Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following story from a reader whom we’ll call “Olive.” The names in this story have been changed.
I met Burt in July of 2013.
My husband had passed away six months earlier. I was looking for company to go out to dinner, a movie, etc.
He is a retired elementary schoolteacher who seemed very nice and caring. He works part time now as a substitute teacher. He had a great smile and a kind face.
I am an RN who has been on long term disability since my husband became ill back in 2011. I have a son with autism who lived with me and an adopted daughter. I hoped to return to work after he passed away but was rear ended by a truck in March 2013 sustaining a further low back and neck injury that sealed my fate.
I was grieving and lonely and when Burt told me about all he had done for his ex and his family, I could not understand how she and his two sons could treat him so poorly. (His youngest son hates him and his older one has disowned him) His oldest daughter has recently re-established contact with him but I am sure is unaware of everything he has done to women.
In any case, we started dating.
He told me that he was separated from his wife and after the year was up since they split, he would go for an uncontested divorce.
He professed love for me early on. I plead temporary insanity brought on by grief and pain as I actually believed and trusted this man.
My daughter (who was 16 at the time) really disliked him. My sister and her husband did as well.
He loved to tell the story of how his first wife left him when their two children were toddlers to raise them alone. He was the best Dad ever he would say.
Then he met his second wife and after a whirlwind romance, they married.
Troubles apparently began with his oldest daughter and the new wife and the daughter ran away and they were estranged for years.
His parents were very involved as well and apparently they took advantage of him too.
He claimed that after his two younger children were born, his wife became cold and distant and their physical relationship for the most part stopped.
I could not fathom how this could happen to a man who seemed to be so loving and caring.
He had financial issues he stated were stemming from his separation and so was unable to pay for anything much at all.
He lived in a basement apt full of football memorabilia and some 30,000 vinyl LP’s he’s collected since he was a teen.
He loves Canadian football, rock music and golf. He is obsessed with them actually and fancies himself an expert on all three.
His cell phone broke, so I gave him one.
He had no camera, so I gave him one as well.
He complained of cold in his apt so I gave him a new electric heater.
I bought him a lot of things.
He cried about owing $3,000 to the gov’t in taxes due to an arrangement he made with his estranged wife and had no idea how he would pay it. I lent him the money. He promised to pay me back in full.
I wanted to go to Australia with my son and daughter and spend our first Christmas without my husband with my older son who lives there.
At a pre-Christmas celebration with my family here, he gave me a promise ring and said he would get an engagement ring in the near future. I paid for him to accompany us to Australia and paid for everything while we were there.
He fought like a child with my daughter in Australia and on our return I began to reconsider the whole relationship.
He continued to text and call me questioning why I didn’t respond as soon as I heard from him.
At the beginning of March I took a trip with my family and a friend down to Myrtle Beach. While there I decided that I was going to break it off with him. I was so weary of hearing about his negative encounters with his estranged wife and his kids. I decided to stay in touch because I still had hopes he would pay the money back that he owed and that I really needed at this point.
He had become friends with my autistic son through their shared obsession with rock music.
He accused me of cheating on him with the friend who accompanied us to Myrtle Beach and accused him of trying to ‘steal me away.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. In any case, after moaning and crying about how hurt, disappointed and distraught he was, he settled into just being friends.
I continued to feel sorry for him and helped him out by giving him an electric snowblower, a tablet, a filing cabinet and other things over the ensuing months, years. He had started to pay me back for the money I loaned him but after a few months that stopped and never resumed.
At New Year’s (just passed) I received a text from a number I didn’t recognize. It was from a woman named Pat who stated she had been in a relationship with Burt for the past three years and lived with him.
She is a widow as well.
She had found information about me in an address book he had left around the house. She said that when she met Burt in October of 2012, he was seeing another woman who was also a widow who had bought him a new computer and some other things. When he broke it off with her to see Pat, this lady’s sons were going to come after Burt. Pat talked to them and begged them not to do it. She encouraged Burt to give the items back that he had taken from this lady but he did not.
She discovered that he had been seeing multiple women when he was seeing her and I. He has been trolling dating sites for some time.
He currently has six women’s profiles on hand.
He preys on widows and those husbands are dying. He seems to prefer woman who are kind, compassionate and likely to fall for his stories. Owning a home seems to be a big draw also.
He keeps a file on everyone he meets with personal information and dates on everything including conversations
Once I found all this out about him, I let him know and told him the jig was up. Pat has asked him to leave the house they share. Since they are renting now and both on the lease, it’s harder to do than when she owned her own place.
He did a consumer proposal in Nov 2015 so he doesn’t have to pay anyone anything back. He told Pat that he has no problem picking up women because he’s so attractive. His plan now is to leave this area and probably move in with his older daughter and her family in Canada, who has offered to help him ‘find a nice lady’ down there.
This man is a manipulative sociopath, of that I have no doubt.
My Ex is a Psychopath
This fellow Burt is a parasite, that’s for sure.
This site is very educational. I’d never heard this specialized meaning of the term “consumer proposal” before. I gather it’s a uniquely Canadian procedure for debt relief. Which suggests that Burt has been running up debts all over the place, possibly in addition to the money and gifts he’s been sponging off various women.
It’s bad enough when anyone is exploited this way, but I especially don’t like the sound of what’s happened to poor Pat. If she used to own her own place, but is now sharing a lease, does that mean she sold her home to give money to this fellow? I hope not! If she did, I don’t suppose she’ll ever see that back!
Olive – thank you for sharing your story. All widows, and people who are losing their husbands, need to be aware of sociopaths. This is especially true if your marriage was good, and your husband was an honorable man – because you will naturally expect the next man to proclaim his love to be just like your husband. Unfortunately, the guy may be a sociopath pretending to be an honorable man.
Olive,
Man oh man, what a con artist. I also found myself drawn in by ‘instant’ love after I split (not a widow) with my partner of 13 years (amicably, but it was painful and I was lonely after). This is the epitome of LOVE fraud, these sorts who troll for recently widowed or divorced women. I think also, especially, if you are over 40; as they know that the ‘pickings’ will be slimmer, and a woman more willing to dive in and get involved. After all, as Donna points out, we have had other successful relationships, and we know what we want.
I initially stayed in contact hoping to get a rather large sum of cash paid back to me. I SO relate to how many things you paid for, and how much you supported Burt. I did the same. Likely to the tune of 30,000.00 dollars, if you add everything up. Paid off late medical bills, trips, loans, a car.
Only to find out it was all a ruse. None of it real for him. Many other women. No remorse or sympathy for my feelings and loss.
After a short time I let the money go, paid the bank loan off to save my credit, and though hurt and angry I did not re-engage for any reason.
It’s interesting that Burt kept all of his women neatly filed, so he could remember where he was in his con, with each woman. Helped him, no doubt, keep his story straight; and take maximum advantage with each woman.
I have noticed that these types keep mementos of their past victims, much like a serial killer (they are serial ‘killers’!). The guy I knew had boxes and boxes of pictures and stuff he kept for decades, and he would pull it out and walk down memory lane. When I helped him move he showed me all of this, and that was another piece of the puzzle for me. I better understood that it was all a game for him, and these were his trophies. I am sure he has shown his newer victims things he kept from his time with me.
What also strikes me is how many shapes these sorts come in. Some are mild mannered and well spoken. Some brash and impulsive. Some are intellectual, and some can hardly string a sentence together. They are executives, garbage men, waiters, performers……all the same things are the rest of us are. They are mimicking in whatever way best serves them.
I am glad you are away from Burt. I hope Pat can get away too.