to meet a person in a natural way and a non sexual activity with plenty of other people around. Even then you still need to watch for red flags, but your body and intuition will be able to send you warning signals much faster, exactly because predators will tend yo invade your personal space ASAP.
nick nack patty wack give the dog no bone…love your name, welcome..
Thanks to everyone who gave me advice, I haven’t been on in a while due to stressful stuff at work.
The guy I know has said really nice stuff about his ex. He also had what seems to have been a pretty nice childhood (only child, no major problems or ‘bad stuff’) so no ‘flags’ have come up for me but I’m being totally cagey and not trying to get too involved just incase. A few people have said that you can genuinely fall bigtime for someone very quickly so I do hope that’s the case here, but as I say I’m being as careful as possible.