Hello all, I just found this website within the last few days during my period of searching for answers. It all begins in January of 2015, I met a women at work, and we hit it off. We became Facebook friends and started chatting constantly through Facebook messenger. As our relationship progressed we moved to text messaging constantly.
Everything progressed to a hotel stay for two nights, which is was wrong in so many ways because we are both married. After the stay at the hotel I immediately went home and told my wife, I could not live with the guilt of it and she too seemed to have guilt based upon discussions we had. After thirteen years of marriage with my wife my marriage began to rapidly spiral downward and it should have, it was my fault and I should have not done this. Hers did not seem to be effected at all, they have only been married for 10 months so I suppose they are still in the honeymoon stage. Our relationship continued to grow, we became closer and closer everyday. She stayed at a hotel with me two or three nights a week every week. I lived in a hotel because I was asked to leave my house, which is understood and her husband was away at police academy during the week.
Continuing on we grew to continually saying I love you and that I miss you – we were in what I thought was love. I did everything for her, anything she asked I did or I bought her. My personal life began to continue to spiral downward as my divorce began to works its way through the process, I was required to file for bankruptcy so that I could save my wife financially. I agreed that I would continue to pay the monthly mortgage and her car for her because this was my fault and I feel that it is my obligation to do this. We found out that are 6 year old had hearing problems which has progressed to a point that she is legally deaf and I had to pay for implants for her because I failed my daughter as a father. My personality is the type that I would give anyone anything that I can to make them happy, to help them through a difficult situation, give them the clothes off my back to help them. I am the guy that stops by the bank every Monday morning to get cash to make sure that I have cash for any homeless man or women that asks me.
Fastforward to now, her husband is home from the academy and our texting slowed, but not much. She called me on the phone everyday after she left work to talk on her way home, anytime and overtime she had alone time she called me and we talked. two weeks ago her and her husband went and got a puppy. I told her that I guess this is the end of us because this was a big step in their life, to raise a living thing. Her response was that she still loved me more than anything, I treat her so much better than her husband and cannot live without me in her life. Five days later her husband received a letter explaining that his wife is having an affair, from whom I can only understand is my ex-wife. I heard nothing from her that night. The next morning I receive an instant message through our work instant message system that they talked it out and he is willing to work through it as long as I talk to her about work and work only. I was destroyed, I left my wife and kids for her. I filed bankruptcy for her and to completely turn everything off that fast I was appalled. I continued to receive messages from her daily through our work instant message system that were purely work related questions. A week ago a large group of us from the office went to lunch together, I acted happy and enjoyed my self greatly. Before I get back to the office she sent me an instant message that said Be jealous because we went and got ice cream and you guys didn’t. Finally last Tuesday I told her that I can no longer answer anymore questions for her and she should find someone else to answer her questions. She responded noted and agreed, but her question related to the key to my apartment which I ignored, she sent three other messages after that asking me about the key all of which I ignored. She did not send me anymore messages from that point on. I am wondering if she will contact me, and I am wondering if she thinks about what she did.
I have confided in friends, we all agree that she did not tell her husband the full truth. She did not tell him about the two other guys before me that she was involved with while they were engaged.
I am confused because I want her back, everyone tells me that it would be no good for me, I deserve so much better because I am honest and I am a really good guy who would do anything for anyone, but I believe she does too.
I have been suicidal over this, I destroyed my life, but more importantly I destroyed my ex-wife’s life. She is destroyed and I can apologize time and time again, but it will get me nothing and I know that. I try to work past this everyday, she is the last thing I think about before I go to bed and the first thing I think about in the morning.
Jamie, you are not alone. Feel free to message me On fb under Amy Corley Heinz. I have tons if info that may help u tremendously. I work with women whove been thru what weve been thru and i am 4&1/2yrs out and he still drags me thru court for whatever nonsense he thinks up. But if people like us bleeding hearts cant act and help each other, give it 1,000 yrs and the population of those capable of feeling love, empathy, loss, heartache, charity, etc is all but nonexistent. Cant wait for ur reply.
I’m sure my story is no different than anyone else’s – and here I thought it was so “magical”, so I don’t need to go into details. I just need to add my tiny coda to these messages so at least I can feel HEARD. We were soulmates, we were lovers, I was “his girl” and his everything. And then he dumped me with no warning or explanation for someone else. Dangled a bit of ‘friendship’ in front of me with contact every month or so – and assurance that he just needed “some time”. Treated me like garbage and offered no sane explanations. Until someone told his wife we’d had an affair – and then suddenly he was the coldest bastard I’ve ever met.
This has devastated me. For 9 months I’ve cried every day and just screamed “WHY!??” in my house. Wondered how I could go from being “the one” to being absolutely nothing. Missed him like I’ve never missed anything in my life. Spent a week in the mental hospital for being suicidal in February. Wondered if the heart-wrenching pain (which most of my friends just couldn’t understand) would ever end. If I’d ever get answers. If I’d ever stop wondering what the hell happened to my life.
And then someone told me he might be a sociopath. And I found this website. And our relationship follows the pattern EXACTLY. And I finally found some room to breathe. SOMETHING that made sense. I’m still fairly obsessed with thoughts of him…but it’s clearing. I’ve accepted that I will NEVER get answers from him . I’ve accepted I was used and discarded. And I’ve accepted that he’ll do this to every woman he ever gets involved with. That I don’t need to be jealous of who is sleeping with, but grateful that it is no longer me.
Thank you. This information just might have saved my life. And now I feel like I actually have one.
I just read both of your stories and I am sitting here right now after almost three years of living with a man who was actually diagnosed as being a sociopath, but I still can’t leave. I have made multiple attempts. He has gone through every stage described (assessment, gaming, discarding) and yet I keep allowing myself to be reeled back in. He has done so much damage to me that I haven’t been able to work. Just two weeks ago he physically assaulted me when I was planning to leave for Vermont (we live in Ohio) and 1.5 years ago he was arrested and convicted of aggravated menacing for threatening to kill me. He also cheated on me and devalued me to his family and friends when I have been nothing, but good to him. You might ask what is wrong with me…why am I still here? I am bright, attractive and have a masters degree in social work. I want so much to leave, but when I do he somehow gets me to come back because he knows I am sad and he knows I am grieving. So, then he.acts nicer, says he misses me sexually and compliments me but then once I am back and he gets what he wants and once again he is cold and uncaring again.
Tomorrow, he is leaving for Las Vegas and I am paralyzed with fear that he will cheat on me again and/or do many other horrible things that could jeopardize my physical health as he did before. A big part of me wants to be gone before he gest back, but I am afraid.
Amy it takes strength and courage to leave. Particularly when you and your world has been broken down. Ask yourself where do you want to be 5 years from now?.if he has already tried to kill you you are in a dangerous place and this will only get better. He has nothing to offer you that you do not have within. I promise you. He is an empty cage and he lives off of you not the other way around.
Amy,
Do not do this to yourself, you are putting yourself in a very dangerous situation if he is already threatened to harm you and that should be priority number 1 on your list – yourself.
You should use this period of time when he is gone to get rid of him forever.
Agree jamie!!
Amy –
Thank you for writing to us about a difficult situation, I know how hard that can be. Before I dated a sociopath, I was married to an abusive man. He strangled me. I was lucky enough to get away, but took him back because I was a stay at home and didn’t know if I could live on my own.
I spent four years saving money and documenting EVERYTHING. One day when he went to work, I had 7 friends come help me move in only 6 hours to a location he knew nothing about. I had him served with papers. And I began re-building. Luckily, I never lived with the sociopath or let him meet my children – I was smarter and stronger.
You CAN do this too. Get support. NOW. Not just this forum. Get a counselor. Find a group at your local YWCA. Enlist the help of friends. Save money. Find a place to live. DO IT. The sooner you do, the sooner you can begin a new life. A life you clearly want. You have been manipulated for years. You have lost sight of your own goals, you’ve lost self-esteem, and most damaging – you’ve forgotten how very VERY powerful you are. Of course you are afraid. You’re human. But you can do everything you need to and fight through that fear. Every step you take will build you up. Lean on whoever you need to – but DO THIS. Save your own life. Please. It is the only one you have and it is worth so so much more than what you are living now. You don’t deserve this and never have. Love yourself enough to know that. You are worth it.
Amy,
I am a man and we all have gone through your troubles. Getting sucked in over and over again by the one person you love. You have to understand that they dont love you like you want them to and they never will – they do not have the ability to do it. With that said Amy, please protect your self both physically and emotionally and disappear for a few weeks. Fall off the map – this will give you sometime to hide from him and to get over him. Please don’t ask yourself any questions, the questions will continue on and on and you are going to drive yourself insane. I know, we all know, I have been there and we all have been there. I left my wife and children for a sociopath only to have her rip my heart out of my chest and stomp on it and now I have nothing. I have been in the darkest places, I have made the trips to the ER for suicidal tendencies and it is not worth it.
Happiness comes from within, not from the outside. Life is what you make of it and if you let him control your happiness you are never going to experience true enlightenment.
I ask you, we all ask you, please protect yourself. It is your time, it is your moment to take happiness and run with it.
I knew from the beginning this man is a sociopath, so many signs were there even in the first few weeks since we met.. but as we all fall under their charming charismatic personality it was really hard to resist… and in the moments of their “temporary sanity” it felt great.. felt like there is hope that it will get better… It never did, never does, and never will..
Verbal and emotional abuse at its worst, tracking every number in my cell phone, calling and texting my friends abusing them, throwing me out of his house on a regular basis, ripping/trashing my clothes and possessions, never-ending questioning of events of my life, hacking into my laptop and Kindle, watching me on cameras that he had all over the house, constantly breaking up with me and then dragging me back… Lying and cheating, but accusing me of things that only happened in his sick imagination… total absence of any empathy… I think I could go on and on…
And yes, after all this I managed to come back to him! He even managed to lure me into moving in with him… only to my huge regret and being thrown out of his house few weeks after I moved in, and having to stay in a hotel. Luckily, I found apartment fast and moved out…. Unluckily, I got sucked back into this madness (I never initiated any contact with him after breakups, but he could never ever leave me alone… always started texting or calling or e-mailing apologizing… until I gave up).
Three weeks ago his abuse escalated to physical violence. Long story short, he hit me with his fist in my nose several times that my nose exploded with blood, kicked me with his feet all over… I finally ran out and drove away… to the police. Now I have an Order of protection so he can’t contact me in any shape or form. And he is facing assault charges, case is with District Attorney office.
I feel I am finally free!… Not at best cost, but as I clearly see it now otherwise I still could’ve been sucked back and stuck in these circles of hell…
I like that sentence ‘temporary sanity it was great’…. this is true. But if they can be sane sometimes, why can’t they be sane all of the time? They can’t as once they have captured you, they cannot bear to let you go.
There is no “temporary sanity”. Sociopaths mimic real people. “Seeming” normal is their tactic to win our trust, and keep us involved while they take what they need. Sociopaths are not sane in any way.
Omg SURVIVOR! I had to reread your name and date bc I thought I may have written that about my life.. I was with mine for 8 years..he has never hit me but he showed the signs when he was angry..you all know that dark blank glossed over stare they give that tells you to shut up NoW or else! WeLL started off punching holes right by my face but never my face…breaking my phones..computers…and once smashing our glass coffee table…it happened over the span of 8 years so I justified away and blamed myself for accusing him and angering him..lol what a crock they make us believe huh! Always told myself ATLEAST he’d never hit me. Now he is 6’5 and 200 lbs. If he hit me he would do damage!! I always told him if I find out you cheated or if u ever hit me I am out! About About 2 days ago he grabbed my phone and started looking for anything at all to start his usual ugly shLt w me and after about 30 min I said I am doing nothing wrong can I please have my phone..after about an hour of this I stood up and grabbed it! Wrong move!!!! He jumped up and I saw it comin thank God so I plopped face down on the bed w my arms protecting my face and he pounced on my back and grabbed my hair and snatched back my head and told me I was up to no good and hiding something if I took it like that. I was stunned! I started to cry bc I knew it was over. He did it. He forcefully and intentionally caused physical pain to me. He then backed off and started to apologize. And I stood up to straighten myself up and said how it was over bc I know he won’t stop there from now on if I stay. He agreed and blamed it all on me bc he can’t trust me..UM I have been the loyal and faithful one the whole time so that little gas light action can kiss it! I then got up and left and told him to get help bc he will do it to the next and the next! He has anger issues! He said it was not just his fault it was mine too…lol I said no sir! Abuse in that form is alllllll u!! Bye…… Hm saw his brother and sister today and they told me his version and OMG what a joke! But these people know him! I told them the real story and they freaked out bc they never expected physical violence bc he has never done it to anyone else..I just say to that it hasn’t bc he hasn’t been involved w any of them as long as me..and unless he gets help it will now happen quicker and more frequently! And blame me or whatever if it makes u feel better but there is NO JUSTIFYING A MAN OVERPOWERING A WOMAN BY FORCE!!! I will never let that slide by like he thought I would bc he is used to me wanting to fix it but he broke one of two of my cardinal sins so now he will see what it’s like to not have miss fix it. He can go get his greener pastures! I feel sorry for him actually..I may be heartbroken for long while bc I thought he was my ONE and I pictured us grown old together..but I remember the positive confident social butterfly I used to be..seemed I was always happy but now this shell of a person I’ve become has to remember how to think on my own..no more freaking out if I miss a call, no more asking permission to do anything, I can wear what I want now instead of being this classy lady all the damned time. And I can remake friends with whoever I want and rekindle old friends I lost due to this relationship ..I’m almost 40:/ so dating scares me and is not something I will ever take lightly again..I no longer believe in soul mates OR Prince charmings bc to me they are all sociopaths..narcs..or psychopaths! He has been caught on dating websites and told me he is bored and likes to talk to Friends on there..lol! OMG I am a fool for staying! Yet godforbid I even have a childhood male friend say hi! That would be a week long silent treatment to teach me my lesson! OMG yay no more bullshit lessons! Wow. Sorry I’m writing a novel..it just brings up more and more bullcrap when I think of it all. The crap were on the days I called ” doesn’t love me days”… Toward the end the doesn’t love me days lasted longer than the I love u days and I should’ve seen this ending well before he grabbed my head…it could have been worse and I know that but I darned sure won’t be there to see if it will or not. Thanks for all of your time and allowing me to vent a little. I have only one friend left and she must be ready to chop her ears off lol.xoxxoxo good luck and lots of self love to all
Omg SURVIVOR! I had to reread your name and date bc I thought I may have written that about my life.. I was with mine for 8 years..he has never hit me but he showed the signs when he was angry..you all know that dark blank glossed over stare they give that tells you to shut up NoW or else! WeLL started off punching holes right by my face but never my face…breaking my phones..computers…and once smashing our glass coffee table…it happened over the span of 8 years so I justified away and blamed myself for accusing him and angering him..lol what a crock they make us believe huh! Always told myself ATLEAST he’d never hit me. Now he is 6’5 and 200 lbs. If he hit me he would do damage!! I always told him if I find out you cheated or if u ever hit me I am out! About About 2 days ago he grabbed my phone and started looking for anything at all to start his usual ugly shLt w me and after about 30 min I said I am doing nothing wrong can I please have my phone..after about an hour of this I stood up and grabbed it! Wrong move!!!! He jumped up and I saw it comin thank God so I plopped face down on the bed w my arms protecting my face and he pounced on my back and grabbed my hair and snatched back my head and told me I was up to no good and hiding something if I took it like that. I was stunned! I started to cry bc I knew it was over. He did it. He forcefully and intentionally caused physical pain to me. He then backed off and started to apologize. And I stood up to straighten myself up and said how it was over bc I know he won’t stop there from now on if I stay. He agreed and blamed it all on me bc he can’t trust me..UM I have been the loyal and faithful one the whole time so that little gas light action can kiss it! I then got up and left and told him to get help bc he will do it to the next and the next! He has anger issues! He said it was not just his fault it was mine too…lol I said no sir! Abuse in that form is alllllll u!! Bye…… Hm saw his brother and sister today and they told me his version and OMG what a joke! But these people know him! I told them the real story and they freaked out bc they never expected physical violence bc he has never done it to anyone else..I just say to that it hasn’t bc he hasn’t been involved w any of them as long as me..and unless he gets help it will now happen quicker and more frequently! And blame me or whatever if it makes u feel better but there is NO JUSTIFYING A MAN OVERPOWERING A WOMAN BY FORCE!!! I will never let that slide by like he thought I would bc he is used to me wanting to fix it but he broke one of two of my cardinal sins so now he will see what it’s like to not have miss fix it. He can go get his greener pastures! I feel sorry for him actually..I may be heartbroken for long while bc I thought he was my ONE and I pictured us grown old together..but I remember the positive confident social butterfly I used to be..seemed I was always happy but now this shell of a person I’ve become has to remember how to think on my own..no more freaking out if I miss a call, no more asking permission to do anything, I can wear what I want now instead of being this classy lady all the damned time. And I can remake friends with whoever I want and rekindle old friends I lost due to this relationship ..I’m almost 40:/ so dating scares me and is not something I will ever take lightly again..I no longer believe in soul mates OR Prince charmings bc to me they are all sociopaths..narcs..or psychopaths! He has been caught on dating websites and told me he is bored and likes to talk to Friends on there..lol! OMG I am a fool for staying! Yet godforbid I even have a childhood male friend say hi! That would be a week long silent treatment to teach me my lesson! OMG yay no more bullshit lessons! Wow. Sorry I’m writing a novel..it just brings up more and more bullcrap when I think of it all. The crap were on the days I called ” doesn’t love me days”… Toward the end the doesn’t love me days lasted longer than the I love u days and I should’ve seen this ending well before he grabbed my head…it could have been worse and I know that but I darned sure won’t be there to see if it will or not. Thanks for all of your time and allowing me to vent a little. I have only one friend left and she must be ready to chop her ears off lol.xoxxoxo good luck and lots of self love to all
@Amy
The first and main person that can help you is yourself. You already know how to deal with the legal system, but you have to maintain yourself strong to avoid giving him another break. Maybe it is a good idea to contact some battered women services, they can help you to design your plan to escape all this insanity on practical terms. As stated before, the other part is your work, a work that will take a lot of energy and determination that begins with no contact. All my best wishes for you.
