In my post last week, I referred to an article on Salon.com called, Facebook status: In a scam relationship. The article starts with an anecdote about a guy who met a woman on Myspace. She supposedly lived in Ghana and proclaimed her love, then told him a hard luck story. He sent her a total of $14,000, even though they never met. The person did not exist. The guy was scammed.
After relating the anecdote, the article stated, “He’s a victim of what’s called ”˜love fraud.’”
I had two reactions to that sentence. The first was, “Wow—”˜love fraud’ has entered the lexicon.” The second was, “This writer doesn’t get it—love fraud is not limited to cyber scams.”
Then, a few days ago, I received an inquiry from a television talk show producer who is considering doing an episode about “love fraud.” He Googled, “love fraud,” and of course, immediately landed on this website and blog. He too, however, seemed to think that love fraud was limited to fake romances conducted over the Internet, which turn out to be money scams.
It’s time to set the record straight.
When I learned that my ex-husband, James Montgomery, was a sociopath, and that millions of sociopaths were out in the world putting peoples’ lives through a meat grinder, as had happened to me, I realized that the public needed to be educated. Although I was in the midst of my divorce and couldn’t immediately embark on an education program, I decided that I would eventually build a website.
So 12 years ago, on August 7, 1999, I reserved the domain name, “Lovefraud.com.” If you want proof, check the Who Is information.
Lovefraud.com launched on July 20, 2005. Our logo is trademarked. “Love fraud” is my term. Therefore, I will define it:
Love fraud is the intentional exploitation of an individual through manipulating emotions and trust in a personal relationship. The exploitative relationship is frequently romantic, but can also be between family members, friends and associates. The relationship can take place in real life, or exist only through communications media. The people who engage in love fraud are sociopaths.
For years, I’ve heard from people who want to tell me about their “love frauds.” In fact, I have collected more than 2,500 cases of people who tangled with sociopaths. Yes, I’ve heard about online scams. But I’ve also heard about betrayal by high school sweethearts, long-term spouses, family members, first dates, co-workers and business partners. This type of exploitation is widespread. In fact, it is epidemic.
So to all you bloggers and journalists who are suddenly interested in love fraud—this is not just an online money scam. Love fraud occurs any time a disordered individual uses a personal relationship of trust for the sole purpose of exploitation. Unfortunately, it happens much more frequently than most of us realize.
Hens;
I could not imagine telling somebody I broke up with about a new love. I have one x-bf up in Montreal and once I learned he still has feelings for me I did not say or do a thing when I saw him last that would either hurt his feelings or send an ambiguous message.
My x-spath, while he did not directly gloat about a new boyfriend, was callous enough to mention in an email a recent long night of drinking and guitar hero with a new unnamed “friend.”
Aliciad: He’s playing with your head to bring you down so he can get a charge from it. A lot of these spaths are sadist’s.
When I met my spath husband 30 years ago I was a young woman in my mid 20’s. I had 2 small kids from a previous relationship. After a whirlwind romance my spath married me.
I didn’t know the pathology of a sociopath and had never come into contact with one before.
Before we married it was all wine & roses and the night we married the mask didn’t exactly fall at that point but there was a drastic change for the worse in his attitude. The game began on my wedding night when I was given a visit by his long-term girlfriend.
I thought she was just a vindictive woman who would gradually go away but the truth was he kept her in our life my entire short one year marriage. Her and a whole harem of women. That year we were married he brought me to his mother’s house for dinner. I was escorted into the living room to see her tree and under the tree were 2 presents.
A large big box for his long-term girlfriend and a teeny-tiny box for me. This made me mad and led into a big fight.
He took me into his mom’s bedroom so we could fight it out.
Do you know what was in my small box which was supposed to be a present from my mother-in-law?
A teeny, tiny Avon perfume sample that Avon representatives give to their clients. This was his mother’s way of letting me know his long-term girlfriend was more important to her than I was. This was his mother’s way of telling me I was a temporary replacement in his life.
She never came out and told me he was a “diagnosed sociopath.” The whole gang was in on the con when he married me and they all knew, lock, stock, & barrel.
In my eyes now when I look back on this they were all guilty as hell like neighbors who witness children being tortured by child abusers and don’t report it till someone is dead.
Before he married me he told me he was a changed man and our relationship made him feel like the luckiest man in the world. Exactly one year later after I was turned into a mind-fucked zombie he was filing for divorce and preparing to marry a very wealthy young million heirous in another state and he put on a totally different class act to entangle her in his web. He didn’t even bother to tell her he had just divorced a woman in another state. She went into her marriage blindly not fully investigating him.
At that time there was no internet to check past marriage records. After using her for several years he went back to his long-time girlfriend and gave her a baby. Although I don’t think her life is peaches and creme with him. They live in separate houses but I know she must be a mental wreck from his mind fucking games.
I’m happy to be free from him and remarried about 2 years after he left me. I’m basically 99.9 % healed but I still live with the trauma of what he did to me.
For several years I was fine but a few months back I started experiencing nightmares. Sooner or later after my head works it all out I think I’ll be able to put it back in the crypt where it all belongs.
