Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following story from a reader who we’ll call “Jenna.” At the end, she posts a document written by her sociopathic ex about the price of his soul, which provides a unnerving glimpse into how he truly thinks. Names have been changed.
I have spent the last 18 years dealing with a classic sociopath, a man who lies beyond my wildest imagination. I have come to believe that he isn’t just evil that is too easy an explanation. Evil people can’t help themselves; they can be “born bad.” No, this man chooses to be sadistic and mentally cruel. He can be “nice” when he wants to. He has a now four-year-old granddaughter who adores him and thinks her “Papa” hung the moon. If she ever sees on her own what he is, he will be her first broken heart.
He calculates his moves and sets up his victims over a long period of time — feeding off one woman after another, using the exact same pattern, until they no longer are sating his appetite for whatever it is he hungers for money, respect, ego gratification. I have never met anyone like this before. He enjoys what seems to have been his life’s work. He often said he “didn’t like women or children.” I should have listened.
I met him through work in April 1992. I was 44 years old, attractive and I thought relatively intelligent. My boss knew him from a previous job, considered him an associate, and brought him in to do some computer consulting. Looking back, my first impression was that he was focusing on me, trying to impress me. I should have heeded my bells and listened to my first impressions. He was knowledgeable about everything, charming, and I realize now he talked only about himself, his business plans, his big ideas. Going for lunches developed into a relationship. He was never pushy or all over me just the opposite.
Moves in
He moved in with me on January 2, 1993 after I had broken off with him because I thought he was playing me. I went away that Christmas alone, and when I came home, he was ensconced in my home, with the fireplace burning, two dozen long-stemmed red roses, a bottle of wine and a six-page handwritten letter about what a fool he had been and how much he “loved” me. The fool was me; I let him stay.
I had been on my own for a long time so I tried to establish some beginning boundaries. The first year we were together, he had to pay half the rent and half the living expenses, but slowly that morphed into us having joint accounts, and making decisions as a couple.
Within two months, he would fall asleep on the couch watching TV. I worked, he didn’t. He was trying to build a consulting business, but I think he did nothing most days. I’d come home and he’d be busy doing dishes that he had obviously just started, so it would look like he was busy.
No sex
Within six months, he withdrew sex. “I don’t know why” was his stock answer to every attempt to work through this. I thought maybe he had problems so I backed off and learned to live without a normal and healthy love life. It was step one in completely undermining my own self confidence, self image and willingness to walk away. I was mature, had not been committed enough to really work at previous relationships, so my mindset was, “I love this man and I am going to work at this.”
In 1994 he got a job that lasted four months. He talked me into starting my own business and I did freelance accounting. When he was fired from his job I was never able to find out why, but they let him go on a Tuesday and paid him only to the end of that day, which had to mean just cause. Knowing what I know now, no doubt he was inappropriate with female staff or maybe even male staff, because now I wonder about everything. Nothing was as it seemed.
August 1996 and he has just started his second job lasted six months, during which, I find out, he has been having an affair with the receptionist. He moved out March 1997 and came back begging me to give him another chance in May, saying he was nothing without me; he might as well go live on “skid row” because he would never be able to get off the couch again if I wouldn’t take him back. We had a business to consider he reminded me. He made love to me four times during the “take me back” stage. Soon as he was safely back, sex stopped, but he did come to bed at night. In later years, he would sleep in the living room, on the couch every night, in his clothes and only came downstairs to get a change of underwear, knowing that hurt me and was the exact opposite of what I wanted.
In business together
Over the years this scenario was repeated. In 17 years he held down four jobs, all of which lasted max six months. He talked me into going into business with him and we are 50% shareholders in a small home-based business that supported us from 1999 onward. I am seriously living to regret this, as I divorce and try to extricate myself from him. He talked on the phone a lot, and I did all the heavy lifting.
I had my life savings, which wasn’t much, but it bought us the home I live in now. We moved here in 1999. Yet another “job” he had, this time contracted through our company. He lasted five months in what was supposed to be a five-year contract.
I have to say that the privacy act and employer’s unwillingness to share information is a tremendous handicap to women in my position. Even as 50% owner of the company, no one is willing to tell the truth. If any one of the people who saw through him, anywhere along the line, had had the courage to tell me what my husband was up to, it would have opened my eyes. I was getting his side of the story only, and his best skill is, he is a honed and practiced liar. No matter how suspicious or concerned or questioning I might be, he could talk himself out of it, so I’d wind up giving him the “benefit of the doubt.”