Thank you so much for your caring response. I met with a friend today and I am also going to contact a battered women’s group tomorrow. I have to do this for my own sanity and to get my life back so I don’t continue to live under his “spell” anymore. I may even leave the State.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!! I’m thinking you did the right thing at the right time, you saw the opening to leave and did it. You’ll be fine I am sure, because you are very clear about what he really is. If you were in a stage of romanticizing and giving him the benefit of the doubt, you might still be in danger of staying with him. You’ll heal completely and be fully recovered and thriving in no time. Really – since you are absolutely aware that he has you under a “spell” – you are already free. In the last months I’ve talked so many women in the grocery store, at parties, – seems like everywhere I go – who’ve been with sociopaths, it’s shockingly common. There seems to be a vast difference in outcome of painful dragging on and more damage, or a clean break, between the women who see the sociopath for what they are and women who still somehow have a blind spot and believe parts of the “fauxlationship” were real.– It’s so hard for all of us. Each and every one of us is amazing who have gone through this maze of crazy with a sociopath. I still learn about the dynamics of this type of hijacking of our lives everyday. I was with a sociopath (married for 10 months). Everything blew up and he moved out 10 days after I told him I wanted him to leave. Fortunately, sociopaths have so many other women that if we are clear and strongly stop all contact, they give up fairly quickly. They don’t have time to hang on to old prey who aren’t putting out anything for them to gain: money, housing, sexual release, entre to resources, access to countries, material possessions. That is all they care about. All the best to you!!! You have done a great job of getting away.
@Amy,
I wish you the best. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. This is the first step to regain yourself.
@Amy,
No contact. This is like an addiction for us and everyday we have to say no contact, until the day you stop crying, until the day you lose the count of how many days without contact, until the day when you have the desire to “just say hi” and you say to yourself “for what?”…give it time
Thank you for this. It IS just like an addiction. I had to see mine at a school event today and it was like no time had passed at all. I wanted to leap into his arms. NC starts today. Thank you for the advice. I have to take it EVERY day.
No contact is the answer to regain control of ourselves…this is the way they lose control over us.
I will do my best to not only give it time, but to remind myself every day through journaling the reality of who he is. The longest I was able to stay away before was ten days…pitiful I know even after all he did to me. This time I may take a job offer out of State and/or block everything (his emails, calls etc.)
I never knew a site like this existed and just happened upon it last night when for the fourth night in a row I couldn’t sleep, due to my pain and distress.
Tonight, now that he is on vacation I am starting to move forward again and maybe I will sleep. Although, I must admit I am still waiting for his call and imagining the worst of what he is doing while out of town.
@Amy,
Don’t feel bad for getting back to him, this is all part of the hard process of see at last that no matter what you do it will never be enough for the sociopath. I had a relationship with my “Pinnochio” when I was a teenager, and after more than 20 years I accepted him back in my life. Big mistake that costs me more than 4 years, my sanity, my physical health, all my savings, and almost the relationship with my daughter and my family. But there’s life after the chaos, so stop bpthering about what he is doing and start to think, to plan and act wjat you Will do.
Thanks for pointing that out. That I need to worry about what I am doing and no what he is doing. It seems most of my energy is spent trying to stay “one step ahead of him” in order to protect myself. I will work harder to do this so I can get myself and my life back. Your example also helps me to know that the no contact needs to be forever since I, too, would probably fall right back into it even a year from now.
I have gone 6 months with no contact. I think it has been that long but I have lost track now. It is a loooong process to get to this point. Took me 2 years. Just allow yourself to make mistakes but also make small ‘no contact’ goals. Being in a relationship with a sociopath can be like an addiction. I survived and am stronger now because of it. Damaged still but that takes longer to heal (if ever). Just know that you can do it. No contact is definitely the key.
Amy….you are on the right track now…we understand, we love you, and have all been where you are….keep writing and writing it really helps….and don’t blame yourself for anything…..these guys will try to steal your soul….you were just unlucky to meet one,,,,,this site is the best thing that has helped me for the last year and a half…….no contact isn’t easy but so worth it. Love JoyousJohnny
Thanks so much and this site has helped me to know I am not the only one who is going through something like this. Other people don’t understand how addictive the person and the cycle can be. I think the other thing that has been hard for me to comprehend is the lack of true emotion of a sociopath, the lack of depth when he has seemed so caring at times. It is all just a veneer and that is so beyond me that I can’t really take it in.
there is no way to ‘understand’ anything about ‘them’….keep in contact with us..stay busy….treat yourself….sometimes my treat is taking my 2 little dogs to a new park, giving my self pedicure….having some really good ice cream just a little…OR sucking on my fav gourmet lollypop CANDY APPLE that lasts an hour……LOL
The chaos is so true that was the only consistent thing he ever brought to my life. The idea about treating myself to happier people and activities is also great..
i met a this guy together for 6 years loved him to death, he was that prefect man the soulmate he was the first man i ever loved i was in my early 30s. i was engaged a few time before him, he treated me like a queen but he also had a very bad drinking problem then once he caputured me he began to abuse me, first he brought drugs into the relationship and i was clean from using for 7 yrs, and i told him when we met i was clean didnt drink i dont even smoke weed and he replied i dont do drugs and so on anyways when i saw that i walked away went up to our place i went to bed few hrs later i wake up he talking to my cat and i was confused can into the bedroom told me to get up i did he grabbed my neck and told me im never to leave him and the next time i do he will kill me and my pets. i was so scared and prelexed because the hrs leading up to all this was sweet loving so i was like what the hell. anyways he kept abusing then next day all loving like nothing happened and then days later the abuse was more volient and verbal and emotional and i kept saying why me what did i do for this to happen then he leave i hear then hes with other women but his thing to me was “i will die without you, you are my love first true love” “i cant live with out you” all that manipulating bullsh*t and i bought it. as the yrs went on he began to isolate me i would work he would go insane that im having sex with customer and staff and i never spoke to ppl because he would start and beat me and tell me how im garbage and so on, so then he started to move us around he never held a job in an out of jail manipulating me to stay when i was ready to leave then one day he pounded my face in broke my check bone came very close to busting my eye my dog saved me that morning anyways i charged him with domestic asslut but at the same time he was the one bring in money at this time he was making good money holding a job for close to a yrs i was impressed but i found out i had cancer and he was in jail and i now had to go back to work and i wasnt working for 3 yrs at this time because i wasnt allowed to be out of his sight he calls me from jail telling me he is changing and crying f*cken lies and lies but i believe and i took him back, thats when he became more abusive and insane
i was scared all the time but have month of again the loving man who made me laugh spoiled me pampered me and i was like he is changing and i was so happy god i honestly believe him i defended him my family couldnt stand by me and watch me turn from a beautiful woman to a woman with no soul, i was walking and talking but dead inside no joy only if he allowed it, never could i have anyfriends he would go mad only he could and made me hate his so he can use that against me and his family he pitted us against each other then tell me thye hate me they like me i was losing my mind i tried many time to kill myself to escape him he would never let me go, then he lost another job i was working at this time best job ever we both living great house cars money then he blew it all away moved to a different province and isolated me even more my cancer came back he would never take me the dr never cared i sat in a 1978 trailer no water no washroom no nothing in minus 55 death was looking good, when he would go to work take my truck so i was stuck and have no way to leave when i did get the chance to i packed and left he called me threating to kill himself and it will be on me and guilting me so i went back wrong thing to do thats when he became the devil but only to me no one ever thought he did bad even when he beat my face him his family no not him insane anyway to the present time, we moved once again i always wanted to move by a river a lake and we moved to a beautiful lake land for the animals it was breathtaking i believe it was going to be good false happiness anyways i was again far from my family and close to his i had no friends just my truck so i week there he met up with an ex and thats when the abuse again started talking about her every 2 secs he stop wanting sex pushing me away so i lock my self in a room and wished to die he would again oh i love u and so on and i fell for it because i loved him to death i followed took care of him always defended him never went against him i finally got the courtage to leave becuase again talking about this girl. didnt see him for a month but he and his family asked me to come back agin the promise to change when i went back the loving man he once was was bad pamping loving all that great bull didnt last long but the physical abuse because more instense and i was and is very sick i lost my teeth lost too much weight from my sickness and his abuse, so he had complete and utter control over me he made sure my truck couldnt run so i could never leave couldnt us the phone alone just was a prisioner in my own home the only solace i got was when he left to do what ever he claimed to be doing so this winter that passed i had enough and i didnt care to be trapped i wanted a real life well this is how i saw what insane is i told him im leaving pack a bag told him i iwll be back for my pets he went a got gasoline and started to pour it on me and smiled while i begged him to stop and think of what hes doing and hes said ” you did this not me ” i ran into my room with gas pouring on me i closed the door anyways then he tried to klll my pets and then he pour the gas around the cottage himself and got out the lighter and the only way he wont do it is if i say im staying so i scream im staying he grabbed me by my thoart and bashed my head on the floor then strangled me i swore i would never leave so it came as a complete shock that 3 wks ago he was cheating and i caught him at her house and he wasnt mad i caught he was mad that i was standing up to him and i was going to leave so the day b4 i was leaving i went to the bank with him and he again with the charming self but i didnt believe it i leave for 2 days after telling me how he cant be with out me dying with out me love me to death and he had moved that girl in that i caught him with so now im confused and sicken and angry and hurt broken alone not understanding how this is and he wont explain he gives alitte then pulls back im the only woman he does this with he still playing and i just want closure i cant fuction i dont know whats wrost living that or this
Now, finally im done reading all comments here. Took me over 3 weeks. Found this Blog because of a “friend”, and it seems that she’s a soc. So i started to read as much as i can about those types of creatures. I will write more the next days, think it takes a bit time to sort my thoughts for a clear summary.
Thank you for this site, and all people here who help each other =)
I know it may have happened at an early age and most certainly shouldn’t have happened, but my mother during my teenage years was the “bestfriend” type. Which i now understand she should’ve been a mother first.
I was 16, two months before I turned 17. I was gullible, naive, everything a normal 16 year old girl should be. Well, I met a guy and who was soon after introduced to my mother.. He was an “underground tattoo artist”. He was 28 at the time. We didn’t have to hide whatever it was between us. My mother was apparently okay with the idea. On the first day of meeting him, he made it clear that he had a criminal background, even showed us his record (quite lengthy may I add). That was the start of it. He seemed honest, open, and caring.
At 16, you may have guessed, I fell head over heals. Harder than I have anyone before. My dad was never in my life and my step dad, well, wasn’t a father figure towards me either. So, i guess I jumped at the first opportunity at an older man who promised me security and all the things that i craved from my father.
After a couple months go by, the same old mainstream thing happened, he slept and got with my best friend of two years behind my back. He tore me and my mother’s relationship apart (Even kissed her and turned it around on her when she was the one who told me right after it had happened), as if it wasn’t bad already. Of course, after a few weeks of him dating/harming her, he came back to me. I had the fragile mind, the dependence on him, and desperation. I dropped who was so called my best friend even after her telling me all of the abuse she had encountered, which I later find out was like.
Soon after, he goes to jail. (Not saying for what). For the first two months he was locked up, I went to a psychologist was diagnosed with depression. I was abusing prescription pills and other narcotics at the time. Not to mention, this was happening during my senior year. Kept my grades up, though only getting about 12 hours of sleep a week, still managing to graduate early in January of ’14. After high school, not even two months after, I land a job. Still abusing, more and more, as the time goes on that he’s in jail. In the total 10 months he was locked up, I sent money and came every weekend to visitation. Everything was happy go lucky so it seemed in the abundance of letters we sent to each other. I was the only one he had to talk to, to depend on, to control. Because, everyone who was “there” bailed, left him high and dry after this charge, (Third offense)
Three months into my job, a few months before my 18th birthday, me, I bail him out. For $1200. I felt accomplished. Not only did I get my so-called “man” out of jail but I was 17 at the time and it just astonished me of how much love, energy, time, and money I had spent. I thought I proved something to him as well. I thought everything was going to be great, as it seemed in our letters.
After he gets out, it felt odd. The love I had for him was still there and I felt as though he still cared. I thought maybe he’s just not used to being out in the real world and not used to me having a fast paced, long hour, job (Waffle House waitress). Three weeks of him being out, something happened that basically changed my whole life. My whole existence.