So to answer your question, yes, I was once the young woman with 2 kids who he said had turned around his life.
If he leaves with her she’ll be a distant memory by this time next year. But my best advice to you is to move on and find a decent guy no matter how long it takes. The sociopath is not worth your headache and you’re only wasting time with him when you could be out there looking for a quality husband. If you waste your time waiting around for him in the end you’ll end up behind the eight ball and all the good men will be taken.
Just my 2 cents or advice. Joanie
Joanie:
Wow, what a story. So sorry you had to endure all that 🙁
Thanks for sharing with us.
Yep, Louise and there’s more I haven’t unleashed yet for fear of being identified on this site. I’m trying to let it out little by little.
It get’s worse. Trust me.
I’ve been to hell and back.
Joanie;
Your advice is very true and sadly hard-earned.
Aliciad – No his new love didnt work out, i was just sure he had found someone better and more deserving than me. But that was over three years ago and I realize now I was just an option for him, at times the only option he had ( that is when they are on their best behavior) but they are always collecting option’s, the more they have the more powerful they feel… and in hindsight I realize their never was a relationship with him.. Aliciad he will come back, he will dance as long as your willing, take back your power and go no contact forever…no contact is your only weapon and your ultimate salvation..
Hi Joanie,
Thank you so much for sharing your story. I’m so sorry to hear what you’ve been through — but please believe that you’re helping other people with what you’re saying right now. Not just me, but the countless people who read blogs like this and don’t log on. I applaud you. 🙂
We do not need people in our lives whose only goals are to make us sad, to bring down our self-esteem, to ultimately destroy us. They’re awful. They’re basically the devil. I feel so encouraged and stronger after posting on this site tonight. Thank you, anonymous people. 🙂
ps: The spath I was involved with was also married for one year. Then SHE got depressed, despite the fact that he was the perfect husband, she left him for very selfish reasons, etc. I don’t believe a word of that. I think she desperately wanted to change him and then realized it was impossible.
Thank you, Hens, for reinforcing that no contact is my only way out. You guys are awesome. You’re helping me in a very crucial way right now, and I greatly appreciate it.
Alicaid,
He is trying to slime you with how HE feels.
He chose you because he could see that you had high self-esteem, something he only wishes he could have. He knows you feel you deserve better and more but it makes him angry so he is determined to convince you and make you feel that you won’t ever get what you want and that you don’t deserve it.
You said:
So what he’s said is that thanks to me and all the crap he put me through, he can now be a perfect guy FOR HER.
This is a pattern I’ve noticed in all of the relationships with the spaths. They pick someone who desires to help them because it makes us feel good to help and to make someone happy. I believe this is what they envy most: our desire to be good people and how our self-esteem is connected to it.
What he wants you to feel is that all your efforts are for nothing. That you will lose. One day, I mentioned to my spath, “Jesus said, “don’t throw your pearls before swine” ”
I was advising him about something. He thought about it, and after that, he would say it to me all the time. I understand now that it was a tell. He is a swine and he knows that my love was my pearls. It thrilled him to know that I was giving my pearls to a swine. My spath didn’t tell me the way yours did, he just let me feel it everyday. And he laughed at the fact that I kept doing it because I could not abandon him and because he had worked every angle to get me trapped: the house, the cats, the poison, the debt, the solitude. They were all strategies.
PLEASE open your eyes and see him for the monster in human skin that he is. You haven’t lost much yet, so I’m sure that he will keep taunting and teasing and luring you while poking that knife into you even more. You must remove him from your life as quickly as possible. Realize that only someone who LOATHES you, could treat you like that. He is a monster who wears a mask in order to get closer to the person he most despises, you.
I would feel sorry for him except that it would be a waste of pity. It’s like having pity for a spider that’s eating a fly, because it is doing such a disgusting act. There’s no point in it, that’s what spiders do. The correct emotion for him is disgust and revulsion.
Revulsion is one of the most primal emotions. It is natural to feel revulsion toward a disgusting thing, because it protects us from toxins. It is possible though, to overcome our natural revulsion if one becomes accustomed to it little by little.
You need to take back your feeling of disgust and revulsion for someone who is so toxic to you. Visualize him as a turd or vomit. Keep it up until he no longer appeals to you.
I hope that this will help you to see what he has done to you was a violent attack of slime on your psyche and had nothing to do with your self-worth.
Alicia, When you usually see signs that a person is divorcing within one year that is usually a dead give away for a sociopath.
Not always but most often the case.
When a person has multiple husbands or wives and many short term marriages that’s usually a very strong sign.
As for what he’s telling you on the reasons why she left him don’t believe a word of it. He’s telling you one thing but if you spoke to her you’d more than likely be told he womanized and played head games with her. On top of that a lot of spath men don’t like to work and often want the woman to support them.
This is not always the case because there are a lot of high functioning sociopaths that do work.
If you told him you wanted to meet his ex to get her story he would never allow it because then he’d be exposed.
But from what you’re mentioning of the short term marriage it seems to be a classic sign. Move on and don’t look back.
It’ll never get better between you and him only worse and you’ll save yourself a lot of heartache if you don’t take him seriously.
Joanie