It was just a name in the subject line of an email.
I knew the name. How could I forget it? It was the name of the man who had betrayed my trust and my love for the four years nine months of our relationship.
Curious, I opened the email and read the words of a woman whose daughter’s girlfriend is engaged to a man named ”˜Jack’ (not his real name). I think he’s the same man you knew, she wrote. I read your website and the article from when your book was published. Do you have a picture?
I wrote back and told her I had burnt every picture I had of him. She sent me one by return email. Is this the same man? I’m really scared for my daughter’s safety. Conrad and my daughter’s friend have been living with us for a couple of months. He’s made lots of promises. Lots of commitments to do this, do that. None of them have come true.
I wrote back.
Unfortunately, it’s him. You can’t change him, I told her. You can help your daughter and her friend get free by learning as much as you can as fast as you can about narcissism and sociopaths. I gave her a couple of websites to read and I suggested a couple of things she could do to end the abuse now. There’s a good chance he’s up to his illegal activities once again as he has two high-end cars in their drive and one license plate which he continually shifts from vehicle to vehicle. I’ve suggested she contact the police and have offered to speak with the young woman who believes she has been swept up into Prince Charming’s arms.
When I wrote The Dandelion Spirit, I wanted to help women and men caught in a liar’s web to make sense of the craziness. I wanted to encourage and enlighten as well as inspire people.
Over the two years since the book was published I have heard from countless people — telling me their stories, asking for advice, thanking me for helping them understand and to breathe freely again.
I never expected to be able to help someone extricate themselves from Conrad’s web.
Expect the unexpected and life will never disappoint you.
It is my belief that knowledge is a gift to be shared. I learned a lot through the ”˜Jack’ experience. Learned about narcissism, sociopaths/psychopaths. About liars and abusers. And, I learned about being free. About turning up for me, in all my cuts and bruises, to stand tall and proud, a victor in my own life.
Helping others is not about getting even with the abuser. It’s about ensuring people know their rights, their duty and responsibility to be true to themselves. It’s about helping them understand they have the power to cut the ties that bind them to someone else’s abuse — and to help them find their courage to do it.
I have been blessed. In the 5+ years since my release, I have been given the gift of healing and the opportunity to help others find their paths away from abuse.
I am one lucky woman and I want to share my good fortune with the world around me.
“In today’s environment, hoarding knowledge ultimately erodes your power. If you know something very important, the way to get power is by actually sharing it.” Joseph Bardaracco
Everyday, survivors of these affairs stumble into this sight and take heart at the words written here by those who have journeyed through similar darkness. In our sharing we brighten the road and lighten the load of those who have fallen behind us. In our sharing, we illuminate the path for others to follow.
I never expected to be given the gift of helping someone involved with the same man I was. When first I read her words and thought about my response, I wondered if I was doing it out of vindictiveness, or was I truly coming from a loving heart.
I questioned myself to ensure I stood true to me, my values, principles and beliefs. And then, in the end, I realized — my heart belongs to me. In helping someone else, I am not going after him, I am going after what is right — sharing what I know and have learned so that someone else can find their way out of the darkness.
For the woman who wrote me, the story has a happy ending. She got him out of her house. For his new girlfriend, the story continues. She did not heed their advice. Did not want to hear what they said about him.
I know where she’s at. I know how scared she is and how frightened and alone she feels. I cannot change her path. I cannot alter her course. I can only continue to do what I do to create a world of peace around me: speak out against abuse and speak up for those who have lost their voice.
First of all.. I love you guys. This place is a lifesaver.
OK, I’m thinking about injustice again. I study the MBTI personality profiler, it has these four letters which combine to make 16 basic personality types. The last letter is either a P (for perceptive) or a J (for judgemental). The P type people tend to accept the world as it is and change themselves to work within it, while the J type people tend to see the problems in the world and work to make it a better place. They are much more concerned with right and wrong and tend to be also concerned with things like justice, fairness, punishment and even vengeance. I know I’m a J, it seems to me like a whole lot of us here at Lovefraud are J’s. This makes it very hard for us to watch people get away with hurting others.. it’s just against our nature to stand by and watch that.
This tendency to do the right thing makes us better victims, but it also makes us angrier, sadder victims. I don’t think this is a thing that can or even should be changed about us, we just have to work through injustice in our own way.
okay, everyone, i need your help.
i’m having a really bad morning, thinking of course, about what this p/s did … and why. one of the things that’s making me crazy is that for the last six months (while he was cheating and getting his new conquest pregnant, and looking into my eyes and lying about it — even swearing on his recently-deceased mother that he wasn’t cheating), he was so incredibly angry at me! he just had this incredible anger toward everything i did and said; and, i didn’t do anything to him! whenever i would say anything he didn’t like, or ask him why he was so distant, he would get furious with me.
i just don’t understand. why would he have gotten so mad at me? i did nothing for six years except cater to his every need. then, when he’s ready to move on after wooing this new girl for god knows how long — as long as a year, i suspect — he’s angry with me! why???
thanks. i just need to cry right now. knowing that all the affection (and sex) he withheld from me he gave to her, all the intimate conversations that i missed so much he was having with her. after so many years, he would throw out and dismiss everything i was to him.
excrutiating.
