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.
Dear Amay,
Sometimes tears are the cleansing of the soul! They help wash the toxins out of our hearts and minds! I’m glad we have given you some comfort! Henry and I are a couple of wacko red necks and sometimes at night we get plumb silly! Me talkin about my jackasses, Fat Ass and Hairy Ass, and him talking about his Weenie dogs dragging dead possoms back wards into the house through the doggie door!
I think just about everyone here at LF has cried a 55 gallon barrel full of tears, and some of us have had to empty the barrel more than once! It has been a long hard road for all of us but in the end, it actually was’t the worst thing that ever happened to us because we are LEARNING from it so it won’t happen again. There IS LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL, and it is NOT an on-coming train! The tunnel may be dark, but keep on walking, it is not forever (((hugs)))))
Amay, you will clear your head of him. It just takes time. One year isn’t long enough. We’ve all been where you are right now. You’ll still waffle and teeter for another year or so … then get sick, of being sick over knowing everything he said from hello to goodbye was a lie.
It’s when you firmly grasp that he’s a ghost … will your tears and that constant nagging in your head and on your heart strings cease.
Peace to your heart and soul as you heal from this heel!
Amay,
If you must weep, then cry for the waste of your time.
The man did not love you. The relationship wasn’t real. You were taken advantage of for his gain.
I disagree that it take a year to let go. It takes a choice NOT a clock. When you choose to stop fighting the truth for the illusion of love, then, your days will pass differently.
That Choice is not something eventual. It is conscious and rational. It is based on an evaluation of what was given you in exchange for your love and when the equation gets laid out. inevitably we find that there is no way to balance it.
Stop the noise inside your head that is pining for something that was not true and truly seek the healing which comes from it.
No heart goes more out to you than mine for the very reason, but I implore you for the sake of your life find no peace in what causes you to weep, seek it in what gives you reason to go on without the burden of a disordered person in your life.
Silver,
HOw are you?
Was listening to Tolle’s book and thought of you. As you talk about Choice above with Amay, I remember that part about three choices–I got stuck ’round that.
Choice 1, change the situation. (Tried that w/therapy during marriage and separation. Same results.)
Choice 2, if you can’t change the situation, accept it fully and be content to know it is what it is, and you can live with it and be okay with it.
Choice 3, if you can’t and don’t want to accept it, then leave the situation and accept all the consequences. And live in the now, don’t look back or worry about future–that’s insanity. And that’s the one I kept pondering. I’ve tried 1&2, and 3 is so painful–mostly bec. I chase my tail with clinging on “good times”, “family,” “security,” etc. or I go mad with fears about disasters in the future.
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 $$$ and god knows what other ones…Then had to cut a rotten tree that was going to fall on the house…and I am just SURE that I’ll be punished for leaving him and have some awful cataclysm happen just to prove me wrong….Insane? Yes.
With all this, and his recent a$$-whole-ness in court, he called the house on Sunday to ask if D. is here bec. not picking up her cell. Sounded SWEET as pie, like NOTHING ever happened, says “I want us to be friends after all this is over, andit’s very hard to do that with no talking but through lawyers.” In my very weak moment after my “disasters” I didn’t tell him “FACK YOU” and hang up, but told him write a letter if you have something to say. (He never wrote Boo…that’s how much he has to communicate to me.)
I just don’t know how to act normal around him–unperturbed. If he comes to pick up D, let’s say I happen to be in yard watering, why not keep doing what I’m doing w/out a care–I freak out and I make sure I hide out of sight in the house when he comes to get her. I don’t go to her games if he’s there. I’m quite paranoid to see his FACE.
Dear Warrior,
Every emotion you described and every problem you talked about are NORMAL RESPONSES to the process. Every thing you have said about him is TO BE EXPECTED FROM THE PSYCHOPATH…so you are right on target with what he is doing and how you are taking it, BUT….things will settle down and you will start to have more self confidence in your ability to fix the car, to handle the trees, etc.
