The question was, “When can you trust your man?”
A reporter who was writing an article on the topic for a major women’s magazine asked the question. It showed up in my e-mail because I subscribe to a service that distributes questions from reporters to experts all around the world who may be able to answer them.
I knew what the reporter was looking for. She wanted succinct little tips like:
- “You can trust your man if he always shows up when he says he will, or at least calls to tell you he’ll be late.”
- “You can trust your man if he introduces you to his mother.”
- “You can trust your man if he shows you his income tax return.”
But, after being married to a sociopath, and hearing the stories of so many Lovefraud readers, I knew that these external signs may not be accurate.
The luring stage
In the beginning of a relationship, the luring stage, sociopaths can be reliable and punctual. They may seem proud to introduce you to their families. They may appear to be financially solvent.
Sociopathic individuals can appear to be deserving of respect, love and trust as long as it suits their purpose. These predators know what they are supposed to do to win over a lover. And they are capable of actually doing it—at least until they feel like they no longer need to.
Once they have their hooks set in you, they may be late—or even disappear for days or weeks with no explanation. Their families may trip over themselves to be good to you—probably because they want you to take the parasite off their hands. And they may flash cash and financial documents—cash taken from the previous partner, and documents that are forged.
So how do you know when to trust your man—or woman? Here’s my answer: You can trust your partner when you can trust yourself.
Trusting yourself
When it comes to romantic relationships, there are two dimensions to trusting yourself.
The first is your own sense of self. You know who you are, what you want, and where your boundaries are. You know that you deserve to be loved simply for being yourself. You understand that a relationship involves giving and taking by both parties, not one person doing all the giving and the other all the taking. You will not jeopardize your well-being in order to have companionship.
The second dimension is trusting your intuition. Your gut, your body, your sixth sense, will tell you when something is wrong. You must have to have enough faith in yourself that you can hear or feel the intuitive messages, and pay attention to them. We get in trouble when we allow ourselves to be talked out of what our intuition is telling us. When a person or suggestion makes us feel uncomfortable, that’s our early warning system, and we must trust ourselves enough to listen.
I responded to the magazine reporter’s inquiry. I told her than the time to trust a man is when we trust ourselves. She didn’t reply. I assume that my answer wasn’t what she wanted.
Plenty of Fish is a totally FREE site. THEY are the worst!!
My psycologist warned me…in all of her years…and she is up there in years…she said she never heard of ONE success story from a free site.
I have a profile on there…I don’t even check anymore. 90% of them are liars and sickos!!!
My vote: NO…stay away.
tobe
Even if you PAY for a site, it’s crazymaking weirdos and a psychopathic playground.
A friend of mine married one from match. I dated a guy VERY briefly who wound up being a STALKER!
Yep, fun times! Will never do that again!
LL
My take is that ALL the internet sites pay or free are P-magnets and I would NOT date anyone of such a site. It is tooooo easy for someone to pretend to be someone they are not behind that computer screen. All the stories I know of people meeting there are HORROR STORIES, that is where My son C met his “cyber bride” and her children “the devil child” and the “troll.” She and her psychopathic boy friend later tried to kill C and both went to jail/prison for it (couldn’t have happened to a better couple!) She stole $24K from my egg donor and I think she is a certified-card-carrying psychopath. Another friend of mine married one he met online and she opened dozens of charge accounts and credit cards in his name even though he divorced her less than 30 days after the marriage…..he still hasn’t gotten that all resolved. (YEARS) and I know a couple of others as well. ALL BAD. Not worth the risk in my opinion, and lots of folks here have met their Ps on line.
Frankly any guy what has been divorced for 25 years doesn’t sound to me like he is seriously looking for a lasting relationship. My guess is that unless you sleep with him right away that he will go on his merry way. If they won’t wait to sleep with you (and I mean more than a week) or even then, if they won’t go for a complete STD check at the health department and let you see the paper work, you can go together on the same day, then dump him. I would still insist on a condom even with all of that. Remember those 5-6 women in Texas that had “exclusive” relationships with the guy with the FAKED clean STD record who gave 5-6 of the HIV, and none of them knew about the others until later. They banded together and got him put in prison for 45 years, but they still have HIV.
Can’t be too careful, folks! Just this old nurse’s advice…take it or leave it, it was free. No moral judgment here, just GOOD HEALTH INFORMATION.
Years ago…I went on “love at aol” . OMG…Both dates were sickos. When I refused a second date…one went crazy and sat across the lake…flashing his headlights in my front window…and calling me saying he knows I just got home. I am not kidding ..ONE date!! He said..”Noone rejects me” OMG.
Then the other one wrote me a nasty letter.
