Lovefraud recently received the following e-mail from a reader who we’ll call “Lillian.”
Yes. It happened to me. It took him six years but he left. He left me holding two mortgages in both our names. He left me once I ran out of cash. He left me when I got laid off. I am almost 50 years old and I have nothing. I haven’t heard from him in over a year. He encouraged me to buy a bigger, more expensive house than I would have on my own and came up with half the down. He moved in. Wouldn’t pay anything. Got us a joint account and credit card. I worked. He didn’t even buy groceries. He bought himself a boat after three years of hell as I got angrier and angrier because he just lay on the couch. Then he sailed to Mexico and didn’t come back. His rich widow of a prominent heart surgeon called me one day. He had told her he owned property up here and that he had ended a relationship—which he hadn’t. He got really angry then and cleaned out the joint account of my funds, of course, since there was never any joint about it. He lives in Mexico on his boat and has a house in Oakland. She feels like Cinderella right now and thinks I am the evil stepsister.
I had $400K in cash. No revolving debt. Two retirement accounts and supported my husband and kids. Well fast forward. I have no cash. No retirement accounts. $70K in revolving debt and no job. I am ruined. I am so traumatized and messed up that I can’t function. I just cry. I reach out and no one is there. I am extremely isolated. I want to die. He is living in Mexico and suing me for half the house. He isn’t done with me yet. And I am just two months away from living in a tent. No one cares. No one understands. Everyone thinks that somehow I either deserve this and or it’s my fault. I am done for. I don’t know that I can be helped even if I knew someone who could help me. That’s the story. Sad but true. I wish I were dead.
After a devastating encounter with a sociopath, the most important thing we have to do is stay alive.
We may have lost our money, our homes, our jobs, our health, our self-esteem, our hopes and our dreams, but we cannot lose our selves.
This is basic, but crucial. We cannot die.
Not everyone succeeds at this essential task. Not everyone is able to continue living in the face of monstrous personal betrayal. In these cases, the sociopath truly wins. Dr. Leedom calls it “murder by suicide.”
There is an old adage, “Where there’s life, there’s hope.” When dealing with the aftermath of a sociopath, this is the truth. A sociopath’s goal is always to win, and sometimes to destroy us in the process. When we stay alive, we deny the sociopath’s victory.
We can also start a process that, over time, will enable us to claim victory for ourselves.
It doesn’t seem that way in the blackness of despair as we survey the wreckage of our lives. But as many of us have learned, amid the wreckage we may discover that our broken ideas and beliefs actually needed to be broken and thrown away. We were operating under false conceptions of ourselves, conceptions that made us vulnerable to the predators.
We learn that if we stay alive, we can begin to rebuild our lives, and when we do, we will be living our own truth.
So how do we do it? We keep putting one foot in front of the other. We cry when we need to, then we pick ourselves up and push on. We keep going forward, even though we don’t believe we can.
The road to recovery takes time and patience. It takes recognizing that we may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD). It takes caring about ourselves and being kind to ourselves.
The first step is staying alive.
Please, Lillian, we know your situation is very, very bad. But don’t let him win.
Thanks MATT
Yes, he called me himself and seems resistent when I tell him to put his offer in writing and get it to the lawyers.
I put in a call to the lawyer as you suggested-=waiting for a call back.
Since, the shore house is in CO name , I cannot do anything with it right now. In the future, I suppose i could try to rent it but the class of available tenants in the area tend to run the properties down when full time. And it isn’t really a weekly rental -unless for an avid boater that would use the lagoon to get out to the bay or ocean.
It seems he put ALL the debt into Const. business to fund the bar-b-que corporations. Is that legal to run one down to bankruptcy to support the others and go bankrupt on only one with no consequence to the others? Also, if he declares bankruptcy – does that means he stops Const. business altogether? If so, 4 more people will lose jobs – one guy has a non-working wife and 2 kids. Or is he still allowed to operate? My guess is he will resurrect it under maybe another name after our D is complete.
He has not submitted all his records – spotty at best – on purpose to be sure. Can he be forced to submit?
Second and third requests have gone to his lawyer in writing.
Thanks Again, MATT!!!!
You always help me ask the lawyer the right questions. Fees are high and I hate to get on the phone sputtering and unprepared. You also rest my heart and soul a little when I feel so helpless………..God Bless!!!
His friend has received the signed promissory note – to my surprise. That note is now against the Bar-b-que joint.
newlife08:
Doesn’t surprise me that he would resist putting it in writing.
Regarding his putting all the debt on the construction business, I guess he can do that. My question still is whether he has cross-guarantees among the business entities and/or is personally guaranteeing the debt. Something your lawyer and accountant need to determine.