Takingmeback,
I didn’t uncover the depth or the breadth of the fraud of our relationship until after it ended. I never got the truth from him, I got it through law enforcement and a PI, mostly after the fact.
But when the truth hit, his stories all fell apart and his charade split wide open. He leads a secret life filled with a constant influx of feminine infatuation yet while courting several “committed” relationships concurrently. He parasitically feeds on any benefit he can glean from each one as he attempts to dominate and manipulate their fidelity and their emotions in guiltless and selfish greed and deceit.
I experienced absence, confused signals, rages and retaliation. He is a high energy liar and con man. I saw pathology, but didn’t know what kind. And just like you, in the end I saw a dangerous predator and I felt an obligation to warn other women.
On the advice of my attorney after incurring equipment theft and while we were still “together,” I took the investigation beyond local small town law enforcement and presented all the information and examples of his behavior to a detective and special investigator with the Department of Public Safety having state-wide jurisdiction and resources. He looked up his criminal record (he’d lied about), reviewed my information, and he came up with a probable profile. I exposed him to law enforcement.
After we ended and my PI collected information, that’s when his female addiction became evident and since he used the internet to supply the bulk of his women (that’s where both his last wife and I met him also) I decided to expose him on the net. He had already used that behavior previously when enraged with me to common friends on group web sites. I expected retaliation but having the truth and innocence on my side, I was willing to take that risk.
I posted warnings on some “cheater” sites I found through Fighter’s Cyberpath web site. That included a post on DDHG, lacking detail but with the description of a liar, cheat, and thief. I had verification of those accusations. And he did retaliate, outlandishly breaking site rules and falsely accusing me of many things including illegal behavior with my business and lender relationships. He also falsely stated that I was being investigated by law enforcement. I assumed all this was done to preserve another and/or other fraudulent relationships and to remain a hero on the net and his mask in place.
Since there were over a thousand views of that post and with the truth on my side, I responded once more with more detail as I attempted to refute what he wrote. But shortly after, DDHG removed all but my original post, erasing his public example of possible defamation of character. But it also provided me with a future caveat in my defense if it should become necessary, because I was not going to allow his lies to affect my public business reputation. I saved his posting and added it to two years’ worth of information I had collected evidencing his behavior.
The task I started of issuing a public warning, I was now even more determined to finish. After the DDHG incident, I decided to expose him fully, with all the details, and at his own game on the net. I didn’t want to be confined to web site rules, so the only way I could think of was to write my own blog, which I did. Writing the blog was a first for me and I received assistance both from Donna and Fighter. (Many thanks again to them for their support.) I wanted to tell my story publically, in my own words, and retain control of what I’d written.
Whether divine or just ironic intervention, immediately after his false accusations of my illegality on DDHG, I received a subpoena requesting certain verification from the Department of Insurance, Fraud Unit. Of course I wasn’t the one being investigated, but he was. The timing was perfect in answer to his public lies.
My blog is very long and specifically details the history of portions of our relationship and facts of his life, intermixing his behavior with details of pathology I’ve learned. The general public usually doesn’t wade through it all, but those who know him, those involved, and those who meet him, do. At the time I posted it last February, I didn’t know if his most recent involvement at the end of our relationship, her name and circumstances provided by my PI, continued or not. But I knew if not her, he would have another or others. It remains posted as a perpetual warning.
In the interim, he has been indicted and pled guilty to a felony charge stemming from an insurance fraud investigation and he is awaiting sentencing with the Pre Sentence Investigation hearing scheduled in two weeks. Last month, he was charged and posted bond for another felony that I was told occurred in April, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, allegedly not on a female but on her husband or ex-husband. I witnessed his similar behavior wreaked upon a male friend of mine, but unfortunately my friend chose not to report it. I too regret not reporting much of his prior behavior. Also unfortunately, the woman involved is the same one as when we ended, still entangled in the web of his life, and I am still certain there are more than just her. I never warned her directly, but my blog contains details provided by my PI of his concurrent deception and infidelity with both of us. I believe she has read both my DDHG post and my blog, as has he.
I received another of his veiled threats via the net when law enforcement was attempting to serve the arrest warrant for the fraud back in February, “show no mercy on the sorry bastards,” as from a prior email he holds me responsible, hoping “I can swallow my deeds.” The month prior to the assault charge, in June, I received an invitation to view his web cam. He continued to contact me for quite some time after we ended, but I offered only reality and that is a place he cannot face. Our contact was short, vile and retaliatory when getting his way was no longer possible. Now I do not respond, but I document and make public on my blog any contact from him.