Job in Florida
On April 21, 2009 my husband (he wanted to get married in 2003) left “on business” to take a consulting job in Florida. When he left, I prayed that this would be make it or break it. My health and spirit were so broken that his decision to take this job was almost a relief.
A month after he was gone I began to feel better physically, but such was my commitment to my marriage that I actually said out loud, what worried me was he would want to come back, and I wouldn’t want him to. I would feel obligated to take him back, even though I knew I was living in a toxic relationship. A counselor said to me afterwards that if you have a kind heart, cut people some slack and believe in God, and in doing unto others, you are custom made for this type of predator. They count on it! Your decency and your ability to love and forgive are the very tools they use against you.
First month, he web-cammed daily while I helped him get set up, furnish his apartment and paid his bills. He phoned me 10 times a day on his way down to Florida, saying how much he missed me already.
Cheating
The lies kept up until June 27, 2009 when he avoided an opportunity to web-cam home to see our 3-year old Granddaughter who was visiting. Everything began to add up. I spent all day July 1, 2009 trying to figure out how to hire a private detective in Florida. Turns out he had put himself on a dating site within three weeks of arriving there, and he had “grown an inch” from the time he left here. By August he was on Craig’s list as well and had grown yet another inch!
I had to take control of our business servers and over the course of the next few months I received emails from two women, who came after the one the private investigator filmed him with. His story to them he had been a widower for 40 years, had raised his two girls alone, his wife had been tragically killed in a car accident, t-boned when his youngest was just 2 months old. He had sacrificed himself to raise his daughters. Turned out I wasn’t the dead wife he was speaking of he was actually referring to his first wife, who is alive and well and who is still married to the man who really helped her raise the children.
Second woman who contacted me, did so because she had been told I was his “cousin” and I “worked for him” and she wanted to know if I was going to be helping her learn how to work for him. Both the women who contacted me were kind enough to send me the “ads” they answered, and photos of themselves and one even send me photos of them together, which I could have lived without.
My honesty saved the two women who connected with me, but every woman who crosses his path is at risk. I have come to see that he is like a reverse serial rapist. It is all about power and control, and once he assesses what you want and need most from him, in my case, warmth, love and affection, he withholds that from you. He apparently was quite lustful with the women he met on line and I wonder now, who was he cheating on me with during the 10 years we’ve been in this town? A man doesn’t go from being celibate for 17 years to suddenly being active. I now consider it a gift that he didn’t touch me at least I know my health isn’t at risk.
The document
Interestingly enough, in the “document” you read below, the woman referred to as “Marsha” is in fact his first wife (you know, the one who wasn’t killed in a car accident). The second woman he mentions, is the woman he cheated on “Marsha” with and left Marsha for. It would seem that none of us who came after mattered at all.
I found this document while searching his computer using the word “university” because he claimed to have a Bachelor of Commerce degree and I wanted to share that with my lawyer. This document, written by him on Oct. 1, 2005 at 7:30 pm, popped up. His oldest daughter’s birthday. The night after my 58th birthday. Two years and one month to the day after our marriage, and two months before he would “set me up” by putting me as sole director of our company, which as it turns out, has backfired on him, but it was part of a long-term plan he had and was slowly working on, a trap that would be used when he was ready to spring it.
I can tell you that when I opened this document, it embarrassed me to read it. I never knew this man at all. I have no doubt that I was in my office working, or making dinner, or cleaning up after dinner, while he sat in his office writing this. I can tell you that knowing what I know now, he doesn’t have “a soul to sell.”
I’m weeks away from my divorce being final. He has fought me every step of the way, threatening me, filing lawsuits against the company, using the business and my fear of losing my home and what little security I have left. He has harassed both me and my lawyers, gone out of his way to increase my legal fees, hoping to break me. He represents himself, and at every turn is foxier and more cunning than one could ever believe. Normal does not apply. I wonder what the women before me went through and know in my heart, they went through exactly what I am going through. I can’t wait to get rid of his last name legally.