One, day after having intercourse, he showed me the tip of his penis. Green ooze was appearing to come out. He showed me and told me that it may be Chlamydia and blamed it on me, seeing as though I had slept with ONE person who had been celibate for 2 years before meeting me, while he was jail. At the time, I didn’t really think about it. He showed me and told me, why not think differently, right? That day, he calls and sets up an appointment for the both of us to go get checked and treated. The day of the appointment, he doesn’t show. I go. They look and said it didn’t look like anything serious, maybe a small yeast infection, no big deal. They take blood just in case. A few days go by and I’m coming up with every excuse in the book to convince myself that he didn’t do what was obvious to any outsider. I get a phone call and get told I have tested positive for Gonorrhea on was supposed to be our one year. There I was, 17 years old and was given an STD from somebody who I gave up everything for. Shame, guilt, worthlessness, stupid all wrapped in one.
I move out of my moms right after, get off the drugs, and try to get my health and basically my life together. (Thinking I knew everything lol, what a joke.) Being fresh out of high school, working minimum wage, paying my own bills without “mommy and daddy” got hard, but I held my own, still the memories of him raced through my mind frequently. I eventually move back into my mothers’ because she needed help with the bills (Step dad had moved out). So, I willingly, She’s my mother, whether she raised me right or not, I loved her.
I move back in with my mom about 4 months later. Two weeks in, my mom offers my ex a place to stay, because he had gotten kicked out from his previous “residence”. I had asked her why at the time was she letting him back in my life, knowing he had given be Gonorrhea, (Even though, i missed him and I was in desperate need for just his presence), I was puzzled as to why she even offered. Her reasoning was because he was my happiness and when I was with him, I seemed “whole”.
A few weeks go by of the new move in situation. I was still working. Putting all of my frustration and focus into work made me the top server. I was gaining recognition.
During those few weeks, I underwent verbal threats, blamed for everything, vigorous yelling, and sexual abuse all behind closed doors. At the time, I was basically hypnotized, I didn’t think nothing wrong with the treatment I was receiving. I was subjecting myself to him, all of me, giving him the power to control my every thought and motion, as long as I was making him happy. I wanted to make him happy. I wanted to the impossible, I wanted him to atleast know the feeling of real happiness and what true love felt like. I thought I deserved everything. I was out for self destruction, some say.
This was the only time I can say my mom stood up and actually played the role of a mother. One day, I was sitting at the kitchen table with my mom when all out of no where, he comes storming down stairs, screaming, turning, red, pissed off at something that he was going to blame me. He had never disrespected me infront of anyone, not even my mother, but that was the first and only chance he had. As he was yelling, I was crying uncontrollably. My mom just sat there.. she couldn’t believe it. He had screamed at me, asking did I still want him here and did I still love him. He had me so wrapped up in him and his mind games, that I said yes with a large knot in my throat. That’s when my mom stood up and basically told him to get the fuck out of her house.
At the time, i didn’t understand of course. I felt as though i vitally needed him. I loved him. I was heartbroken.
After he had left, my mom had told me that she had seen the signs of emotional abuse but wasn’t quite sure since everything was said and done behind close doors, but definitely knew for a fact that night. If it wasn’t for her standing up at that moment, God only knows where’d I’d be.
In emotional distraught, no pride, dignity, self worth, no friends, no family, I sought out my new best friend. Drugs. Crystal Meth to be more exact. I didn’t get hooked on it per say but I enjoyed the high. It made me feel whole, like I could make it. I was on it for 3 weeks. My ex found out and decided to contact me after 3 months. He then had the audacity to tell me that he has been waiting on ME to get my shit together and that he would never be with a “junky”. He tried to kiss me and try to convince me that everything was still the same as it was before. But, I pulled away, something felt different. That’s when he admitted exactly a year after that he, himself, had given me Gonorrhea the year before. And, that I or no one deserves to be put through what he put me through. That’s when I knew I wasn’t the only young girl he was gonna abuse and use to his every advantage,… I feel sorry for the next girl.
But, I also feel sorry for myself. I’ve gotten better. Me and my mom are talking more, I had recently got back into contact with my dad. Met some new friends, everything’s going smoothly. I’ve gained more wisdom. I’ve grown up way faster than any teenager should.
I just can’t help but wonder, what mental and emotional factors can result from a two year abusive relationship with an adult male sociopath that happened during my adolescents?
I know that already realize there many red flags all over this guy. The fact that he pursued an innocent 16 year old girl would be enough to put this guy to the curb forever. It sounds like your mom may have been a young mother. Sometimes really young moms don’t seem to know how to fully be mom and it feels more comfortable to be a friend. You have your whole life ahead of you and you deserve much better than what you have had. The guy you’ve described sounds like a sociopath. If he is, he won’t change but, he may very well change you to someone you won’t like very much. Give yourself a breather and wait for the right guy, closer to your age, that will respect you, your mom and himself. Cut this guy loose permanently and resist his efforts to pull you back into his drama. He deserves to alone, away from innocent, trusting people that he will harm and secretly enjoy harming.
I was 15 and he was 48 he was like an uncle to me and then It got romantic and one day he just left and messaged me when he did i dont know why. I was at a very bad place since my family went broke and my parents they were both unemployed and i didnt have any friends and wasnt going to school and we were staying at our moms friends spare house that she used in the summer which was in the middle of nowhere and it was small. Anways he was basically all i had and he was my parents friend. I loved him at the time because he use to give me rides and play the part of a parental figure i didnt have he also mirrored me allot and flattered me by telling me how hot i was. then when he started wanting sexual favors from me i started to question him. Eventually my parents got into a dispute with him and they turned into enemies and he started messaging me afterwards but we couldnt see each other anymore. And he left the state to go back home (long story) it took me along time to get over him but then my parents got a job and we got a house and i had friends again and i went back to school and forgot about him but sometimes i still think about it and wish i told someone. Hes wanted by the police now hes a predator and did bad things with other younger kids (gross) and apparently he did this to plenty of other girls young and old. But i thougt he actually cared about me i mean he would take me out of town when things were bad i thought he was a good person but he was just a pervert and wanted to take advantage of me but luckily my parents saw his true colors before he could finish me off. We never had sex but we almost did a few times but other people saw us together and he could tell i didnt want to but he still drove down deserted areas when we were alone in the car and i thought he was going to rape me then he got a phonecall from his wife from another state and it was about something money related so he dropped me off at home. i feel like i was manipulated very much emotionally and hope he gets caught but if not i hope he doesnt expect me to still be waiting for him. He was a sociopath/pedophile and he used my parents and situation to get close to me and groomed me so he could get what he wanted from me which was sexual gratification. I’m glad he’s out of my life and i wish everyone who has a story to tell about people like this can get over their experience with these awful people
Hi, thank you for being so brave to share your story here. How my heart went out to you, when I read your comment. I wanted to ask have you had counselling for what has happened to you? I want you to know that this is not your fault. There is absolutely nothing that you did, to deserve this. It is no reflection on you at all. They are clever predators. They can catch people who are much older, and less vulnerable off guard. I am so sorry that this has happened to you, and I hope that you get the help and healing that you need.
Finding this website has been a blessing in itself back in 2010/2011 time frame I had been on deployment and had been sending money home to my ex-fiance for our wedding we had been dating on and off for roughly 4yrs. During my time on deployment my ex had gotten very jelious over my sisters engagement to her 7yr bf and was upset at the near size of my sisters ring. Upon returning home my fiancé decided her way of getting back at everyone which nearly cost me my life was to get married to an ex of hers around the same time my sister was getting married. The worst part of the whole situation is her Mother found it humorous on what her daughter was doing to me when realistically my fiancé was trying to get back at her Mother because she raised my ex to tell stories and lie to get what she wanted. My ex went as far as to say that she had gotten raped by a cop when she was 22 playing Victim. Every story my ex always turned out the victim even though she was the persecutor. She now is married to this new guy and has 2 kids with him. It bothers me that the relationship continues because I have been 5yrs in recovery over the mental torment. However, Recent events has yet again attracted me to a third Sociopath one that I work with. This one gives mixed signals and like creating drama where it doesn’t exist. Something that my ex fiancé did. She makes it seem like your doing her a favor by hanging out with them and when they say they don’t want a relationship with you but there actions tease you into thinking that they do. This most recent situation has done nothing but brought up past experiences because in the beginning of meeting this new person it felt like yet again I had found my soulmate. The pain it’s caused me in such a short amount of time has even been making me contemplate suicide again. The Push and the pull is just to much and even cutting contact doesn’t seem to work. My overall issue is being able to avoid these kinds of people entirely. It seems like just when I get flying straight again another sociopath is right there to replace the old one.
Hi Chris you mention the repeating patterns, and say that just as you get straight you meet another one. Do you think that you are looking for something that you fel is missing within you? I read once, that the lesson will repeat until the lesson is learned. I once found this a very hard statement, until I realised that it was probably true. I hope that I have broken the cycle, and won’t attract another. Simply as I wouldn’t tolerate that type of behaviour towards me. Treat me bad once I will walk away, as I deserve better. You do too. Don’t settle, and you have to love you. Treat yourself, like your own best friend.
Hello again,
now i want to tell my story with my “ex” female friend, i met about 7 years ago. Firstly i met her at school, but we never spoke to each other, she only said “hi” to me, if she saw me.Years later we have seen us at our confirmation. And what i remeber was that she came from nowhere and spoke to me a bit about that confirmation and later told me “we will become best friends”. That was the first time i hold distance, because it sounded too strange, to say that to someone you spoke the first time.
So, i gave her a chance after that strange comment, and she gave me her number. We phoned pretty much, found out we have similar interest in Anime and Manga. (Japanese Cartoons and Books), and some TV Series. Then i noticed, that she has same strange behavior. For example she couldnt go outside, and if, the next days she had to spent at home, often in the dark. Or she couldnt really recognize, if she said anything bad about others, her dad or mum, she always had her excuses. Then she said she is an adopted child. She told me when she was younger, her uncle killed someone next to her while she was there. But i dont know if its true or not.
But she said her whole family there was strange, bad and criminal. And she mentioned that she can see the aura of other people, and ca see the colour and so on, to judge over the whole character/details about the person.Later then she told me she is diagnosed with asperger autism. I have to say at that point about her past i really felt bad for her, to make such experiences. I informed myself about autism to understand her better.
Oh and by the way, she ended school at class 9! (dont forget german school system), so she hasnt any school leaving certificate. The thing is, she was at over 7 different schools! And she always had problems with the teacher there, or was bad with the other children. She told me, that they dont treat her good. But after she told me, that she manipulated food at home economics subject at school, and wanted to gave that to the people. Its strange..i excused that with her autism and bad past. Or she was very rude to the school principal, because she was rude to the teacher in class too and so on.
She also told me, she manipulates boys to make them in love with her, and then she only treat them like rubbish and to push them away like they were nothing. I have to be honest, i thought she is joking, i never thought this was true..but it was/is till now!!! And she finds it funny that they seemed to love her after all that she has done to them, still! She said she needs to do that because its like an impulse, and she need to let that free in that way, instead of otherwise. I was so stupid to believe that she would manipulate me her only friend or her family..She also told me, her mother teached her social rules while she has an overload and so on. But all i can say, she only acts, if it has an advantage for her! Thats her only motivation, not to learn social skills to treat someone better, or so have it easier in society.
There where often strange, things, if i told her about things i heard about news, or anything else which bothers me, some things about past, people who werent nice, she agreed with me and had her own story. Its like she judged bad about people which werent nice at all, but she always wasnt nice to others, especially to her father or anyone else, who had criticism about her, about whatever it was. She also often said “I’m the queen of the world” of nowhere O.o Its was purely honest…Oh and she sometimes said of nowhere “I’m a bad and unsocial person” and giggled. But i said no you arent, i dont know you like that. She never answered then. She also told me that she can see trough people and see their weaknesses, the takes them and plays with them. She also tells about herself tob e a genius, but after here IQ Test she is high intelligent but not genius. She also said that she knows everything about anyone and so on. Her cousin is stupid, everyone is stupid, only she is a genius. Like that.
One time she told me about some thing “she had to learn” from her mother. It was that she wanted to hurt people physical, or had the tendencies/thoughts about that. So her mother told her to not do over hours a day. And then her mother sat down, put her arm at the desk and said, now show me if you would hurt me, or if you learned to dont hurt people. Then my friend walked up and down for hours if she should do that or not. It was the final test from her mother, finally she didnt do anything with the knife she was holding.
I thought it was about autism, though it sounds strange. But now i have the feeling nope…I never read that people with asperger autism need to manipulate others and find it kind of exciting or joyful or so, or to hurt people. It was so strange, but i closed my eyes and found excuses.
Then she wanted a dog. She said she loves animals, that while she had two bunnies. But only one was her “prince” and favourite, and the other which was outside of her room, she totally ignored. She never gave any of them a carrot or anything else to eat, or she cleaned, nothing..Always here mother did that. I thought how could she like animals if she acts like that?
Ok, she wanted a dog..she said with a dog she can learn to go outside and to people. At that time she also said she knows german soccer, all “eleven” from a famous soccer club. She said she wrote them online and had contact to them, via facebook, skype, now whatsapp and so on. And she said she worked over 4 years on that, to make contact to them. And she said she wants to marry one, but couldnt decide which one, make a baby with one and leave him 4-5 years later, because then he will get boring. And she couldnt live monogamous.
So her favourite dog at the adoption centre wasnt available anymore, so she got one from brasilia (where she came from as street child). I mean, she lives with her parents, so not only she can decide to have a dog or not. Her father took him. So then the problems began. Firstly she wanted to teach her dog with a picture of one of the soccer player to jump to him if he sees him. But that never worked. I had the feeling after the dog wasnt useful to her, her “alergic reaction” started, she hated that dog, treated him bad, talked bad, gave everyone the fault why the dog is here, and make her life that bad now. Because the dog is too loud, stinks, is stupid. Where is her animal loving side? I question if she ever had that.
Also i questioned her if she simulates her allergy to get rid of the dog, she answered oh i never thought about that, but it could be possible please tell me if you notice that. I also told her to make an allergy test, her answer “no i dont want to make my father that favor”. Because at that time she wanted to totally get rid of the dog, but her father kept him. I mean, come on, it hadnt to do anything with her father at all, that test should be for her to know whats wrong. She also told about kill phantasies only for science with other peoples bodies. She masked her behaviour as apserger autism behaviour. I mean come one..i cant believe i believed her that shit : /
To switch to another story, i met a man online, me matched pretty good and before i finally met him real, she told me noooo my gut instinct tells me he is dangeours, soziopath, he will rape you. and then she told me two stories about her mothers friends, which met someone online and got raped in public in a corner. She confused me because im not that stupid, surely i met him only in public places and so on. I dont know what was wrong with her.
And she was totally against him because he was born and lived 10 years in russia at a very poor place and is now here 11 years in germany. She just made very wide open eyes after i showed her a picture of him. On a day where i was because of a news article interested in some biographies of serial killers and i told her at the phone, on that day she told me about my boyfriend: he is a reformed alcoholic, he is manipulative, a sociopath and he will become a serial killer, she said she would never believe him anything!, she said he has to be aggressive, violent because he was for two years at the army (voluntary).
She also said if he will live in our city, she will stop our relationsship, because of all that and his very very bad and purely black “aura”. The thing is she never had contact to him, so why she tells that?
Oh and while talking bad about my boyfriend, and she said sociopaths recognize each other i questioned her “so why you see him as sociopath and recognize him”. she also said about herself she thinks she has sociopath behaviours.