Then, one guy, who was a teacher, seemed my type…stood me up..never called back about getting together. I saw him on tv with Chris Hanson….crying…”My life is over” …He was a pedafile!! Lost his teaching license…etc. The one and only guy I thought might be ligit.
No more online dating for me!!! Its hard enough to tell in person…never mind online!
HAHAHAHA! I could write a testimonial for Plenty of Fish!!!!!!!
I think he’s still on it! He and a million others!
NFW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To Seeingclearly:
There doesn’t seem to be any good place to meet people anymore. There can be problem people no matter where we meet them.
If we think we are being safe because we don’t meet them on dating site or bar ….
Yes, there are problem people on dating sites or at bars. Problem people also go to church. Anyone can join a church; no background check required. Sometimes those people are the worst cause they use God to cover-up their actions.
Anyone can join a club. Anyone can go on a trip. Anyone can go to school. Anyone can go to grocery store. Anyone can move into your neighborhood. All the places where we are likely to meet people. And, No background check required.
I believe that it is not where we meet them it is about noticing bad signs. And, not overlooking the bad signs.
Big warning sign: Too much Pressure He/she tries to pressure you into something that you don’t feel comfortable with.
It could simply mean that they are looking for something you are not, but it could mean something bigger like they are a stalker testing-out their prey to see if you are an easy cave-in.
The minute someone pressures me I feel like they are imposing their will on me.
Yet, I feel I am opened minded enough to say meet people wherever you please, just don’t ignore your gut feeling if something doesn’t feel quite right.
Oxy –
“a divorce that left me a “basket case” (and most likely with my second episode of PTSD) I had NOT ’LEARNED’ what I had run into…I trusted myself to avoid dangerous people, to avoid people who were dangerous to me, but since my KNOWLEDGE of what made a person trustworthy was SADLY LACKING, I fell again and again for the “love bombs” of THE PERSONALITY DISORDERED PEOPLE who saw me as a victim, both inside and outside of my family.”
This describes my own experience precisely. Having been raised by an abusive father (probably N) and a weak, enabling mother, marrying a violent, abusive man the first time and a con-artist the second time, I was extremely cautious by the time I got to husband number three. Thought I had it all figured and that I knew what “bad guys” looked like. I was wrong – I didn’t – and at the grand old age of 34, with all that experience and knowledge and recovery under my belt, I MARRIED THE SPATH TO END ALL SPATHS – and STAYED WITH HIM FOR SEVEN YEARS and TOOK HIM BACK IN WHEN HE PLEADED WITH ME and KEPT THE FAITH that he could change for a year after our second break-up.
It was sad and traumatic and soul-destroying for a long time; but NOW I DO KNOW what “dangerous” looks like.
“My ability to trust myself was not based on LOGIC or GOOD SENSE but on …..emotional blindness that made me want to be a “people pleaser” and to not be able to set appropriate boundaries with “friends” and “family.”
Me, me, me, me and me too.
“I am no longer “crying” over the “friend” that stole from me…. I no longer feel compelled to “make peace” with the people who have DESTROYED the peace. MY PEACE.”
Me neither. This is such an improved way to live life.
skylar –
“They love fake documents don’t they?”
This has made me stop and think about the “letter from his doctor stating that he has just tested negative to all STDs” that spath produced early on in our relationshit. I had refused to take the relationshit to a more intimate level without “proof” that I was not at risk physically.
At the time I thought I was being so wise about this – after all, I had spent two years post-husband number two being tested and retested for any signs of AIDS. Having been given the “all-clear” myself (although God only knows HOW I got that lucky…) I was in no hurry to compromise my own “healthy” status with another liar.
Now I wonder whether it was even from a doctor. Not that I have any disease of that sort (again, unbelievably and against-all-odds lucky) but I have since had reason to suspect other “false” paperwork of his creation. (Shudder)
dancingnancies –
“Sometimes forgoing our need for kindness and compassion in order to watch out for ourselves is just necessary, period. Sometimes forgoing social niceties in favor of our safety is also necessary, period.”
This was the most difficult lesson for me to learn and put into practice; it just went so against my natural grain to put me first.
Not-too-late –
“… still show blatant disrespect, like making fun of our need for space. Which is the second reason why I don’t think he is a spath ”“ don’t they just move on? He is just incapable of letting us go.”
No – not all of them do. If they have no further use for you and/or you can no longer “supply” something they want, and/or your knowledge about what they are poses no threat to them (ie. they do not believe that you will blow their cover and expose them) then yes – they will probably leave you alone.