He threw away his life and I need to be punished for that. I wasn’t supposed to find out. I was supposed to continue in the role I had played, the easily conned wife who kept knocking herself out trying to make her marriage work, while he kept his options open and explored for greener fields.
PS: Job in Florida lasted four months, then they let him go. I have no doubt he is trolling for his next food source as I write.
The Price of My Soul
- To return to Easter, 1956 when my parents moved.
- To have all of the knowledge that I have now and have had in the past.
- To be popular with both boys and girls. At school, in clubs and all other parts of my life.
- To excel in sports without injury, particular in hockey, track, football and baseball. To be good enough in football, baseball and track to attract quality athletic scholarships.
- To excel in school without undue effort. To receive the highest marks in every subject, to effortlessly complete all homework and assignments. To receive the highest possible marks on all tests and examinations. To be the valedictorian in both High School, University. To be first in my class in Graduate School.
- To have the inherent ability to make the right and correct choices regarding education, finance, investments and career.
- To be attractive, fit and athletic for my entire life. To live well in to my 90s and to be happy, contented and satisfied with my life. To die with no regrets.
- To never smoke or partake of non-prescription drugs. To always drink alcohol responsibly and never get drunk or impaired.
- To never have an illness and to be immune from all disease.
- To be hardworking, focused and disciplined. To be courteous to everyone. To be calm, soft-spoken and fair. To have, and experience, no prejudice.
- To be unusually attractive to all women, of legal age, regardless of age, race, color, marital status or religious beliefs. To have the inherent ability to communicate my interest to a particular woman and to have her feel a tingle in her loins and know that, by overtly contacting me, she will experience the most satisfying sexual encounter that is it possible to have.
- To have the inherent ability to bring women to the deepest orgasm possible at my whim and thought. To do so, if I wish, just by touch, by stroking, or by any other means that I wish. To have women become addicted to sexual relations with me. To be completely uninhibited in sex and to have each of my partners wish to be willing to try anything. To be able to bring my partners to orgasm orally, anally, vaginally and any other way I choose. To have them long for each way. To be able to bring women to multiple orgasms, including ejaculation, and to be able to experience multiple ejaculations, myself, within minutes of each other. To never lose this ability until my death.
- To never, either myself or a chosen sexual partner, experience a jealous husband, fiancé, lover or friend. To never end a sexual relationship in any way other than as enduring friends.
- To have women become so addicted to my sexual prowess and their satisfaction that they will do anything that I wish to continue the relationship. To have them recommend me to their women friends and to have those friends join us in the relationship.
- To have this attraction begin from the moment of puberty and, until I am of legal age, to have these relationships with women older than myself.
- To have these women pay me for my company until I have graduated from school and have become a wealthy person. It would be my expectation that, beginning at 13 years of age, I would earn $100 per week from each of my lovers and that I would have five lovers. I would expect my income to increase with each year until legal age.
- To have the inherent ability to save my money and to invest in the most profitable manner. To always know the correct time to buy stocks, bonds or other investments and to always know when to sell at the maximum profit. To never make a losing investment.
- To always know the correct time to create a new company or service and to always know the correct time to sell the investment. To never lose money in this manner. To always have prior knowledge of startup companies and to know which ones will succeed and which ones will fail. To always know the optimum time to cash in the investment.
- To be financially well of by the age of 18. To be a millionaire by the age of 20. To be a multi-millionaire by the age of 25. To be a billionaire by the age of 30 and to be the richest man in the world by the age of 40. To remain so until my death.
- To be asked to mingle in the highest levels of society all over the world. To be politically astute and to have political influence worldwide.
- To never marry and to never have children. To die, peacefully and happy, having left a legacy of both deeds and money that will be invested for good. To have planned those investments so that they will never stop working for good.
- To have several loving relationships during my lifetime. To love deeply and be loved deeply. One of those relationships is to be with Marsha Jackson and the other with Susan Morris. Both are to be deeply satisfying for everyone involved but are not to be monogamous on my part. As in other relationships, they will be so satisfied that they will want to share me with their female family members and friends.
- To be an outstandingly accomplished dancer. To be able to bring a women to climax just by whispering in her ear while dancing. To be able to engage in a conversation, with a woman, about absolutely anything. To have her feel no offense at the most intimate of conversations and comments. To be able to bring her to climax during those conversations.