Construction company owners are notorious for dropping the companies into bankruptcy. That is why you see so many housing developers fall into bankruptcy the minute a development is finished and the lawsuits start. Then the owners magically arise from the ashes with and create a new company with a name that is remarkably similar to the name of the defunct entity. His employees, if they hadn’t been paid, would probably step to the front of the creditor line. But, they have no gauranty of having a job with the new entity.
If he doesn’t produce the records, a judge can issue an order compelling him to produce them. If he doesn’t the judge can hold him in contempt and fine/lock him up.
Does sort of make you wish you could strap a lightning rod to his head and make him take a walk on a golf course during the next thunder storm, doesn’t it?
OK , Matt,
You, like Mr. Becker – actually can get me to laugh.
YES – I would like to shake him to his corre because he is turning out to be the total OPPOSITE of what I thought all these years.
All these years I paid bills on time – we had an immaculate credit rating – and never put us in credit card debt. No car loans outstanding – NOT ONE DIME ON MY SIDE!!!
Yet, the last years he has gone haywire. He had some some things in the early years I fought him on – a second house we could NOt afford with another partner – he lost interest after awhile and we lost money. He invested in stock market – we lost money. He had some inventions he spent money on prototypes – went nowhere.
But now I guess he was only in TRAINING – preparing for the last 6 years or so . Is it possible to be a sociopath a little and then BLOOM fully at some point?
He does show impeccable restraint when he has to- in front of witnesses. Most of his behavior was always passive -aggressive – too bad I knew noth of p/a behavior to detect it.
I do believe he is a strategist – planner -plotter – and now he says if I don’t listen to him about a deal I will be a self-fulfilling prophecy of being broke .
Is this projection or intimidation?
The first step is staying alive.
I came across this on YOUTUBE.
This message is on personality disorders but it’s the song that really did it for me. Hope you visit it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU1gNWWKRHI
Lillian,
I’ll dedicate my next act of revenge against one of my sociopaths to you – privately (just between us) of course. It shall be called: “The Boat Don’t Float No More”.
Lillian,
Oh my God I am SO glad you found your way to this website. Please, PLEASE,please…..choose life. I understand your absolute devastation and despair. It is, to be sure, life changing. But it doesn’t have to be life ending.
It is, though I know for sure it doesn’t feel like it right now, a beginning. You CAN make it through this.
I understand, I know you DO NOT deserve this, and I care. Please come and share yourself with us, so we can support you through your journey……
Lillian,
DO NOT let that spathhole win!!! I was also broke, my credit ruined, & being stalked. I somehow pulled myself together, & then I got mad. I began to fight back, after I went through the healing stages. You can ,too. I will pray for you!
Hey, Matt,
Update – spoke to the lawyer and thanks to you I think it took half the time because I knew what to ask. Guess I owe you half the fees. Glad to buy you a drink if you get to NJ.
Anyway, of course you are correct. I cannot do anything to obtain titlwe of the shore house. It can in fact be taken back if he does go bankrupt and I will be left in the cold. All answers go back to having to complete the forensic acctg to get an accurate $$$ amount of debt, assests, dissipated marital assets, chargevbacks to his income for personal expenses paid by the Co. etc etc etc.
So my lawyer advised me to politely call him and tell him my hands were tied as to making any agreement over the house or anything else until he submitted all his records. My lawyer would be negligent and liable if he were to advise me otherwise – unless the settlement was soooooo sweeeet I didn’t have any desire to ask for details. Obviously , that ain’t gonna happen.
NSH did NOT take the call very well – says, ” OK- listen to those A##Ho##s and see where you land. I’m trying to look out for you and all they want to do is take your money in fees.”
I reminded him that I trusted HIM when I signed to re-mortgage the current house I live in and the credit line – under the promise of working our relationship out.
NOW – no reason to talk, trust or listen – he’s already shown his intent.
newlife08:
“I’m trying to look out for you…” No doubt through the cross-hairs of his shotgun. As for them wanting to take your fees…well, I guess you could have explained the obvious to the oblivious (him) that you wouldn’t need to expend the fees if he had been honest and forthcoming in the first place.
The more I thought about your situation, the more I realize your S is making what I call a “turn key argument” — the sound you hear is the key being turned in your jail cell door. I admire your restraint. I probably would have told him “I”m sorry, although federal prisons have a higher level of amenities, I have no interest in joining you there as a co-conspirator. So, I must politely decline your generous offer.”
By the way, happy to help. I’ll take you up on that drink, I’m only next door in NYC — although I’d prefer we don’t go to his B-B-Que joint.
DEar Newlife,
I’m with matt, I hear the handcuff keys clinking with your soon to be X! You know, it might be “worth it” for you to end up bankrupt if it ends hiim up in Federal Prison.! LOL
Matt, you should not WONDER where you need to look for a “job” or which direction to go!!! You are a NATURAL for going into family law, because you GET IT! Can you imagine just how much an attorney who DOES GET IT and can know what the Ps are probably up to is worth! How many people NEED YOU!!!!