I felt the same way somewhat when my husband died, I had to start doing the things that he had done around here, hiring it done, figuring it out, etc. I do have son D to help (otherwise I could NOT stay here on the farm at all) but there are still lots of things that fall on ME because my husband is gone. He was a much better diagnostic mechanic than D is, and so on. But I am making it, and if D decides to go somewhere else I will still find a way to get by in life. SO WILL YOU! I will simplify my life, simplify my needs as we all must do as age and situation change for us.
There is nothing wrong with you hiding in the house so you don’t have to see his nasty face. THAT IS PROTECTING YOURSELF AND TAKING CARE OF YOU. Good going! The time will come when you can see his nasty face and not care, but it is NOT HERE YET. It will be, just give it TIME. ((((Hugs))))))
EB,
I looked at the documents he sent.
I went through the list HIS lwyr gave me and paper clipped everything in order, got ALL statements for 2 years as requested, all pay stubs, etc, in order, thorough.
He?
Random credit card statements with $amounts wiped out in copying and not showing. Random months missing and statements out of order. Then randomly thrown in expense reports for months out of order. It was garbage!
I sent all that to my fin. planner, and will wait for HER to tell me what she needs to see. But man it made me mad that I worked so hard copying the crap and being organized, and he thumbs his nose at me by sending NOTHING.
And I get annoyed that my lawyer even LETS him–why can’t he go through it and send back saying this is incomplete don’t F^^ck with me!? What’s the point of interrogatory anyway? He hasn’t listed all his employers. Answered questions vaguely or skipped them.
I just don’t KNOW what’s normally done when the person does not supply full documentation and on time?
I don’t want to be stubborn just for the sake of making him do it, but if I did it for him, he should do it for me, no?
The expense reimbursements are 1K a month, and he only showed a coupla random months. That can change the picture of his expenses significantly if work pays for all his gas, his phone, and meals.
It seems TOO MUCH to go through all the details of all his bank statements…what am I looking for anyway? Why didn’t he provide the rest of them?
Tolle is good. It made a big difference for me.
I am sorry for the difficulty you have. I know its hard. It is for everyone.
I just made the decision that I was done and finished up my grieving and have set about living forward. There is a lot of change coming up.
Life isn’t easy, no matter how it is lived, but I think those of us who got fooled pay a higher price for the engagement. I don’t know what to say about it, except that I find it a dismal thing that probably can’t be changed.
Oxy,
Yes, yes, thanks for reminding me. Right now I know he has the advantage in arguments as he has ll the marriage, so I don’t talk to him. It may look immature and it would be more grown up if I could have a conversation about the kid, or about cutting trees or legal issue–but I am keeping my peace of mind. He hadn’t called the house in a long time since his harassing calling, so I let my guard down. Now I let the machine pick up.
Oh, forgot to tell you I laughed about your donkeys’ names, Fat and Hairy! Silly silly! They must be so cute. Are they stubborn asses? LOL
I am so hoping that this fin. planner is super smart to see the facts, and know what blanks are an issue. It’s TOO MUCH for me to figure it out.
I am mad at his games and intentional withholding of documents and having vauge responses in interrogatory. I just don’t want to fall for an angry retaliatory tit for tat battle.
Warrior,
“Why doesn’t he send them?”—because to do so would SHOW HIS ASS and that he is a LIAR—he is hoping against hope that his lawyer can intimidate you or delay delay DELAY long enough that he can get by with it—by threatening to go to court (a judge shouldn’t put up with that carp!)
So, you are in the cat-bird seat on this so keep on breathing and taking things one day at a time! (((hugs)))
PS a friend of mine has a donk named “Lard Ass” another has a mule named “Kiss, my ass.” Yea they are funny, mammoth donks the size of a smaller horse but bigger than the usual “standard” donk that you see photos of. And yea they have minds of their own. I used to have a cat named “Chairman Meow” too. And yea, I am SILLY!
Everyone, I know for a fact after dealing with a sociopath. I AM DAMAGE GOODS!!!!!!!! when it comes to a relationship with another man. Its so sad that but its true. I keep wondering what is wrong with me am I CRAZY!!!!!