- To be appreciative and knowledgeable of the arts. To be an engaging and interesting speaker. To have an inherent ability to lead people in the direction I choose for them to go. To always do so for good, never evil.
- To be truly satisfied and happy in everything that I do. Especially in each and every sexual relationship that I have. To be able to give the deepest possible pleasure to my partner and, in turn, to receive the same.
I think so many of us have spent a life time thinking we were responsible for other people’s feelings, and not taking any responsibilty for our own. I think many of us have been trained that it’s not nice to be angry, and we just don’t know what to do with it. We aren’t comfortable with our own anger, so we opt out of it by reverting back to feeling bad, and sorry, and guilty. Those are emotions we’re used to. They are familiar, and they help us keep our image of ourselves intact. We get to continue to hold on to our ideas of ourselves as nice people. WE ARE NICE PEOPLE. That is our biggest problem. We are emotionally stunted, NICE targets.
Most women are trained from childhood to stuff anger…For men it is fear, or sadness that is stuffed. Men typically have no problem expressing anger, and when they do, they are probably experiencing fear, first and formost.
We need to learn that our emotions are valid, and they are a natural expression of what is going on in our lives. We need to own them, and harness them for good.
We need to develope a hands off policy when it comes to other peoples emotions. They are not ours, and we need to be carefull not to “catch them.” Other people are entitled to feel what they feel, and they need to be allowed to work through their own stuff.
Angers purpose is self preservation!
Warrior:
You posted back in July,
I had to be towed recently, radiator blew up, and he was always there to help with the car. I was SO scared”“dealing with this on my own, and worrying how I’ll afford a new car, my car is falling apart and now this repair will be $$$ and god knows what other ones”Then had to cut a rotten tree that was going to fall on the house”and I am just SURE that I’ll be punished for leaving him and have some awful cataclysm happen just to prove me wrong”.Insane? Yes.
No, not insane. Now, let me add, I know your fear. I am there right now. I had just had to cut up a tree that fell in our yard. N, ran off to be an over the road truck driver, even though he is capable of better jobs that pay better. I am left here alone to raise my boys and deal with everything, I am scared but at the same time I remember the strong girl and young women I was before him and act on that.
Warrior, pat yourself that you could do it by yourself. Wow, we are real women. Talk about bringing home the bacon and frying it up in a pan.
Did you get a new lawyer yet? Your gut seems to be telling you your lawyer is no good. I got a lawyer to fight against a guardian for my mom. My gut told me she wasn’t doing a thing. I didn’t listen to my gut, after the hearing, when it was too late, my gut laughed at me for not listening to it. The women literrally did nothing for me. She said absolutely nothing during the hearing, I really think the only thing she did was help the other side.
You are a very smart person and demonstrate vast understanding of this process. Don’t ignore your gut.
Legal news:
I got a packet of stuff after the motion to compel. Missing info on prior employers’ retirement accts and what happened to the $ from there, and another recent employer’s pension, also his expense acct.
My fin planner is back next Monday to look this over and then tell me what else to get (17th).
My lawyer said he asked to have a four way before pre-trial. What could I gain by that?
Would you guys tell me what you think on this:
He emailed if i’d mail him his insurance reimbursement check. My insurance won’t make checks out to him since I carry the ins. I kept one of these in lieu of c.s. before. I actually emailled him back to send me June and Oct c.s. and I’d send him his check. He sent Oct c.s., not June. I sent him his check which is bigger than c.s..
Am I stupid for not keeping it? I didn’t want to play tit for tat.
Also I sent my lawyer a list of joint expenses I want him to split around $4500 for daughter’s camp, sports travel, driver’s license/car insurance, and house maintenance bec. trees were rotten about to fall on house. He doesn’t even say boo aout that, and here I am being fair and sending him his check. Is that dumb?
And he sent a NEW fin. affidavit that now lists that he wants half of my tax credit bec. I filed separately as head of household and claimed child and house payments. Is he even entitled to half that?
Gosh, I am hoping that my fin. planner can help me add and subtract and calculate all of this somehow so I just don’t have to haggle and bicker about ANYTHING.
Why do you all think he insists on having a four way meeting before court? Could I go to hear what he has to say, and simply get up and leave if I am not interested? In an ideal world it would be best to negotiatte and reach an agreement. In reality, he’ll think for number one.