If however, you still have something that they want (money, staus, good standing in the community, contacts, sex) or there is gratification to be had by interacting with you (manipulation, drama, feeding off your hurt reponse to their awful behaviour, being able to “yank your chain”, revenge…) or there is still an element of power and control to be had over you or a situation you are involved in (such as when there are court proceedings that you must both attend or where there are shared children who can be used as pawns in their games) – then they will stick around for as long as it pays off for them.
In my case, he has a new partner, there are no children between us and nothing left to manipulate (because he’s already tried and/or done the rest) except our property settlement, so spath’s attention is focussed there now. He left in March 2007. I allowed him home for a month again in August 2007, before having the police remove him from the house. I then divorced him. Yet, here we are, almost four years since he called the marriage off and almost three and a half years since I called the marriage off, and he still won’t let go.
Kathleen Hawk –
“lot of us come from difficult and abusive backgrounds, and it affects our standards. If we’ve grown up with people who treat us with disrespect, expect us to be responsible for their feelings … blame us for their abusive behavior, neglect their obligations and expect us to endure it or (worse) clean up after them, promote the lying and hiding that keeps us from ever being able to be honest with them, the rest of the world, or even ourselves” well, how in the world are we supposed to have standards? We’ve been taught to tolerate things that aren’t good for us, and to fear punishment or withdrawal of love if we don’t follow these crazy rules.”
My previous life in a nut shell. Not any more.
“we became convinced that keeping that person happy was more important than taking care of ourselves. We became submissive (because that’s a lot of what it always is with sociopaths dominance and submission) in ways that were subtle at first, and then not so subtle. A little awkward at first, and finally mindblowingly painful.”
You know, I never did this consciously and always felt with this last of three abusive husbands (the Super-spath) that I stood up for myself and called him on anything dodgy he said and did. Yet, somehow, he still managed his way around me.
My biggest “AHA!” moment was whilst culling memorabilia for a bonfire I had in October 2008. I found two photographs of myself, taken just a few years apart. I hadn’t noticed myself deteriorate – it happened one piece at a time, slowly, slowly, bit by bit. Quite by accident I pulled out a photo of me just before I met the Super-spath. I looked vibrant and healthy and happy and confident and cheeky and even pretty. My eyes sparkled and talked. The next photo I pulled out was such a shock that I gasped when I looked at it. Gaunt face, dull complexion, flat hair, hunched shoulders (weight-of-the-world stuff), forced smile; but the most telling thing was my eyes. Not just sad but sorrowful, quiet, lost, hollow and without hope.
That moment galvanised me against the spath and I have never looked back. A real wake-up call.
Eva –
” to endure a romantic relationship with one”a bit of masochism is necessary.”
No – I disagree. I have never enjoyed pain or sought it out knowingly. I was thoroughly conned. That’s all.
LL –
“I had to take my sex offending son EVERYWHERE with me, even to the grocery store …..even before he was court mandated to do it””
What a fantastically responsible and loving thing to do! What a great mum you are. Do you have any idea of how many people who SHOULD take these measures with their dysfunctional kids, NEVER DO? You are a star, my friend. xx
“I had to have him removed from my home.”
Same again, but doubled. xxxx
skylar –
“I don’t watch Oprah, but I heard about her finding out about a long lost half-sister… another sister, who is now deceased, went to the tabloids about Oprah’s secret: she had a baby at age 14. Oprah …now she realizes that her sister’s selfish revelation actually freed her from shame. She came clean from the secret and doesn’t fear anymore.”
Funnily enough, I watched this episode just last night (here in Australia it has only just aired). I am not a regular watcher of O either, but found this realisation/admission on her part to be very brave and honest. Something to learn from for all of us.
LL-
“Who in God’s NAME would want me after this history”
We do babe, we do. xxx
And your children do.
And one day, there may even be love again with a man; only THIS time, you will know what “dangerous” looks like. And you will not fall for it.
Or – there may not. Only THIS time, you will have learned to live with and love and forgive yourself, and to enjoy being to be and who you really are after all of the crap has been scraped off.
“I have no idea how to deal with it. None of it. It hurts SO BAD..”
That’s why you are going to stay in therapy, stay posting here, rest up, look after YOU and figure it all out. All in time. I never thought I’d come good, either, but I’m doing okay and so will you.
Kathleen –
” if I ever write an honest autobiography, you guys would be shocked out of your shoes. But you know, I had reason every inch of the way. And even the apparently craziest things I did were ways of managing or of having some creativity in the midst of depression or of finding some kind of identity in the midst of blown boundaries and lost dreams.”
Same here.
And I was reminded of a friend who, some years back, having been cheated on and gaslit by her spath doctor husband (“I could bring home drugs from work, everyone knows you’ve been depressed, and I could inject you and everyone would think you had suicided….”) over several years, took what looked like crazy action to the average viewer.