I want to a short summarize here. The relation to my boyfriend is nearly broken, and i noticed at that point i got the whole time manipulated too. The thing is i tried to find proves of here statements because for me she was a friends..and normaly i believe friends. My fault i know. Painfuly i made the experience how destructive she was. I have the feeling she didnt want me to do forward in life, she didnt wanted me to have him as my boyfriend. I mean because of my education i hadnt that much time for her or also other friends, with my boyfriend less than before. I have the feeling that was all her Plan.
I am sharing my story not as a victim but as the predator! First I ask for forgivness from all those that I have hurt! My sociopathic behavior has ruined every relationship I have ever had and it is not restricted to women exclusively sociopathic behavior will eventually ruin any type of relationship I may have, be it friend, girlfriend or wife! I recently turned 51yrs old so I’ve ruined a lot of lives in that time! And up till recently I never could figure out why! I started looking online searching for clues to the reason based on patters I have noted about myself over the years! This searching has brought me here based on my findings I have determined that I am indeed a sociopath! Now that it is clear to me what I am, I can tell you I’ve been this way, either born or shortly after birth this is who I am! I did however during my discovery of my sociopathic behavior determine that there are various degrees of severity from extreme… to mild tendencys! I put myself on a scale of 1 to 10 I’m a 5 Anyway the real reason I’m sharing here is to validate the exsistance of sociopathic behavior to all those victims that have/are enduring or been a past victim of our behavior! Everything I have read here is true and correct! If u even think after testing a sociopath that u are with one….Run the fuck away as fast and as far as you can safely do so! But without failure or hesitation do run away and Never..Ever..look back! What I’ve just revealed I do so because I care and caring for/about others is not possible within a full blown sociopath! I however do care and feel regret for those I have hurt! What I’m trying to say is I’m asking for help if any cure or remedy exsists other than my death! And honestly if I knew what I was to become I would if I could have told my parents to kill me at birth! I Hate what I am! Not wanting to kill myself but to understand myself and and possibly change or control my behavior to a morally acceptable level! So if anyone out there has ANY knowledge that may help me…Please post it for me and others like myself so the hurting and ruining can stop! Please forgive me! Brian (Sociopath seeking the Cure)! 😉
Yours is a comment I have heard frequently from quite a few sociopaths Brian. I know that people will jump on the bandwagon, and say ‘if you care, you can’t be a sociopath’. I think that socio’s can care, after the fact, if it ruins things for them, but at the time, they are impulsive, self centred and serving, and rarely think about the long term consequences of their actions. You haven’t done anything to me, for me to forgive you for, point is can you forgive yourself?
Have you tried counseling with a specialist? For a long time? You should congratulate yourself that you’ve figured it out. It took me 5 years to figure it out and each moment got worse. The guy would tell me, “I know there’s something very wrong with me, but I don’t know what.” I didn’t know either. I assumed he had ADD with depression, but now I can see that wasn’t it. I had never encountered a sociopath, so that didn’t even come to mind to research. Really, congrats for figuring it out. Try researching the PHD who researched psychopaths and then he looked at random brain scans and found out he was one too. He family wasn’t very surprised. But, once he knew, he learned how to “act” more like a normal person and people treated him better and he felt better and he had a better life. The guy was like in his late 50’s or 60’s before he figured it out–after studying it all his life at university. Found it: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/03/how-i-discovered-i-have-the-brain-of-a-psychopath
Thank you for your comment!! I have heard of a few sociopaths who want help. Or at least, do want to change. I know that the one in my life, did try – and he did change radically, although – not enough. Unfortunately the damage that he had already done, made it impossible to move forward. Also he struggled to not repeat the same pattern of behaviour. Sometimes he would go off, to the land of crazy and that pattern did repeat. What is the answer? I really don’t know….. It almost seemed like repeated, habitual behaviour.
Frankly, it is terrifying. I never knew of people like this. The brainwashing and self-esteem killing and becoming him (“You are the female version of me,” in essence, has hurt me so badly, I feel like I’m going to die (the pain is so great for someone that apparently didn’t even really exist kills me). I still cannot believe it’s true. But, I kept a journal and can find many weird things that happened that I wrote down which helps me know I was barely hanging on, but I didn’t totally lose my sanity, except to become so freakishly desperate to be with him.
Hi Positiva! I’m on a good point in my life again. I have a really good work. I’m bless4d with the company of a great group of family and friends that knows the importance of reciprocal love. I think at last I have learned my lesson and Im hopeful that I will not allow never again my self esteem to be crushed again. He tryto contact me from time to time, but it doesn’t have anymore power over me..he knows it and that means less attempts to bother me. From time to time I remember my Pinocchio, but he doesn’t have a face or a voice anymore…it is as if the man I loved with all my essence just dissapered because he never exist. How are you and Phoenix Rising? Again, thanks to giving the insanity a name and a way to be free of it!¡Eternamente gracias!
YAY I am loving hearing this. Me too, I now work with youth homeless, which I love, working with a great staff team of people, who are a joy to be around. He still sends the texts, but I don’t respond and I don’t feel anything any more either, I am too busy with my own life. I am doing really well. Life is finally growing. Think PR is ok too, really good to hear from you, and hear that you are doing so well (me too) which is always a good inspiration also for other people – you will recover – and life is amazing afterwards as it can never be worse than being owned, contained and controlled. That was like being in a prison. They are the prison guard. There for their entertainment and amusement – ugh never again.
We are the ones who allowed them to put us on a prision of lies. Everything was so confusing that I was unable to recognize the truth or seek help…with his manipulation I was isolated…and his insanity touched me on a way that I just let him put me on “prison”. Almost two years after our last personal encounter and after a lot of attempts of him to keep controlling me…at last I feel free of his poison. To all the followers of the blog, give it time give yourself the gift of no contact..your sanity, your health, your family and friends your finances will come again with a new sense of yourself.
YES!! And the biggest lie…. of all, was the lie that I told myself. Back in December I knew I had to make a change. I needed to return to work. To work as part of a team. I realised that Just being here, writing when I did, kept me isolated, and was stopping me from moving forward. Oddly though, working full time, I have more passion to write. As there is no pressure anymore, I can just do it as I want to. Thank you for sharing your good news, it means a lot, and what a journey we travelled together!! x
@Positiva
Desde la distancia y el tiempo un gran abrazo de letras y mi eterno agradecimiento. (From the diatance and time receive a bighug of letters and all my thanks… Im not sure if i transated it correctly but its more or less what I mean to say on my main language.) Thanks for showing me the exit of my prison.
Hi,
reading all your stories it’s a confirm of what I recently realized, that I have been victim of a sociopath for almost 5 years. He is never been my actual boyfriend, cos there were something in my mind that kept telling me he has a real dark soul, but still he harrassed me with his love for all this time.
The last – dramatic – episode made me realize how low my life went because of him and it gave me the courage of leave everything. I have lost a lot and things would never be the same, but I am free from the obsession.
The problem is that now I am falling in love for someone else that probably is also a sociopath. He told me some days ago – maybe joking, maybe not – that someone have said to him he is a sociopath. He has a lot of different version of the truth, he is always worried about hiding the truth, he never want to see me but sometimes he is very nice, mostly by the phone, and he is super dominant.
I am afraid I am attracted by those kind of guys. Have you ever realized you love the same problematic pattern in men?
I have never been ashamed of surviving what others are capable of, in fact once I fight back the bitterness and anger I fill with pride that it wasn’t in my heart to even fathom their true intent. Inasmuch as it hurts to breathe the stagnant air of the world’s disease, too many, looking out for themselves at any cost, I would rather endure the hell I have, losing all that others covet in their attempts to emulate what they can only pretend to be. I prefer it be that I don’t have it in my heart to see such things even coming than to go thru life so ugly inside that that is all I see or expect from others, unable like he is, to ever trust anyone, knowing what he himself, and those of his character, themselves are guilty of, while I go thru life trustworthy albeit naïve, expecting the same from others, yes even to my own demise. Self preservation, not one of my strongest traits for sure, predators prey on those they mistake for weak, in their desire to have what is not really in them. The ugliness, spread in their attempts to imitate what comes to the kindhearted naturally, is the only reality they know. It is sad for me, and those like me (yes there are and always have been and always will be, others), knowing what we have learned trusting the unworthy, but not as sad as it is to be them. “We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.” – Anais Nin
Still though, I admit that I have wasted too much time wondering how they can dare look at themselves in their clouded mirrors and just why I was so naïve, so easily duped, controlled, deceived , that I allowed myself to invest or abandon, and then ultimately lose, everything. It wasn’t much, but for me it was enough, and well, here is my answer:
When he showed up on my doorstep, I had spent the better part of the previous 2 yrs so traumatized by being stalked by a sadistic man who didn’t handle rejection well that I was reluctant to leave my home for any purpose but to work and attend church, I had lost my father only 6 months before and needless to say I was grieving and vulnerable and had turned to God. I had sunk quite a bit of money into the house I raised my family in, I loved that home dearly, it’s walls held my heart and soul and a lifetime of possessions and accumulated memories (both good and bad), it wasn’t much but for me it was enough and all I had, with much emphasis now on “Had”. If I were indeed the “gold digger” I’ve heard he and his favorite and only sister in law claims I am to justify his sad self, I sure as hell would not have been so willing to settle for so much less than I already had nor would I have invested so much, yet alone everything.
You see, I had promised my father I would invest that money he worked every Saturday of his life to leave me with, intending to lower my mortgage payment which sky rocketed when I refinanced the home I raised my family in to fix it up to be the beautiful yet simple home in the hood I truly cherished. In hindsight clearly I let my father down when I loaned the last of my inheritance to a dishonest man instead , but I truly believed I was investing in my future (not just his) as I had been assured that I was, and yes it sickens me to know that what little my father worked so hard to leave me was swindled from me the way it was, solely because I was gullible enough to trust the promises of a man unable to actually be who he pretends to be and who now rides a motorcycle he didn’t pay a dime for , simply because clearly, Justice in today’s courts is determined more by who is the better liar and which lawyer is willing to be the most unscrupulous and yes I do have all the paperwork to prove that and every other claim I have made regarding these matters. Yeah, I get that it is quite hard to believe by today’s standards of what a normal sensible person would do that anyone could be so kindhearted albeit naïve as I proved to be, to trust so blindly and be so easily conned as I had been. Still though, putting the relationship above my own best interests and believing in him should not have cost me all it did, and if he was actually the kind man he only pretends he is, he would not have lied so naturally or worked so diligently to assure that I had nothing when it all would finally fall apart, especially for the reasons that it did; my refusal to take the blame for catching him in just one of the many lies he had managed to get away with, up til then.
You see, I was lonely I suppose, lost, with little faith in mankind when in walked the smooth talking man who I would not learn until it was too late was not the sweet misunderstood and mistreated honest guy he claimed to be, but actually a narcissistic drunk with an itinerary for self preservation even if that meant destroying the once professed best thing to ever happen to him. Selling me out and what we might have had, for what he misconstrued would be his benefit, although he might have won everything underhandedly, I assure you it will indeed ultimately prove more his demise than mine.
Do not be deceived: God will not be mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also
Reap. Galatians 6:7
Now I concede I made many mistakes from the day we met, trusting him blindly for example, believing in him without questioning any of it and unlike him, putting the relationship above my own best interests. Yes he saw early on with my desire for peace and to please, that I would be an easy mark for him to succeed and indeed I made a lot of mistakes, while it appears he only made one: believing that once I was broken down by his head games with nothing left to go back to that I would be a willing doormat for him to control as he saw fit.
From here on I will refer to the Narcissistic man I mistakenly thought so much of that I married him, believing he not only understood the vows sworn to me and to God, but actually meant them, simply but truly thankfully, as the X.
Numbers 30:2 If a man vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth
Now, I believed quite mistakenly that the X was a good Christian Man, who, as he claimed, had been taken advantage of by a string of promiscuous, drunken women before me that he claimed only used and lied to him and that he remained in his first marriage solely for the sake of the daughter he adores, that is until (at least as he claimed) she cheated on him with her current husband, motivating him (only because she wouldn’t end it) to do the same. And that his second wife, who, unknown to me at the time, he had only finalized the divorce with the month prior to our meeting (proof of his inability to be alone for any duration), and who was, (also as he claimed) a serial cheater whom he only married out of the kindness of his heart, because she needed health insurance so desperately. Always making himself appear the martyr when relaying the sordid tales of his previous failed relationships, in everything he claimed about them, he was the mistreated victim, not so different I am sure than what he now says to others of me, in his attempts to explain why he was so quick to throw away what , not only he had said to me himself just the day before it all came tumbling down , but so many others had often told him was “ the best thing that ever happened to him”. Which was indeed the case, that is until I stood up for myself once his many lies began to unravel and his mask fell off. Although I do confess it had slipped a few times before, if only I had opened my eyes. Yep, Hindsight is 20/20.
As part of his charade to ensnare me ,the X attended church with me every Sunday from the day we met , that is until returning from our Honeymoon 20 months later when he not only refused to go back to church anymore , claiming tithing was too costly and the politics unsurly, (unfortunately my attempts to prove his stance wrong proved he was more right than I care to admit, only adding to my growing lack of faith in such things) but also upon the return from our honeymoon, the X had begun drinking himself into blackouts more weekends than not, a behavior he had managed to control somewhat up to then. Truthfully, the first argument of the too long yet short lived marriage should have been my exit, when only a week after the honeymoon ended, and after what was a decent enough night out on the town together, he suddenly turned angry because at 1:05am I let him know I didn’t want to drive him to yet another bar, realizing only then that once he started he cannot stop. Telling him “no” so uncommon for me that it must have caught him as off guard as his words did me. “I don’t know why I even married you” he said, when I told him I had had enough. It hit me with the sting of those words what was my reality, what I wanted had no merit, I had signed on to serve him, not just to wait on him hand and foot but become his designated driver forever and the only one of us that would remember his ugly blackouts in the mornings, which up to then I had only gotten a slight bitter taste of but from then on would grow in frequency, too often cruel behaviors btw that at least to him were excusable because he was drunk. As is the nature he preyed on me for, I settled in to accept and make the best of my lot in life , unaware still , just how trying, and in the end devastating, that task was going to be, leaving me a shell of the woman I am by the time that house of cards would crumble.
His blackouts, (which he had confided to me about in our beginning when he was still trying to bait me) a behavior pattern, like many others that would soon begin to resurface only once he had me. Admitting that his drinking had been a problem in his previous relationships , claiming for one because he was trying to keep up with the drunken women before me, ( yes I fell for that , lmao) but also because he was so miserable with those other women he was too “kindhearted” or so he claimed to “abandon”, but he had reassured me in those first conversations that he had no desire to live that way and that those past habitual blackouts would not be a part of our life together. He claimed he wanted more for us than any of that and so we made a pact. “ No lies, deception or sneaky stuff, Best friends forever 24/7”, I knew I could meet those conditions and believed naively due to the fact that it was a phrase at least in part that had been coined by him , that he could too.
Now, I didn’t expect perfection from the man, I knew and accepted that he was flawed, we both carried the baggage from our pasts and incorrectly I believed we would help each other unpack. But in order for us to have done so, there needed to be not just a mature level of mutual acceptance and responsibility in owning our human shortcomings and mistakes but a true commitment to honesty (not just a fear of getting caught), a genuine care for the values we each held dear and then each needed to have only the best intention for the interests of the other. In hindsight none of that was the case, well, at least not on his part. Sacrifices for the greater good a constant demand made of me that I met upon each occasion the need arose, growing more despondent though for doing so, as the double standards became more and more prevalent with the passing of time. His way or the Highway, he proved incapable of sacrifice of any kind, yet alone any sort of compromise, that is unless doing otherwise made him look bad, all behaviors dependant on his audience.