Went to D’s game today. I’ve missed ALL her games this season bec. I’m afrraid of seeing him–emotionally I fall apart. I had to pass by him face to face, and he smiled and nodded walking with two moms, and I didn’t just kept walking. It’s very awkward.
Question on timeline — Planner gets papers on 17th, I meet with her on 21st to go over plan–provided she has all info needed, then court 27th. From 21-27th–will that be enough time to prepare for court?
I can’t shake the sadness and grief. I am consumed and just can’t break through. Legal papers in the mailbox crushed me–it’s all about money and it’s over. I hate the whole thing. I become little and want to run back and have my family, my home, my…yes..husband, my security, my identity, life as I knew it. I am TERRIFIED of going into the darkness alone and just so forlorn and lonely.
No one to call up to just hang out and do something. Only therapist once a week–doesn’t sustain me the other six days. I don’t know how I’ll make it through to the end.
Any support here much appreciated.
Thanks guys.
P.S. Got court notice for a date re. motion to compel. He already sent most of the stuff. This is for the 18th. Should I still go to court if stuff is missing? Can I use this to also make him pay c.s. directly from his paycheck or is that a different subject? Would it be good to just make him look bad and go to court anyhow?
I’ll have to ask my lawyer, but wondered if any of you knew how to deal with this motion.
ErinB,
Are you around?
I goal MOST of documents from him. Missing a bunch of former employee retirement accts. statements, a former emplyee pension statement, and expense acct.
Motion to compel hearing is the 18th. My fin. planner is back on 18th to look over stuff I’ll send, minus the missing things.
Do I go to court for that motion still and put it on record that certain things are still missing? At that point, there is little time left before pretrial 27th.
I can’t tell if deposition will be needed or worthwhile, depending on what he supplies or doesn’t suppply. I don’t believe there is that much money anyhow that may or may not be reported.
What do you suggest re. deposition? He’s given MOST of the stuff except the above.
Also he’s all paid up for c.s. too.
He’s asking for a four way before the court pretrial. Should I say no?
My gut tells me no, as the masters hearing recommendation was in my favor (50/50 house, and alimony).
What do you think?
ErinB,
I posted in this thread before–if you see it pls. give me your thoughts.
Have been having huge panic waves as I get legal e-mails and pre-trial approaches. Mon 18th is hearing for motion to compel, but he sent MOST of stuff. Only missing is old 401k’s, which the fin. planner says I don’t need to insist bec. chances are he didn’t withdraw anything as it would show on w-2s, and the income doesn’t suggest there was a lot or any surplus $ then, so it’s fine to let it go.
He’s padding up his fin. affidavit claiming huge auto insurance (more than our joint cars); and child’s cloting/entertainment/ medical/camps which is bogus bec. I pay all the medical, all clothing, she’s with me 100%, and we split camps. He’s padding his food expense like he eats a mountain–$900/month just for himself that’s double than both me and daughter eat!!)
Erin, do I not keep that motion to compel court date? He did give most of the stuff on the list. I’m meeting with planner Thursday, she’ll have a plan by then.
I am so NERVOUS.
And with the end near I am falling apart with terror of being alone. Therapist tells me maybe I’m not ready–he was my only family support system, and now I have NO ONE. No freinds/family and I feel so insecure out thee in the world. Cried like a kid feeling my life has no purpose, no value, no meaning–without him. I know it’s irrational and crazy, but I feel so crushed.
I am thinking I’d survive the pre-trial with heavy doses of valium. Never took such meds, but this is RIDICULOUSLY HARD.
It doesn’t even help to think of him as the “bad guy” in any way. It’s still terrifying.
Dear Dancingwarrior,
I’m not EB but wanted to say you are having a very NORMAL AND TO BE EXPECTED “PANIC ATTACK’ at the prospect of the changes which are coming.
Yes, it is irrational, and yes it IS RIDICULOUSLY HARD.
Hopefully the judge will SEE the LIES on the amount of padded food bills and so on. Don’t worry and fret on that one.
You say the therapist said he was your “family support system” and now you have “no one?” Did you have ANYONE when you had him? No, he was WORSE than none….You have YOUR DAUGHTER, you have us and you have your therapist! That is NOT “no one” and you are STRONGER than you realize.