She drove to the house of the woman with whom he was doing the most cheating (this woman was also a sicko and a major accomplice with the gaslighting that took place – I knew her personally – who would do things like call my friend from inside of my friend’s house to tell her that she was “in your spa, in your bedroom, waiting for your husband to bring me up some champagne…”); so she drives there with all of the clothes from his wardrobe and she throws them on this woman’s front lawn, before pouring petrol over them and setting the pile alight. When the yukky woman comes out of her house screaming, my friend calmly says, “You wanted him, so you can have him. He’s all yours”, gets in her car and drives away.
When she told us about this at work the next day we all cheered and clapped, but there were a lot of people who thought she was the crazy one…
tobehappy –
” I am an AMAZING person to live through the nightmare and still be able to accomplish what I did in my life””
This is also what I tell myself. By rights, with what we have been through, many of us ought to be dead or institutionalised. The fact that we are not is testament to the great people we are. IMO.
“now have the SKILLS that were NEVER taught to me”and the STRENGTH and SECURITY that was never given to me as a child”.”
This is where I am at too. It proves that it CAN be done.
To all those of you out there who are still working on this and who think that you are getting nowhere or that it will never happen or that you will die before it does, please don’t despair!!!
There are just as many of us who have made it; and so will you. x
Thank you. Right after I posted a neighbor dropped be and we had a long time no see talk. It’s great to talk to old friends as though no time has past.
To clarify: I didn’t meet this man on Plenty of Fish, he told me in out dating conversation that he had an inactive profile on that site. Which of course raised my anteanae. Everything these days raise my antenae.
I went to the site to check it out but DID NOT put my info in. I hate those sites.
He texted me the next morning after I specifically told him that I do not text. BTW he said he didn’t even know how to text. ???????????
Then he calls me around 5 o’clock this evening and wants to come to my house and bring wine so we can talk and get to know each other. I told him I had already made other plans and besides I didn’t know him well enough to have him at my house.
He really seemed like an OK guy until he mentioned the POF site. Whew. This is a lot of work isn’t it?
Oxy I have learned my lesson about the sleep overs.LOL
I guess I’ll tell him like I did the last fellow—-I’ll have my PI check you out before we get serious—and see if he runs.
Thank you all for the info–YOU ALL ROCK!!!
11 days since he left. One week since I figured out what was REALLY happening. For better or worse, I am not the same person. Nobody, family, friends, co-workers, seem to have noticed.
I was a better girlfriend to the spath than I have ever been before, I was more open and loving, I felt like for the first time I was in an adult relationship and doing everything right. He made me feel softer, more balanced. Someday maybe I’ll think it’s funny that one of the things that I liked about him was the day we were at a science exhibit measuring brainwaves. Being somewhat high-strung, and with lots of chaos from the surrounding kids and activities, my brainwaves were spiking in the upper tier. He remained calm, cool, collected. Sure, now I know he had no reaction because he had no emotion, but at the time his “laid-back” attitude seemed ideal.
I can’t leave the house without being fully made-up. It may be over-the-top for work, but has become my armor. I’ve lost weight from all the stress. I fall asleep on the couch early in the evening and then wake up, only to go to bed and feel the emptiness.
I went to a counselor yesterday, my EAP allows 5 free visits. As soon as I made the appointment, the tension at the back of my neck left, so that was good. I think it was the hypervigilance mentioned in other’s postings, never happened to me before & it felt so strange. Counselor said ok, spath or jerk, we need to work on YOU so this doesn’t happen again.
I know he was spath but that can’t be changed. I have to change, knew that my self-esteem was low but I never in a million years thought that would make me a target! Oh, and we did meet through plenty of fish! I’m not looking anymore!!!
What do I do with my memories? We had some fun times but they all seem tainted now. What do I do with all the pictures, with all his faked smiles? I’m lucky it was only 6 months, but it’s still a block of time that was my life, a life that was a lie. I hate to admit it, but I miss him. Even now, knowing he was just a shell of a person, I miss who I thought he was, and I miss who I thought I was too.
Aussie
“LL –
“I had to take my sex offending son EVERYWHERE with me, even to the grocery store ”..even before he was court mandated to do it—
What a fantastically responsible and loving thing to do! What a great mum you are. Do you have any idea of how many people who SHOULD take these measures with their dysfunctional kids, NEVER DO? You are a star, my friend. xx
“I had to have him removed from my home.”
Same again, but doubled. xxxx”
You blessed me with this tonight. I’m so self absorbed, mired in pain, I forget sometimes, the things I’ve done that showed I loved my children, even while with Spathy………that those are things that would be done by a parent who loved their child.
Thank you for that. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.
LL