Proverbs 20:10 Differing weights and differing measures— the Lord detests them both.
Always promising some future reward for all that he insisted I let go of (i.e. what little retirement I had managed, that inheritance, my lifetime’s accumulation of possessions (the furnishings, household items, appliances, TVs, beds, memorabilia, clothes), the rent from the property he insisted become my boys’ and then finally 90% of my paychecks; throwing a fit at the end that he wasn’t getting more. Knowing how it turned out I can’t believe I once credited him for making me believe in people again.
When we met, my oldest 2 kids off at college, my youngest son, though already 18 and a young father of twins was finishing his senior year of high school. A disabled child on the autism spectrum receiving minimal Social Security benefits of 700.00 a month, I had made it clear from the beginning that I intended to fulfill my obligation to see the young father thru school, not just high school but Trade school as well. The X assured me he had no intention of moving into the home I loved so dearly or help me pay my bills there and that he sure did not need my help to pay his bills, so it was agreed that we each would maintain our own households although I slept every night in his bed, his need to hurry the stages of the relationship along so speedily in true Narcissistic love bombing form (needing to cage me before I caught on that the man I thought I had fallen in love with was really no more than a facade) and also because simply he was too insecure to let me out of his site, hell I was even expected to shower with the door open.
At the time making only 13.00 an hour myself , I covered the mortgage in the house my son lived in until he finished his schooling as was agreed on (had it not been, I assure you I would never have agreed to move in with the man and none of it would have played out the way it did). I raised three kids on my own and got ’em all to college, I had no intention of bailing on the last one before my job was thru, they are indeed the best of my fruit, who they each are, the proof.
Using the kid’s Social Security Benefits to cover the utilities, in spite of his claims otherwise, not one penny of the X’s ever went to my house or my bills. What my property cost to shelter my son thru the last of his school only meant that much less of my money would make it into the X’s hands. Contrary to his claims, I purchased my own personal items ( ask anyone who actually knows the real me ( not the person he tried to make me out to be) I really am not very high maintenance) and still I managed to drop the X a couple hundred each month for that first year. I cost him no more and probably much less than he would have spent jumping from one dating relationship to the next as he always had and has ever since.
Taking with me into the X’s house only those things he allowed me to and some that I just snuck in. Moving from a nice 5 bedroom house into a 2 bedroom house that was literally falling down on itself, I had to abandon or give away most everything I had worked my life for up to that point, letting go of and/or giving away anything that duplicated what the X had (unless I could prove mine was better, which most of the time even if mine was better, I was still the one to sacrifice, sacrifice not part of his persona for sure).
What little I tried to hold on to was claimed as evidence that I was not committed to the relationship, so that when I finally could stand no more of being the one he blamed for his unraveling lies I had none of the 4 beds I once had of my own to sleep on, yet alone any blankets or even one of the 3 TVs. The five bedroom house I had once filled with such things, either no longer mine, at the X’s insistence, or what little remained of my life before, too damaged from the neglect he insisted become of it, to save. His intent to make sure I had nothing to go back to as he held divorce over my head to get his way in everything , successful; actually keeping me there though, thankfully, not so much . Yes, the echo of his words as I let everything I had go “Trust me” sicken me today.
10 months into the relationship, just before I was to receive that inheritance from my father, I asked the X to help me find a motorcycle. I had offered to loan the X money for one for himself and initially he declined , claiming he would rather save up for one for himself, making himself appear too righteous for debt, he wouldn’t admit just yet the real reason being a large old debt that made him obtaining a loan from a bank impossible. So, although he was suppose to be looking for a bike for me to buy, the first bikes he looked at were not ones suitable for me at all but more for him and when he found the bike he wanted he asked me if my offer to loan him the money was still good, assuring me, my family and friends that he would repay the money into a savings account, replacing the nest egg it was intended to be, as he promised, not so different than if I had just left it in savings or he would have done had he opted to follow through with just saving up for one for himself.
Psalm 37:21 The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives;
Unfortunately for me I trusted him blindly, loaning him the money not just for the bike but a few days later he hit me up for even more to pay off what he claimed then were the only debts he had, so that we could start fresh in our life together . Yep, I gave him yet another cashier’s check. But wait, then I was gullible enough to just hand him yet another 5 grand to stuff away as well (now, if I was lying about it being a loan and it was truly a gift as he claims, why didn’t I include that third cashier’s check made out to him also for that 5 grand when I quit accepting his excuses and demanded the repayment finally be followed thru with? because it was not part of the loan and I really wasn’t trying to get anymore than what he had promised to repay me, you see, I am honest, that’s why ). I concede though that I ended up getting half of that third cashier’s check for 5 grand back, using it to help my kids with some surprises that came up, the other half though was, (unbeknownst to me as it was happening) squandered as the X saw fit, a TV for example, and some gambling among other things I was unaware the money was being used for, that is until he informed me it was gone, a bit of shock to me, denying my gut feelings as I had begun to realize only then that he blamed me for the lifestyle he insisted on living, which was farther from his means than he was willing to admit, another flag waving too high for me to justify now that I ignored, feeding the anger I have not just for him and all his half truths and outright lies but for myself for being so gullible and naive, needing so badly to believe.
Having met just before Thanksgiving in 2008, understandably our first Christmas was not blended , but after loaning him the last of my nest egg, Christmas 2009 should have opened my eyes to the way he thought things should be between us when the savings account the X had promised the repayment of that money I loaned him would be deposited into was not accessible to me (to this day I am not sure it even ever actually existed, though in one of the arguments he claimed at trial that we never had about it outside of the divorce, he stormed out and returned claiming to have closed it). So the year I had more money than I ever managed to accumulate or probably would ever be able to accumulate again, I could only afford $30 sweaters for my kids, and a $10 doll for my twin baby grand girls, because he had managed to swindle half of that small inheritance from me under the guise of repayment that by that Christmas due to one excuse after another had not yet materialized, while his family were given lavish gifts triple what I could muster for my own. I still feel the sickened feeling that overcame me as I wrapped the gifts he managed for his family as well as the meager ones I managed for mine, and How as I wrapped his lavish gifts feeling disgusted by the extravagance of them as much as my feelings about them, I rehearsed the words to speak with him about the vast difference and why it should not have been so, always more careful than I ever should have been not to rock the boat.
Now , when I confronted the X about this imbalance, he assured me like he always did that once we were married and he’d taken care of those mystery bills (the very ones he later denied in court even existing, calling me a liar in regards to them( although the tax return listed in the discovery does indeed reflect but a minimal portion of that debt cancelation he had claimed to me to have paid but denied on the stand as being real), that I would then finally see the fruits of my extensive financial investments in that slowly closing in prison of a life with him, and things would not always be so lopsided. It was at that time that I began to attempt explaining the term double standards to the X. Yes, I am gullible and truly believed at that time still , he just didn’t get it. Trying to reach his conscience, he would rage when I would question whether he would want the same for his daughter as he evidently expected me to accept from him.
Kindhearted people too often being preyed upon by them, I have known many Narcissists in my lifetime. I had not yet been schooled on the psychology of Narcissism though, but looking back now, obviously my education had begun, I just had not realized yet what it was that I was seeing. I chuckle still as I recall him exclaim that he could relate well with all my exes, evil men, drug addicts, pedophiles, violent men and thieves, who like him, once they realized they could not be who they pretended to be, sought to destroy me.
Damn, if only I had opened my eyes sooner and googled, way back when, the words I did when I had the first of the many ah ha moments in my quest to understand just how he could live with himself. Double standard, Liar and Coldhearted; Yep that’s how I stumbled upon my start at understanding the disorder, I simply googled the words that best described the beast I found underneath his mask.
Now, my mother had been ill for several years and a year into my relationship with the Narcissist, she was in the final stages of her life. Mom hated the X, saw right thru him, but I wrote it off to bitterness and ignored her warnings and hence sadly avoided her, a guilt that will haunt me forever. The X’s insecurities, ( which I then still believed were due to all the women that he claimed had cheated on the poor man), made him so clingy and controlling that he couldn’t even allow me to be away from him so I could spend her last night on earth with her. I won’t elaborate more than just to mention that though I was willed my mother’s home, the ex would not allow me to claim it because he did not want the liability of the property, causing me to lose yet another tidbit of what might have been some future security for me. Any such thing that might have given me any security outside of him a threat to his mission, in his attempts to own every part of me and force me to be totally dependent on him. Too broke by then because all of that inheritance the X had managed to con me out of under the guise of repayment, to even cover my mother’s services myself, the X covered my portion of the bill split with my sisters and then a week or so later I was given monetary gifts from his family to assist with her services, because as they claimed then and so many other times, I was family. The monetary gifts btw I handed straight to the X upon opening those cards. It was only a little over a month after Mom passed that we called off the wedding briefly, when I inquired once again as to my name still not being on the account the X claimed the repayment of that loan I made to him only then still that summer before was being paid into, He then claimed to close the account stating that he no longer owed me any of it because I had paid him so little to sleep in his bed, so I left.
Unable to stand anything he took as being critical of him, any time I ever tried to speak with him about anything, he managed in narcissistic rage, to turn it back on me. So, true to his penchant for projection, the argument quickly turned from being about me having the audacity to inquire of the repayment of that loan he had indeed promised to repay (but only then let me know he felt he no longer owed me), to all the money I put toward the house my son lived in thru school and the money he fronted to cover my mom’s services. It was during this month of indecision, that I realize now way too late, that I should have bailed and filed suit then for the repayment of that loan but instead I continued to believe that he wasn’t as evil as he proved to be later but just didn’t get it, needing to believe too much I suppose that he was kind and decent and trust worthy. But the red flags were already there and waving higher than they even had before.
You see when we split for that near month, among other sick claims and head games, the X insisted I repay that money to his family that had been given in sympathy cards to assist with my mom’s services. (of course his brother denied that they wanted the gifts back ( this by the way is just among the first of many experiences where the X relayed to me words he put in other people’s mouths, it’s a narcissistic trick he played well to keep me feeling insecure about all my relationships). Because of that statement by the X that his family wanted their money back I held an hour long conversation with his brother regarding many things, i.e, the family’s claimed admiration of me, a few of his own marital disappointments, his brother’s issues and insecurities, our financial agreements regarding the two households between us, as well as that large loan which his brother later claimed in court to know nothing about. The definition of Perjury being: A crime that occurs when an individual willfully makes a false statement during a judicial proceeding, after he or she has taken an oath to speak the truth.
It was upon one of several attempts to reconcile during that drawn out argument over the loan when the X drew up the written agreement to repay the Loans I had made to him that previous summer, but also he did so only after I agreed to begin sending him 350.00 out of each of my paychecks ( at the time 700 Monthly, half of my earnings) plus agreeing to allow him absolute power over my property and because he was only getting half of my meager earnings he insisted also that he begin collecting and keeping the rent he collected from that property where my son and his roommates were living, which for the next 4 months was an additional 600.00 for each of those months. By doing so the X assured me that not only would the repayment of that loan be affordable to him finally, that is once he took care of the upcoming wedding, drunkfest he insisted our reception be, honeymoon and the debt he claimed had only then mysteriously cropped up (and oddly continued to do so, though true to my too trusting nature, I mistakenly never demanded proof as to those payments reality or what he did with any of my money for that matter) and that he would in turn cover my personal needs, debts and all groceries etc. Since all meals had to meet his tastes only anyway, and since all my extra money was going to him already, leaving me nothing to carry in my own purse, I conceded. Not yet married, I took this as a sort of trial run that he insisted I prove capable of.
So, he looked out for his interests, made the purchases he wanted, always shopping ( among other things) while I was at work. He paid his bills while mine sat to mount and my interests all went to shit, assuring me he would undo the damages later. I can’t even explain how any of it made sense then because it sure doesn’t make sense to me now, he was just that good at convincing me to trust him, perhaps I just needed to believe I could trust someone, and he knew it. Now in regards to that written agreement about the loan he claims never existed, he ripped it up later in one of the several arguments over that loan he also claimed at trial that we never had about it. Claiming as he shredded the note that I had to prove I trusted him or just leave, so again I left, however briefly, having been distraught to realize only then that in all my attempts to prove my commitment to him believing his empty promises, he had made sure there was nothing and nowhere already by that point for me to go back to. So yeah, unfortunately I stayed, erroneously believing doing so was my only chance to recoup any of which had obviously already been swindled from me.
Oh my goodness there was my chance to get out and I blew it, as I could have put off the marriage if not indefinitely as he claimed then there was no money for the wedding, big drunkfest he had to have or the honeymoon he boasted in his narcissistic showboat fashion to everyone we would take. But no, instead I handed him another 3 grand, my last tax refund with dependant deductions. In my defense I was in love, but not with the man he really is.
Now, it was decided when we left for our honeymoon July of 2010 that the 600 he had been collecting since the previous April ( and keeping) in rent from my property would become only 300.00 beginning that August, allowing my son to then keep 75.00 wkly for his needs. It was also at this time that my son , following thru with his part in our plans for him, began Trade school, graduating that following May and becoming gainfully employed that next June, so from August 2010 Thru June 2011 the X received no less than 700.00 monthly from my bank account plus that 300.00 in rent from my property which he claimed fraudulently in court had always been deposited into the property’s account, when in fact it did not for most of the duration of our relationship. Considering the rent he collected as part of what he expected me to pay him in rent for a house with no mortgage and minimal bills. Those deposits he claimed at trial he always made didn’t actually begin until Nov of 2011 although he had been collecting the rent since April of 2010, and my bank records prove so, as well as the truth that he lied when he claimed he only received at most a couple hundred a month from me, again meeting the definition of perjury.
Ninety pages of the 137 page transcript have at least one of the X’s lies or half truths documented on each, testimony proven false even if only just in part by info, and / or bank records listed in my discovery or testimony that the judge did and too much that the Judge did not hear. Again Perjury being: A crime that occurs when an individual willfully makes a false statement during a judicial proceeding, after he or she has taken an oath to speak the truth.
Claiming at trial I only ever gave him at the most 200.00 monthly while he paid for everything, when in fact my bank records do show I purchased my own personal items and his own testimony did state that I was paying him a couple hundred here and there in cash from the beginning , though he didn’t admit that was true only until the time my bank records reflect that as of April 2010 I put in at least 1000.00 monthly towards his household, a household, remember, with no mortgage, minimal utility bills and no control on my part over how any of it was spent. Half of my income plus the rent from my property went into the Xs pocket to spend as he saw fit,( his money was his money, my money was his money) meanwhile ( because he was collecting and keeping the rent from my property) the other half of my earnings plus my sons Social Security Disability covered my obligation to shelter my son until the kid graduated Trade school as we had agreed was my obligation prior to the marriage. The X’s claims that he put any of his money into any of my interests or debts or those of my kids are just some of his many lies. What little I make is what carried me and mine, before and after the marriage, while whatever was left over of mine plus his own earnings (twice what I made btw), was pissed away as he chose, i.e. Gambling, showboating, taking care of his interests only and keeping up the pretenses he must ; destroying any hope of actually having, what he pretends to, for real. So, me and mine did not cost him a damn thing. Much to his chagrin , he just didn’t get it all. Now as far as where his money went? That was all on him, blowing it in his showboat fashion, gambling and drunkenness, creating the false appearance he presents to the world.