Ask your attorney whether you should continue with the motion to compel or not. LISTEN TO THE PROFESSIONALS involved. it sounds like you have some good ones. He will always drag it out to the last minute and will not give up anythign until you file a motion to make him follow the previous motion but that may work against him in the end.
If you’ve never taken valium you might not want to take it the FIRST time at a hearing. It might knock you on your arse at the table and make you fall head first sound asleep into the table.
I don’t take and have seldom taken valium but 5 mg (a LOW DOSE) would make me sit inside my burning house and say “oh, look, aren’t the flames pretty” it makes me so TRANQUIL I am a ZOMBIE. So check out the medication dose before you take it at a time previous to the hearing. You also might get your therapist to hypnotize you prior to the hearing to decrease your anxiety with suggestions that it will not cause you great anxiety. There are a number of ways you can increase your ability to handle the hearings!!! Use them all.
Your anxiety is very very normal, and though I am sitting here giving you advice on how to handle it, it effected me the same way it is you, but just “Talk” to yourself with positive affirmations of “I can get through this” (rather than sitting there talking to yourself saying “I am going to fall apart”) I know it is hard, but really you WILL get through this.
Come here and post every day if you must, and stand in front of a mirror and talk to the Warrior inside your self!! I CAN DO IT!!!! I CAN DO IT!!!! and Dancing Warrior, you will do it. What other choice do you have? At this point it is like going into labor at the end of a pregnancy, there “ain’t no other choice” it hurts, but you DO IT! And, it will soon be over and you will be FREE of that monster!!! ((((Hugs)))) and my prayers for you and your daughter! I’m sure EB will chime in before the day is over as well.
Oxy,
I had no hope, no will, no purpose feeling all I do is pointless.
I “do” stuff, drive, eat, sleep, work, talk to child, go to classes–all normal on the outside, pretending I am “doing it.”
I feel so insecure not to have a home base from which to go out in the world. Yes, it’s a life saver to have you and LF feedback and comfort, and my daughter, and therapist. I guess it’s the deep down abandonment and insecurity from my home that did not hold me secure that’s making me frantic.
The fact that I ran away from home in a sense, to come to a new country to seek a home and refuge, made the attachment so strong to him–I feel totally frantic and bereft now.
I had a good cry yesterday and the listening ear of T gave me hope and energy.
I love your labor analogy. I guess before court it’s like the contractions are wide apart and still bearable. In two weeks, forget LaMaze breathing, LOL, I’ll be screaming.
Thank you for writing.
I address EB as I see the legal process as Medusa’s head — all about it is terrifying to me, and she has the RAH RAH KICK ASS attitude about courts, lawyers, legal issues, that almost gives me a little confidence to step into the maze.
Warrior, I gota run to a Dr’s apt, be back later……
Dear WArrior,
Well, as you may have seen on another thread where she posted, she got a kick in the teeth today, apparently the drug charges are being thrown out on her X—on some technical point of law. FRUSTRATING!!!
DW, many of us have had less than ideal parents who raised us in less than ideal ways, some because of ignorance, others because of poverty, and others maybe because of personality disorders…but still, we survived as caring people. So whatever you lacked in back ground that you “ran away from” to what you thought was a better life, STILL in spite of that, you are a good person and a caring one. So look instead at the STRENGTHS that you have. I know it is “scary” to see yourself as “alone” in a strange land but you are NOT alone as long as you have your BEST FRIEND—-YOU—-so BE your best friend, take care of yourself the way you would want this caring friend to take care of you.
Yep, they are moving you into the delivery room and the pains are coming harder and faster, but you can do it! You may feel you can’t but you CAN and you WILL,, so SCREAM if you must, but PUSH ON THROUGH THE PAIN! You will come out the other side of it STRONGER and WISER and MORE INDEPENDENT.
In the end of things, DW, we all depend only on ourselves to take care of ourselves. We can share with others, but they can’t “give birth” for us or “die for us” or LIVE FOR US, we must do those three things for ourselves. So LIVE FOR YOURSELF, and make it a great strong life, and be the kind of parent to your child that you would have wanted for yourself. Love her, support her, teach her and nurture her to be an independent woman who has a conscience and empathy! (((hugs))))