I have followed all suggestions from professionals about securing myself and my assets. And I believe there is wisdom in keeping my friends close and my enemies closer, but of course I provide him no grounds for any legal action against me. I have protected myself as best I can in writing the blog, stating only fact I can verify and stating opinion where it occurs. If he eventually chooses to litigate, I am prepared.
I believe I was not wrestling with flesh and blood, but with evil, as warned in the scripture from Ephesians. It was a spiritual battle with someone darkly religious. I have pity for any woman involved with him, as his now predictable behavior continues as it will. This unfortunate woman did not heed my initial warning on DDHG or in my blog posted in February, but I am hopeful others will. I am also hopeful she will reread the references to this site and to others I provided within my blog whenever she is ready. I also hope that eventually he reaches out to the only One who can help him. Some lessons are difficult but always a bring a blessing.
My business reputation, is one of being very tough but very fair, because I believe in principles. And I usually finish what I start, especially the important things. I am a believer in God, honesty, and doing what is right in my determination to live a good Christian life. I am usually a private person, but never hide who I am and that’s why I said in my earlier post that if not for his grandiosity, greed, and denial, he should have known better. Not easily or without empathy, but with thankfulness and humility, I can “swallow my deeds” as I know that facing the truth does indeed set you free, however and whenever you choose do it. And I will fear no evil.
My choices are not right for everyone, but they are for me. What he does to women is wrong and they need to be warned. Hope this helps.
Benz
lostingrief – yes living with a sociopath is excrutiating pain, go have a big cry, lot’s of them if you have to – your never going to understand (why) (how) just realize that life is going to get better for you and stay the same for him….he is angry with you because you see him for what he is and your a big inconvience right now…
henry,
thank you thank you thank you. i really needed some feedback. my friends won’t ‘allow’ me to speak about him anymore. i get silence. not helpful at all. so i reach out to all of you.
a big inconvenience. i see him for what he is. yes, that makes sense. but i don’t understand the reaction of anger. him calling me a liar. him calling me a whore. did that make him feel better somehow?
or am i just silly to try to understand a sociopath’s mind?
when nothing makes sense, it’s hard to move on. i just want to know the truth, and just how bad i was played.
but then again, how will that change anything? right?
oh lostingrief I am to the point now (4) months out, I don’t want to know the truth or how bad I was played, I know enough – what you want is to be validated in your diagnosis of him and the relationship. Sweetheart – we got screwed – glued – and tattooed – sometimes there are no answer’s, that is the frustration, there is no closure with a sociopath – accept what has happened and promise yourself you will never let that happen again. But read and learn, and vent here. Four months ago I was a fricken basket case. Today I am thankfull he is someone else’s problem. Think of him like a desease and treat your self with anti biotics (knowledge is power) and accept that you are going to be going through hell to cure yourself,, so cry if you need to, it helps, but think of how wonderful life is going to be without him
lostingrief I don’t know if you can find this link but you needto read about ( Between Devalue and Discard) go to phychopath@groups.msn.com and look for it that is where you are at now between disvalue and discard
Lostingrief,
If he is truly angry, it is because you are learning what a sociopath is, and you are now seeing behind his mask. They rage against truth in any form.
But he might just be pretending to be angry, to get some reaction from you, or to justify his actions in his own warped mind, or to play-act for his next victim.
There really is no making sense of them. Mine once faked a drunken collapse to his grade-school age daughter, then suddenly started acting sober and telling her she was crazy. What possible reason could a human have for doing something like that? They are insane. Nothing about them is real.
ah, henry, it is just that ”knowledge is power” thing that is getting to me. i have no knowledge of just what happened, when, with who (how many!), and i feel that if i knew the whole truth, i would have some power in all this. yet, i read your whole post — and tood’s — and realize it just doesn’t matter.
he’s like some sort of satanic motorboat just mowing everybody down and leaving devastation in his wake: me, his ex-wife, his kids (the ones he cares for and the one he doesn’t!), and at some point, his new girly girl and their baby. sigh. i wish i had EVERYTHING back that i ever gave him, every minute back i ever waited for him, every ounce of love back that i gave to him.
i want him to suffer. i want him to be miserable. i want him to feel the pain he has caused others. no one should be allowed to walk around, chest puffed out, big smile, kind words for his adoring fans … and at the same time, be a sick, cruel, evil being in private with those who love him.
if there is a god, why would such persons have been created?
there is a god, he is very mysterious as well, you will never get any closure in this Lost, only the realization that something very evil possessed you far a while, get away – run like hell and never look back – heal your self – don’t give a fuck about him – he is one of god’s creation’s that satan has possessed – they will pay in the end…..move on Lost…..find your self, this is a life lesson don’t fail it