In spite of the amount of money being transferred from my bank account to the X’s , and the amount of rent he was collecting and keeping, and all that he chose to spend however he saw fit, I was given no more than 20.00 weekly for lunch, if even that, was not even allowed cash to keep gas in my own car thus allowing the X to monitor my mileage. I was held accountable for every minute I was out of his sight, lunches (I began taking my hour lunch at my desk most days to avoid his crazy making accusing inquiries) and I sure as hell couldn’t stray from the path commuting to and from work, every minute and every mile was audited by him, as well as my phone records on the phone he insisted I carry as yet another means of monitoring me and my contacts with the outside world. I couldn’t have conversations with friends if he weren’t present without answering for it, all conversations had to be in front of him and on speaker phone, soon my kids didn’t even bother calling anymore, thankfully my relationships with them have healed and we enjoy long visits now that they are no longer compelled to escape as quickly as they could, sickened by his insistence to drink to excess with him, (alcoholics really cant handle the ability in other’s to pass up the drink (perhaps it reminds them of their weakness for it) and non alcoholics are just not usually too comfortable being around drunks). Anyway, thankfully no real damage was done to my relationship with my kids. Add to everything else he completely controlled, Except for my bachelorette slumber party at the church we attended which btw really sent him into a tizzy, I was allowed one girls night out with my girlfriends just once in almost 4 yrs, only to endure two days of hell for it, ensuring I would not dare risk doing anything like that ever again. I was unable to even shop alone for groceries EVER, and the few times I joined him on his shopping sprees I had no say about purchases or in the meal planning, unless he was feeling generous or needed to hold something over my head or make himself look good to whatever audience he was hoping to impress at the time, and for sure I was not permitted to do any personal shopping EVER; once though, I was allowed 30 minutes to go pick out a gift for one of the friends he allowed me (then later managed to turn on me, more a loss to her than for me though for sure). All purchases were made by the X, at the approval of the X, and though my money was going into his account as reflected in the bank records listed in the discovery, I had no say what so ever in how he chose to spend it (though I did learn that if I wanted something to make sure he had an audience and therefore I was more likely to get it) and what little was purchased supposedly for me was held over my head as gifts that I was to feel indebted to him for. In the final months of that prison I was trapped in, I managed to open a pay pal account and began spending at the most a couple hundred a month of what little money was accessible to me ( remember by then 90% of my payroll was going straight to his accounts leaving me access to a mere 10% of my gross wage of 1800.00) so what little I had managed to keep in my personal account , I finally began to spend on some doll houses I made with and for my granddaughters , of course the one I made for his granddaughter cost as much as the others had all together, (nothing but the best for his although mine were so much more grateful for so much less, I understand well it has to do with the hearts each has) allowing his little one hers, in the end he sent me and mine just the empty baskets that once held the treasured little staples the lil girls had made with me to fill the dollhouse cupboards, excited when the baskets once full of such treasures arrived that day, the lil girls learned a life lesson on the cruelty of people 4 year olds should not have had to learn, refusing to give me the dollhouses we created together, causing much damage to them he stored them instead in a heap in his garage, claiming them as marital assets, he priced them at 500.00 a piece, made form cardboard boxes and one that I saved from the trash, collecting the furnishings and old dolls very cheaply on eBay. No more than a few hundred went in to the lot. But He knew I cared about them, their real value to him being the pain keeping them from us caused. Yes the Narcissist really is that sick. Now, if those Doll Houses were indeed marital assets worth 500 apiece, they were the only ones of any value I managed to get, compared to the motorcycle he got free and clear, as well as the appliances, tools, smoker, furniture and all the other household marital assets he managed to keep deceitfully.
Also, His claims that he made expensive purchases out of the kindness of his great big heart for ungrateful me and my kids, such as cheap jewelry paid too much for and only given to me in front of audiences to bolster his ego, ( none that I asked for and all soon broken and turned to junk really , even the diamond in my engagement ring so flawed that no pawn shop would give more than 50 bux for it and the man made stones in the band it was soldered to, (an uncanny resemblance of the marriage it was supposed to represent ), a refrigerator for one kid and a set of tires for another. Those purchases were not solicited by me nor them, I had asked him to help the one kid find a used fridge and help the other to fix a flat, and I won’t waste any energy to reveal any more than that of the truth about them in this rant beyond the fact that those purchases made by him, like any gift he gives, were actually just more of his intent in true Narcissistic fashion to have us all feeling indebted to wonderful him. Show boating being a character flaw he relies on to make himself feel big because he knows deep down better than anyone how truly small he really is. Now contrary to his claims, (Lies rather) the money for those such purchases and the 2 grand divvied for my daughter’s wedding did not take out as much from his pocket or account as I was and had been putting in, also proven in the bank records in both of our discoveries. Hell, between us we made over 70 k a year, and yet he protested dropping 2k to my daughter for her wedding, not allowing me to even give her a wedding gift on top of it except for a 10.00 platter I took to her bridal shower so I wouldn’t show up empty handed, oh and because of the 2 k doled out for her wedding, her Christmas gift that year was an inexpensive bottle of wine, still though, her mother’s daughter for sure, she was quite grateful. Hell, I , as the mother of the bride wasn’t even allowed a new outfit for the occasion, I look back at it all, and yes I feel sick.
And yet he has called me the gold digger, hilarious as that is, when you take into account the 17 grand in Cashier’s checks handed to him by me expecting a promised return, the thousands that went into his account from my own each month and all the rent he collected from my property that he kept contrary to his lies on the stand and my small 401k earned before I even met him that was dwindled to half in the course of that marriage of two years, used on the taxes and insurance for his house, only a few hundred went to Christmas gifts he otherwise would not have allowed me to purchase for mine even though the year before he had assured me would finally be more balanced with his, and a trip he wept in his whisky over how we couldn’t afford it otherwise, Blaming me, when in reality it was due to his showboating short man syndrome’s effect on our finances. The fact is, it is doubtful he will ever find another foolish enough to give so much for so little in return and do so blindly without question.
Now, leaving the house I cherished to an 18 yr old to share with roommates, I protested constantly the way it was maintained by them but was undermined and criticized as being controlling . The X joined forces with my then 18 yr old manboyson claiming his intent was to keep peace between us, when in fact (as he was doing in all the relationships that I was ignorantly trying to nurture, and true to his narcissistic form, making sure I mistakenly believed he was the only one I could trust) he actually worked very efficiently at feeding animosity between me and most everyone else but especially my youngest son. Insisting it was the boy’s house to live in as he pleased, I was not allowed any say as to how the house was taken care of. Assuring the kid with too much on his plate already that the house and all that I was forced to leave behind were now his, to do with the best the kid could with no help whatsoever to maintain it , financially or with more than minimal verbal direction, (at one point the kid who had never roofed a house before had shingles dropped off and some tools but nothing more in the way of assistance to see the job through) and eventually as mentioned earlier I wasn’t even allowed to collect the rent from the roommates anymore, yet alone say how it would be applied once the X collected it, and the majority of which sure didn’t go back into that house as the X claimed on the stand at trial. Rent again btw that the X collected instead and kept for himself for all months except the last 6 months from November 2011 to July 2012 when we thankfully, finally split. That rent he kept, also proven by the bank records listed in the Discovery but lied about under oath by the X, claiming he always deposited it. It should be noted though that in order to get him to finally begin those deposits of rent into my account ear marked to handle my property Nov. of 2011, to make up for what he was losing the X insisted 90% of my payroll begin to be directed into his bank account. OMG every time I thought I was evening the mess out , I was really just getting sucked in deeper.
Now, it should not have surprised me as it did, that his family would lie for him, thinking back to how they had already proven capable and quite willing to do so, when I stumbled upon that trait in their family dynamic early on. All of them refusing to admit doing such a thing any sort of faux pas. I suppose to them it isn’t lying, but loyalty. Claiming , when I had made the mistake of confronting them for helping him destroy our trust that first time I caught a glimpse of his many lies, that I was the one in the wrong for expecting otherwise from him or them. So yeah, they can accept at least some credit for the man he is and the life he lives. Blame cognitive dissonance I suppose and then pity them, for they too are either being duped or are trapped in the midst of their own Narcissistic Hells to endure.
They say apples don’t fall from the tree, I know, and to think they carry themselves like they are above folks like me an mine who own even the worst parts of we are and then holding it against us. Biting my tongue the day My ex brother in law informed me (After seeing him pour massive amounts of whisky down his own son while canoeing down the river that day) how surprised he was to see how together my successful college kids actually were in spite of how he had surmised I had raised them. All I could think was really? ( The man had no clue) . Feeling the sting of the ever growing slights against me, I had not yet realized the X’s inclination to speak in lies and half truths about me to others in his attempt to devalue me in their eyes, true to the Narcissists pattern preparing for that inevitable eventual discard. I kept to myself how I wasn’t surprised at all the people each of our kids showed themselves to be as his stumbled around slurring nonsense after having passed out drunk on the river that day , knowing what I had seen of the examples not only set but encouraged by each of us for the younger generations. Yes I swallowed my words too often as they looked down on mine for what he got caught for while making light of what theirs got away with, their concept of right and wrong more connected not to actual sins or simple misdeeds but whether or not you get caught. Chastising me and my kids for what they saw as a pothead mentality and the worst of who we are, making fun of mine for what they deemed made them peculiar, one for being too moral to drink before turning 21, another for wanting nothing to do with drinking to excess and yet another for refusing to watch a pirated movie, and then our admissions to what makes us all human, behaviors of which they considered kept us beneath them; while they in turn are masters at hiding their true character from the outside (Gluttons, gamblers, drunks, showboats, backstabbing backbiting gossips (speaking ill of not just outsiders but even of each other when backs are turned). Drinking games with a breathalyzer to determine whose blood alcohol is higher. Heralding the alcoholic old man as Grandpa .22 , a title given him by a 3 year old. Encouraging the next generation to try to beat him at the game. How truly sad for their children encouraged to aspire if not to win but at least join the ranks (thankfully mine wanted little to do with such things and yet for what was actually a higher standard, were criticized). 40 sumthing yr old Grown ups hiding the fact that they even smoke, or anything reflecting any connection to my kids from the hood, and all the other antics they deny being any part of who they really are. Keeping up their facade even more exhausting for them I am sure than it had been for me as I tried to figure out their rules to what was and what was not allowed to be revealed to the world. Yes, I am thankful me and mine are not ashamed to own even the worst parts of who we are, it allows us to work on bettering ourselves every day, while they are stuck I s’pose with who they really are, no matter how much they try to hide it. Teaching my children since they were young, “ There is nothing noble about being superior to some other person. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self’.” ~Hindustani Proverb
The X’s mother use to sing my praises claiming her elation that her poor mistreated baby boy had finally found a woman just like her , just as convinced still, I am sure, as I once was, that he was indeed the victim in all his failed relationships as he asserted he was (although in the end, and quite proudly, I proved I am not much like her after all, finally taking the stand against my Narcissistic husband that she never did dare take against hers). I was often pressured to call his parents Mom and Dad, but something in my gut knew better, so I respectfully refused. They claimed I was family but really, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to join forces with what I knew of them, knowing what I did of all they value, the blind loyalty leading them to the great abyss, the drunkenness, the gambling, the showboating, the hypocrisies, the conceit, hearing how they thought they were above most everyone and how they all spoke behind each other’s backs sickened me and though’ initially I felt bad for my sister in law knowing what was said about her in her absence. When she rolled her eyes or would stomp away as I was being complimented or simply accepted, at first I had tried to redirect attention back to her. But when her Catty games became too apparent to keep telling myself it was in my head as the X claimed it had to be, I still thought to much of him for sure. But once I chalked it up to jealousy, I tried even harder to win her friendship with no success. Around everyone else, at least when I was present, she would act as though all was fine between us, but if left alone in a room together she wouldn’t acknowledge my existence and played childish face book games her husband had told her to cease while mine accused me of making it up and being the one stirring up trouble. Misguidedly believing his loyalty would be with his wife or that he was just blind to what was going on , I tried to tell the X how I was being treated but like he did in everything he turned it back on me and swore it was all in my head. Hoping that he was right and it was just in my head I sucked it up and endured, because you see, I know I can fix me, but indeed once it all fell apart the ugly hearted x-sister in law’s true colors came out for sure but just how that played out isn’t worth the energy to speak any more of. So, in spite of their claims otherwise I always felt outside the loop and yes part of that is on me for refusing to lower myself to their level, but I stayed true to who I am and as is my nature and had become my mode for survival in that world I was only beginning to feel imprisoned in, I tried to make the best of things, inviting those I believed were my friends along whenever I could, though most of those particular friends had actually been picked for me by him, still I naively believed they were indeed my friends, most of such friends he had picked for me btw still remain an important part of my world today, having more respect for me than they actually ever did for him. Yep, I wasn’t even allowed to pick my own friends, or even keep my old ones for that matter, but today my world is filled with them, tried and true, with backbone and character and kindness and strength in their hearts and a lot more respect for me now than they had for me then when I was attached to and controlled by him. Yes, I lost a few I cared too much for, but I understand now God was actually protecting me, making sure I invested no more than I already had in the wrong people. “You don’t lose friends. You just realize who your real friends are.”
And so then the lies began, or just began to unravel rather, as in reality I learned after it was over that the lies were always there pretty much daily from day one and sadly I will carry the consequences of the first of his lies to trap me from the very start for the rest of my life, a constant reminder of the disgusting man that proved so unworthy of the love and trust I realized too late I had been giving too freely and for way too long. But you know, believing in and trusting that vulgar man enough to marry and invest or abandon all I ever had, should not have cost me everything simply because I had begun to catch on to all the lies he is not yet man enough to own the truth of and most likely never will be. And the fact that his family could think otherwise is just proof how truly flawed their understanding of right and wrong is. Knowing that God has little care for the treasures of this world stolen from me, I cherish the love he has blessed me with to reward me for the faith I proved is in me when I put it all in His hands, the love and life I have now, unlike anything they will ever know. I understand that as they may appear rewarded for evil here in satan’s realm based on the materialistic things they cherish the most, it’s what awaits us all on the other side that matters and yes, I find much solace knowing what the bible says of such things.
Proverbs 22:22-23
Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court, 23 for the Lord will take up their case and will exact life for life.
If you succeed in cheating someone, don’t think that the person is a fool…Realize that the person trusted you much more than you deserved.
Yes his lies had begun to unravel, lies reminiscent of those behavior patterns he had initially sworn would remain part of his past and not our present ……as long as I played by his rules that is. Rules he made up and that only applied to me and of which he changed often without bothering to tell me so. Lies denying or minimizing the black outs and all the ugliness that came with them, the gambling , the spending, the porn, the strip clubs, the lies about where he went and what he did with his time before and after work and the truth to what he did with both his and my money, and the lies about the disease he willingly infected me with as just another part of his trap for me, truly the only thing in the end that he gave me that he didn’t take back.Lying about its origins being from him as he knew it was, blaming me, shaming me, tormenting me , all for his sadistic satisfaction of keeping me believing I could do no better than him, that I owed him. Yes, there were times I wished for death, my pain so deep, so great I saw no other relief, but thankfully I would not hurt those who truly loved me in that way and so I escaped and am blessed today. The pill I take each morning to suppress the disease, once a constant reminder of what he got away with doing to me now seen instead as a reminder of how blessed I was the day I made my escape.
All of it was mere Lies concocted to portray the illusion of the appearance he needs to portray to the world, instead of actually doing the work it takes to live it for real. All the double standards and the real truth that the only reason he audited my every move was because he knew what he himself had done, was up to and therefore expects the same from others. Double standards, a narcissistic trait, as I have only finally come to understand now. His inability to trust similar to my inability to see any of it coming. Clearly, we do not see the world the same or have the same expectations from it and as far as what is in his heart, well, thankfully it is not in mine.
I do prefer the rewards I have been blessed with for putting it all in God’s hands as I believed I was suppose too (even if it meant trusting blindly to my own demise), than the sad lonely life he has created jumping from one vulnerable woman to the next. At least 5 that I know of have been thru his infected bed since we split only 2 yrs ago, as he denies it being infected at all, so sad for them, though not so different than he had with me for as long as he could that is, then tormenting me over it to the point I had wished for death, believing because of it, that I could do no better than him. Yes, my time with him was indeed the lowest point in my life. But as for my life since I escaped that hell I tried to make the best of, God sent me a good man (everything the X could only pretend to be and so much more) to help me thru all that God knew I was about to face. So the ex runs women thru his life as he always has in assembly line fashion while in comparison I have been with the same man now since only shortly after I realized the many truths about that mistake of a marriage founded on his countless lies, and yep, we have been living happily ever after since (feeding much of the X sister-in-law’s continued animosity (roflmao btw).
Psalm 18:16-24 He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters. He rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me. The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me.
The X may ride a motorcycle today, paid for by the money my father earned working every Saturday of his life to leave me as a nest egg, but that is all he will ever have, inanimate things as incapable of love as he is. The only love he will ever know is love that he has to steal via the disguises he doesn’t have it in him to keep on for very long. I do have to wonder though, the kind of Karma they have created for their own inheritances one day or those they wish to leave for their children. And as far as whether or not it was his intent to cause me to lose it all when he told me to abandon everything I had for a life with him, well if he had ever sincerely cared even the slightest bit for me, he would not have been so diligent in making sure I walked away with so little of what I once had while he himself managed to carry on, not just unscathed but so much better off and at my expense. If he weren’t the Narcissist his lies proved him to be, he would not have needed to resort to perjury to get away with everything.
He lost a diamond, I lost a lowly cockroach or perhaps more something like a diseased blood sucking tic, but in return I gained a heart of gold, while his will forever be no more than a heart of stone, empty and cold and alone, in his endeavor for self preservation. The true measure of a person’s character being the fruits left behind in the lives of those they touch, there sure remains quite a bit of good things in theirs that only arrived when I did and do still remain there, leaving me with nothing that I once had, true… Nothing that is except a beautiful future ahead with him and them behind me and sadly only his leprous legacy he denies to remind me just how blessed I am to have escaped the prison he built intending to hold me but instead is now no more than a prison of his own making for his miserable self. As much as he tries to deny it or conceal the truth to the lies told to those who still need to believe him to be able to look at themselves, simply, it is what it is, their own Narcissistic hell to endure. “
“The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love. For what is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
As for me, my life is filled with love and I am Free! What little I escaped his prison with has since grown to be so much more and I am blessed finally to know the love I once blindly albeit mistakenly sacrificed all I had for, only this time around it isn’t costing me anything, yet alone everything.
Hello, unlike most of you I’m actually a guy who came across a female sociopath. I feel kinda like an outcast since all you have problems with male sociopaths because women sociopaths are a whole different evil. I’m 18 years old and im about to leave for college, I live just west of Chicago in a suburb and attend one of two highschools. I hit puberty late so I didn’t have many friends and I was annoying until I finally caught up to everyone physically and mentally. This year I finally started to make friends, I was always very good at understanding people so
I was good at socializing just not well practiced. I’m pretty smart FYI (34 act). I met this girl named Lilly through a friend about 9 months ago, we started off as friends and soon stayed up till 5 in the morning texting. To tease me she used to snapchat nudes of herself occasionally but she demanded we stay friends. After a while I started seeing her as more of a friend because she really understood me, she knew me unlike anyone else and she was incredibly smart, not to mention beautiful. Her eyes were black but a very bright black that shined, I would also describe her soul this way. Eventually I told her I had feelings for her and she sweetly rejected me. She had serious drug problems like most sociopaths do, OxyContin and Cocaine being a favorite.. By the way she is only 16. I remember reading things on the internet about 16 year olds doing drugs and thinking it was so fucked up but here I am living it. — Anyways, I was always concerned with her drug use but she was convinced she could handle it. Lilly never let me out of her life because she had a use for me. I was her intellectual boyfriend. She loved to separate things so she had a boy she was physically into and me who she was intellectually stimulated by. She always made me jealous in an intentional but subtle way, she’d talk about him
And say she wished he could be like me. I found out later from her friends that she was plotting to have sex with me over the summer to lose her virgnity, not because she loved me but because she trusted me and wasn’t worried about how I thought of her. This all took place in winter and spring, fast forwards to summer. She tried to convince me that everyone was selfish and nobody cared about anyone else; that when you help an old lady cross the street you’re doing it to feel good about yourself not to actually help her. I agreed to an extent but explained that love was also taking a play. She didn’t believe in love. I begged her to let me teach it to her through example but she wronged me (not enough time to explain) and I managed to cut her off for a month until she used a friends phone to send me a heartwarming text that was unresistable to reply to. When we finally started taking again she immediately played hard to get, but she wasn’t even playing she just didn’t care enough about me to reply soon. Eventually I fell back in love and started flirting with her, I explained that I wanted to touch her and make her feel good. She came back and told me that she told her family we were dating and that they wanted me over for dinner. I found out later that she was joking after she sent me a snapchat of her making out with her favorite drug dealer. She explained that she loved me more than him but didn’t want to jeopardize our friendship. I cut her off and found this website. There is more to this story but I don’t want anyone to cry and I need to give my thumb a wrest from typing (iPhone) so this is the end, I wish you all strength in ignoring the sociopaths in your life.
My story is pretty textbook. He and I were both married, both unhappy. He pursued me, flirted with me, made me feel beautiful and adored. He loved me with his whole heart…or so he told me. Soulmates, puzzle pieces, the perfect couple…the whole nine. When our affair was discovered his ex-wife and some friends told me that he was having affairs with multiple women, but I wouldn’t listen. He admitted to inappropriate texts, because he felt so inadequate in his marriage, and I accepted it. After my divorce he let me stay home and not work, so I could be there for my son and take care of our home. Fast forward three and a half years, tens of thousands of dollars getting my divorce, living a happy normal life with him and my teenage son, when the discard began. His feelings had changed, I had too difficult a time with his travel schedule (he’s a pilot), he was having trouble accepting my son’s father’s influence over him, and he was thinking seriously about wanting a child of his own (even though he’d been married three times). We sought counseling through our church and left for a vacation together with my son, hoping to have time to reconnect. While on vacation, I discovered that he had been cheating on me for months with five other women, including threesomes and all manner of depravity. He was using all the same lines on the new women that he used on me. Because I had his iPad for two hours, I had conversations with all the women and let them know what he was doing, so I likely messed up his little harem pretty well. It got physical when I returned with the iPad from where I had hidden, and I called the police to come. I was six hours from home, with my son as a witness to the whole situation, and no way to get to a car rental to get out. His mother, who was not present when the struggle for the iPad happened, told the police that I was lying, even though I was the one bleeding and bruised after finding out that my entire world had just collapsed. His father, who was embarrassed by what he’d just discovered about his son, drove me and my son to a car rental a half hour from where we were staying.
When I was able to get home, he made it difficult for me to get into the house to get my things. I waited til he left on a trip and moved out in two days to a storage unit. I stayed with family until I found a place to live, which I am now in the process of moving into. I am still jobless, but have some interviews lined up, and have my alimony and some savings to live on for now.
I am beyond devastated, my son is devastated and my life is completely turned upside down. I am doing a lot of praying, a lot of crying and leaning on my friends and family for support. Tomorrow he will drop off the last of my belongings that he has, and I will have a friend here to help him, because I cannot handle seeing him. When that is done, he will be blocked and deleted in every possible way, and I will have no further contact with him. His house is in the foreclosure process (a result of his most recent divorce), and I am hopeful that he will leave the area entirely once the bank evicts him. Until then, I will scan every parking lot I pull into for his truck in order to avoid bumping into him.
I am so sorry that you are hurting so much. I know a woman who was married to a psychopath airline pilot. She wrote a book. I could put you in touch (but wonder also is he the same pilot). …
Thanks….I’m so glad I found this site. It’s already helped me understand what’s happened. I think a career as a pilot would be attractive to a sociopath or psychopath, since it allows them the freedom to wreak havoc and play their little games.
Yes because they love to hide. Travel gives them the ability to do this.
My husband (of 15 years) just left me for my sociopath (ex) best friend that I have only known for 10 months.
Can I ask all of you how long was your relationship with the sociopath …. I’m worried she may take him to the altar and be my kids step mom. She’s still married but my husband just filed for divorce. I’m blindsided. I’ve only known about the affair for a month.
She played my best friend until the day I found out (accidentally, saw texts on my husbsnd phone) I’ve never heard from her again. The texts on my husbands phone from her ….. I can’t wait for you to be my new husband (she’s still married), im the luckiest girl in the world, the I love you’s (stabbed me in the heart), IM so glad you are telling your family it’s good to have it out in the open, I can’t wait to have your sexy arms around me …. Ugh and there were more.
She was the bestest friend I’d ever had. I see how she was a sociopath now. I wanted to be with her all the time. She tried separating my husband and I when we were together …. Our families were always together, she wouldnt take No for an answer, if I was upset with my husband she would charm him subtly. I noticed it sometimes and it annoyed me but she was my best friend so I let it go.
She told my husband a month ago that I am mentally unstable and that I abuse him …. So he believes this now. He is like a different person now. It’s so heartbreaking. We have kids so I have to talk to him. He’s like a puppet …. He’s trying to take the kids from me which he would never do. Ive been a stay at home mom for 15 years. Our relationship was pretty good , we weren’t headed for divorce. But she has penetrated his brain and he believes he needs to do this …. He wants it done fast and again she’s not divorced. Her husband knows about the affair. My husband is friends with him still. My husband makes more money than hers so I’m not sure what her end game is. We had an amazing life. She told me 6 weeks ago that she wanted my life … I didn’t think she really meant it.
my husband was a strong, very successful, put together guy, but now he’s lost his mind. He’s spending all our money furnishing his new apartment shopping with her (going to all her favorite high end stores) and taking her to lunch and dinners. $2000 for pots and pans at Williams Sonoma anyone?? Oh and so much more.
Is there any way to make him realize she’s a sociopath?
I don’t want this divorce.
His parents won’t talk to me now because he told them I abused him and they are loyal to their son.
I felt my husband was brainwashed and that she must be a sociopath because what kind of person can play my best friend while stealing my husband? So I googled “brainwash sociopath” and found this sight. Thank you for this information.
I was duped by her and now my husband is even moreso.
I wrote a very poignant story which could have been me / except for the ending, thank God. Every woman, mother, daughter’s nightmare. It wasn’t until I had read the kind of literature, posts here and on other sites, that I realised I have been involved with three socio/psycho/narcs/ whatever you want to call them. Why is a total mystery. Maybe I’m a hopeless romantic and they hone in on people of that disposition. But it wasn’t just me they hurt. My first husband almost destroyed out daughter with his discarding of her. Dreadful. Anyway, this is a cautionary tale. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eloise-Loving-Sociopath-Catherine-Lockwood-ebook/dp/B00K1T4NE4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1439355527&sr=1-1&keywords=eloise+loving+a+sociopath
I’m so scared I’m wrong and possibly lose the love of my life but I’m more scared to be right because I won’t have the excuse of he loves me to justify staying in a disgustingly unhealthy relationship anymore. This site has nailed him to a T, and the red flags have been blatant since day flipping one. He was arrested after our first date, his “crazy” “ex” had called the police because she was jealous he was moving on and claimed he had abused her. I felt sorry for him, I felt guilty because it was my fault she was jealous. To this day this is the only version of the story I know, but I’m positive this is not at all what really happened. We’ve been dealing with the legal ramifications ever since, he was supposed to be done with his probation this month but his stupid “bitch” probation officer hates him for no reason at all and is trying to revoke it. Since January everything in our relationship has changed, he’s cruel, ignores me, doesn’t touch me and I can’t remember the last time we had sex. He’s always full of excuses and blames his lack of interest on the stress of his upcoming court date. There have been many signs that he’s cheating, I found an active account on the dating site we had met on, the username was the same except he changed the numbers. When I confronted him on it, he told me I was wrong and that was indeed his exact username from before and that I have a terrible memory. Everything he does to hurt me is caused by some wrong I’ve done to him, he never apologizes and has me almost convinced I am indeed crazy. My biggest fear is being abondened and every time I try to bring up issues he punishes me by just leaving and telling me he doesn’t think he wants to be with me anymore, that I’m just always telling him he does everything wrong. I’ve bailed him out of jail numerous times with high bails, I bought him a car, all with promises of being paid back. When he needs my help he never asks he always presents it in a way that he’s doing me a favor. The first year of our relationship he was using H, he’s been in recovery since last March, but I fear if he does get off probation he’ll start using immediately. I’ve sadly given too much money on his habit then I’d like to admit. He’s now using subutext, a medication to help with his recovery, a medication that I unfortunetly now use regularly and am afraid to not have access to as I have learned has terrible withdrawals. I had no idea when he started having me take it that it was even what it was, I mean I knew he was using it to help with his addiction but he told me it would help with my depression and constant headaches. He use to just give it to me and now uses it as a weapon, this is of course my fault on even taking it but I truly thought he only wanted the best for me. My family has helped him in so many ways, we currently live with my parents but I’m guessing not for long as they don’t like the way he treats me. I’m afraid I’m going to lose my family. There is of course so much more I could say but ultimately even with all of this I don’t want to live without him. I love him more than anything and can’t imagine him not in my life, please help me, how did you all find the strength in yourselves to do it, because rite now I feel worthless.
Hi Scared and Alone, thank you for reaching out to us. This is the first step!!
What I want you to do, PLEASE, is to get access for drug support yourself. NOW. As soon as you can, please.
He gave you his medication deliberately, so that you would have an addiction too. Then he has further control over you and your life. Can you talk to your family about this?
You say that you love him? I am telling you that while you are in the relationship with the sociopath you do not know what or how you think/feel. Simply because they use mind control over you.
You are in a dangerous situation, and at risk of going down a hard drug pathway. (I do know that subutex is prescribed for heroin addiction). This man is never going to save you, or be the one who is there for you, but he could go on to ruin and destroy your life.
You say that you fear losing your family. I can tell you that if you choose to not allow your family to help you, continue to use his prescribed drugs, and get an addiction to that (I also want to tell you that subutex will have an impact on your looks and will rot your teeth)!! Your family might end up detaching for their own sanity and to try to help you.
You cannot fix him. He will not change. You need to know this. He won’t ‘get better’ or ‘make a recovery’. This is the way that he is. This can only get worse…. not better. The only solution to this, is to remove him from your life, and to start focusing on you and your own life. You really need help and support from a specialist drug agency for your dependency to subutex. As things could really get far worse for you. Thank you for commenting.
Hi scared and alone.. Your story hits home with me. Honey u know that eventually down the line that unless u both seek help to quit drugs it will be a down hill spiral. But if he is holding subs over your head then all u need to do is google suboxone or subutex doctors in your area and call each and every one until you find the cheapest monthlythat is accepting new patients! Just tell the doc you have been taking them andneed to get a legal script to week down properly. Voila! You don’t have to be on heroin or anything else to get that! I know from personal experience… So get your own script then make going to work and makin money your New thing. Depend on yourself day by day as much as you can until u don’t need anythin at all from him except to see the doorknob shove him in the azz. He sounds like mine in so many ways. Ill be it that u stay up crying over somethin he did and he looks at u like U have two heads then rolls over for a peaceful night sleep leaving you to pick up your own pieces..??? Has this happened?? He is not the love of your life..he is the lesson of your life.. And I am not preaching bc I also need to heed my own advice! Lol xoxox
@scared&alone, you are doing the first step, recognizing that what you are living it’s not love. You are dealing with a dangerous person so please look out for help in the appropriate places, in your case with a protection order. Expect a time as when you leave an addiction and give yourself the gift of time space and no contact…the strength will come.
It’s been one week since I ended all contact with my sociopathic pilot ex boyfriend. I haven’t cried in three days. I’m still angry, and the events of our breakup and my discovering the truth still run through my mind often, but I feel that I’m leaving it behind and have turned the corner toward healing. It’ll be a long road, but I’m on it and moving forward. Eliminating contact has been a huge step, but one that was well worth it!!
I came across this website looking for answers myself. I would share my story but honestly everything you have written here on your site rings true for me and happened to me. I wish there was a way to ‘out’ them. Even your Karma seems it was written for me. Thank you all for answering my questions about this dirtball!
I can do this too about 1 person I regrettably dated.
I know he was a pathological liar. He was narcissistic and displayed many symptoms of anti-social behavior. In short, I think he was a combination of psychopath, narcissist and charismatic sociopath. As bad a person as he was, he had friends and people seemed to like him which was very confusing. It had to be superficial charm. He mirrored what I was looking for and wanted. He had a terribly ugly side too and once that came out, it seemed to really upset people.
The claims he made:
1.) He was looking for his dream woman which was why he was on a dating website. Truth: he was an a**hole with a temper and a drinking problem who constantly lied. He loved to party and wanted a responsible woman to be seen with him, put up with him & enable him.
2.) He went to that site b/c women were after his $$$.
Truth: Women in town did not want to date HIM. I was not originally from the same town where I lived at the time. He had grown up there. Had I grown up there too, I probably would have heard stories about him, been advised to avoid him and to not trust him.
3.)He lived in a rundown home/fixer upper.
Truth: He lived in a great big house in an affluent neighborhood that his parents paid for.
4.) He didn’t like to drink
Truth: He was an alcoholic.
5.) He worked hard all day long reading and doing other noble things.
Truth: He spent his days doing nothing and things that were criminal b/c he didn’t have to work. He did this all while sitting in a house that his parents paid for.
6.) He was arrested for 2 DUIs and was asked to put a Breathalyzer unit in his car. He screamed that it would “ruin” the dash in his car.
Truth: He didn’t want people to know he had to put a Breathalyzer unit in his car which usually indicates trouble with the law.
7.) The police took his license away.
Truth: He drove anyway.
8.) He would say he wanted to take me to Shanghai to “get lost.” He also would try to lure me with nice vacations and trips to great hotels.
Truth: He never followed though on any of it so much that I began to distrust everything he said.
9.) The day before I left him, I suspect he knew that I was planning something. I went into his office where he deliberately had a picture of engagement rings up on his computer screen for me to walk in on. For a year and a half after meeting him and after claims that he wanted a family and a wife, he never did anything to try and make that a reality. Every now and then, he would say things here and there about a honeymoon or having a family to keep me interested. By the time I left him, I knew he was a liar. I knew the jewelry website was an attempt to have me believe he was interested in something he wasn’t. I ended it the next day to which he was furious.
There were so many other lies besides these.
It was highly distressing having dated a sociopath. While in his company, I had such a hard time believing that this human being did not care about anything but himself. Ultimately, my desire to help him and that fact that I felt sorry for him damaged me. I fended and supported someone who was false. At the time, I convinced myself that his substance problems were causing his lies. However, I realized I was wrong. He had substance problems maybe because he was a sociopath and it didn’t matter if he drank or not. He was still the same terrible liar with no remorse or conscience.
I never thought or knew that even being near a person that destructive could tear my life upside down, but I assure you it did.
Who knows what he said about me. I was asked to lie for him many times. He made up excuses for why it was necessary which I believed. One example was he asked me to tell people that we met at my place of employment rather than the dating website. He said he would be “embarrassed” if people heard that we met that way. I took him at his word. I have accepted that he probably told people we met through some other means and the lie was only to serve his purpose. (not b/c he was embarrassed) Never again will I ever want to be near such a person. And, I also hope that someday he gets what is coming to him. I truly do.
I hope one day he gets what is coming to him. But do you think that he would notice? Or even learn? Likely he would blame someone else for what is happening to him, as they don’t take personal responsibility for their actions. They love to shift the blame, and play victim. Yours sounds like he is SPOILED, SPOILED by his parents, given everything that he wanted in life, never having to work for anything. Is just a spoiled brat who is used to getting whatever he wants. Its doubtful he would ever learn too much as his parents would bail him out.
My mom recently came and swooped me away from my sociopath or psychopath Im not sure which he is. I am just trying to get this out. I agreed to leave him and by doing this I left my job with him he was my boss. We were also supposed to be engaged soon. We have been together 4 months and he was the best lover I ever had and I thought my new best friend. He seemed like a harmless boy, very funny, creative and attentive. He said it was love at first sight. Our fights started pretty soon within a month he started to put me down call me stupid, whore, trash, cunt, shrew, his exs name which was my middle name and say I made him want to puke and hit me although he said he never would. One particularly scary evening he was angry with me because my feelings were hurt and he got out his gun to scare me. He swears he was suicidal. His roommate moved out and he blamed me and he insisted I move in but I wouldn’t because I wanted him to stop yelling at me and putting me down. I had never experienced this before and thought he could get better because I thought he had been abused as a kid. This is the second time I left him. After I came back the first time he promised to get help and cried sorry hed ever hurt me but within two weeks after him screaming in my ears that I was a broken child and he hoped my first baby died he told me the next morning that everything had always been my fault and he lied about wanting therapy and I should except it was me making him scream at me because of my insecurities. He had also made jokes that made fun of my body and always insisted it was a joke. He knew I had anorexic tendencies. He also made fun of me for being raped in public and humiliated me. He has threatened my friends and posted terrible things about me on facebook and left the windows open for me to lose my cats blaming it on the maintenance man. He has tried to knock me off my bike and steal my bike since I wasn’t ready to move in with him. He is now claiming I am just a drunk to everyone he can talk to. Somehow I still miss him and feel heartbroken. I think I am just too in shock about what to do. He would never let me spend a second away from him. If I did go out he would accuse me of cheating even with women. It also scares me terribly he hurt an animal as a child. I know I cant have kids with him or even pets. Still I battle in my head if I am just crazy like he insists. Soon Ill have to go back home and I know he will show up. A part of me is afraid to get a restraining order because that I fear could be his snapping point. So far he has only bit me and scared me with the gun. I still get his texts he says we will just be friends for six months and see a therapist till I trust him again and he will be patient because we are soul mates.
Chloe this man is a bully and is not your soul mate. He uses this to keep control of you. This man is a bully, abusive, with no respect for you. You deserve so much more than this chloe. It wont get better. It will only get worse.
Thanks for the encouragement. I’m home , now dating and friends with this man I’ll call S secretly. He is acting perfect again it’s very confusing and I’m still afraid I’ll try to flirt with others but when I have a bad experience I can’t resist him . I have to really leave him soon or I fear losing my mom and friends who have hellped i. m me. He says he’s in therapy and cried a lot saying he wishes he never hurt me . He’s on a work trip without me calling all the. time
I haven’t been in contact with my sociopath in 8 days. I started dating and have been very lucky with support from friends. I found out a friend I was very in love with wanted to date again and I feel very happy and grateful to truely talk and feel cared for. I’m never going back. I’m free. I’m still vulnerable and emotional but I’m walking into the future the genuine future 🙂
Hi!
So today I saw my ex socio at the office again, and my heart just has been racing the whole evening. I don’t know why I am still not over the whole thing yet, it’s been 2 months since I ve been discarded. So I m gonna share my story here and see if that helps.
So, it started in about Feb, 8 months ago. She is a coworker, and works closely with the team which sits next to my team. She is extremely extrovert, charming, extremely charming, I should say. My general policy has been, never to get involved with anyone in the office, to which I had stuck strongly. At the time, and in general, I am a very confident guy, charismatic myself, and people enjoy their time around me. I dont know if thats why she caught me,.. but now i think about that time and keep asking “why me?”…
In the initial phase, she just went on and on, about why do i not date this girl and why not that girl.,. and i said, most of the times, that I dont want to date someone from the office. But she kept insisting, you should date this girl etc. Which was surprising to me, since we dint know each other much. In some ways I remember asking myself, why is she showing interest in me, among all these guys around here. To be honest, it flattered me too. After a few days the questions turned into, ‘so what kinda girl do you want to date?’.. now i realize that that was the assessing phase, in which i gave out a lot, which she later used. Then after, she frequently used to come to the office, and used to sit next to my table. I found it little weird, but more flattering. She started telling me everything going on in her daily life, most of the times without me asking. I was trying to stick to my rule of no-dating-in-office, and resisting personal conversations with her. I even said a few times, I want to be professional with everyone in the office, and gave her reasons why I dont do personal talks with the coworker. But slowly, she tried to convince me, why it was okay to have personal conversations with the coworkers. And with her confidence, and charm I started to doubt myself.
She scheduled dinners with me, and i kind of forced her to bring few coworkers, just so as to make sure its not a ‘date’.
I resisted for months to open up and talk freely, but she was there, every day. I used to work late, and she was there late with me. A lot of times, now, even when my work was done, I started finding myself sitting there, talking with her till 2 o’clock in the morning, just not-to-be rude. Then I remember thinking to myself, ‘she is sitting there talking with you, so late, about everything in her life,.. seems like she really likes you, and she is putting in so much efforts and you are the one being an asshole and resisting.’, she is quite honestly pretty, and successful. Then after those thoughts, I decided, I am going to try and date her.
Then I started going on dinners with her, and sending hints, you know the way you do to test the water. And in every situation, she just gave positive signal. And I got more and more drawn in.
Now, we never officially dated, we never slept together, but the long long conversations just made me get attached to her so bad! I should mention, she has a boyfriend. Now, while talking, always she pretended the boyfriend was only for a year or so, the relationship was falling apart, they hardly ever had sex anymore etc etc, She even said that they are about to breakup. But they were also in the process of buying a house together, which dint add up, but I dont know why my mind dint catch that! somehow I just overlooked it. It eventually turned out, that they have been together for more than 6 years.
At the very same time, she was also talking with this guy from Dublin online, and always told me about him. I thought he was like a pen friend to her. Some of the other things she mentioned were
1. She has sex with guys, and once she is ‘done with them’, she behaves as if they dont exist.
2. She did that with a guy in her previous job, and he couldnt let go and acted weird, so they had to fire him, with a shrug.
All this, while she had the current boyfriend. I dont know why i overlooked this too. She even constantly lied. I tried to encourage her not to lie, because I thought, she was lying to be nice, or as a defense mechanism, since, working in all male offices could some times be hard.
Now we have been having awesome time for over 3 months. And i am completely hooked. I have never had such awesome time with anyone. I also remember thinking to myself, that i have never been with someone for so many months without even a single fight.
The biggest thing happened, when she decided to meet this guy from dublin in NY. To me, it seemed like a vacation, so i said, i would like to come too. So we both went, had a lovely first day. The next day she hung out with the guy from dublin, and i wandered NY. But when she wasnt responding to her phone, by evening, i got worried, since, he was essentially a stranger. So I went to the hotel, and walked on them having sex. And my mind was blown.
The next day we came back, and she told me the other guy had called her 5 times and she dint respond. After coming to seattle, that guy was messaging and messaging, but i saw some evil enjoying smile on her face when she read those messages, but she dint respond. Apparently he was getting discarded. And when I questioned all this weirdness, I got discarded.
Later i found she has done this to many many guys, for years.
It was such a short time. And i should be over it. I understand she is a negative person. But i cannot stop thinking about her. “that time was so nice”, “maybe its because her mom was a sociopath. If i talk with her nicely, and ask her to get help, maybe she ll change”, “her boyfriend should know about how horrible she is”, “what can i do so that she doesnt do this to anyone else”… on and on and on… Since this was not as bad as what some other people face, I dont know why I cant get over it.
I hope writing this down here, would help! Actually I already feel better, and my heart has slowed down, which was racing for hours.
I am not sure who this girl was that I dated but I know something was wrong with her. We met online and she and I got along great however I notice that she moved very quickly and wanted to have sex with me soon. She put a lot of emphasis on being physical with me rather than wanting to know me as a person. She used her sexual desires as a way to mentally screw with me and it doesn’t help when I am a virgin. I knew something was wrong and after 2 months she told me she was confused and that she was still in love with her ex. she. I told her we can’t see each other anymore she when ahead and asked if things worked out between us in the next 6-8 months could we get married. She was also not legal citizen in this country and is sponsored to stay here. I told her to move on and she would still text me time to time even though I told her we shouldn’t be talking. This last week she texted me and wanted to get back together and then the very next day says she did not mean it and that she was just upset. She went back to a man who left her and broke my heart. She only wanted to be with me for sex so she could get over him. She lied to me, manipulated me, and she has no concsious of what she is doing. She doesn’t care about anyone but herself. Either this person is severely immature or she has an issue. Either way I hope I smart enough next time to cut my losses and run.
I am new here, wondering if I’m in the right spot. Maybe I can get some feedback? My current husband and I were both in dead marriages in the Fall of 2008 when we met via his post on Craigslist. We met, we were immediately drawn together. He bounced back to his wife a few times over a 5 month period and then we were finally together. It all started out like a dream, great sex, very affectionate, treating me like his “fairytale princess” he was much more sexually adventurous than I ever was and he asked me if if I would be interested in going to swingers functions, but only interacting with each other or me with another female while he was there. I went for it and it remained just us being together or sometimes me with another female while they guys looked on. About a year into the relationship, I found a condom in the back seat of his truck. I was devastated. He lied and said he had been masterbating in his truck on his way to work and wore a condom to keep it clean. I bought it, but soon stumbled on some emails that lead me to believe something else was up and I confronted him. He admitted to putting ads on CL to have MEN perform oral sex on him. Long story short, we went to a sex addiction counselor and to sexaholics anonymous meeting for a few months. He told me that he had been doing this in his previous marriage as well but had never been found out.
We continued to live together and he told me he would do anything to regain my trust. Then there was a postcard in the mail from the courts for an appearance for indecent exposure. I confronted him and he said he had been with another guy in a parking lot and got busted. He went to court and was given probation and was told that this wouldn’t stay on his record, and it didn’t. He had no further issues that I know about as far as getting caught, but who knows what he was actually doing. I was so I love with him that I was willing to work through all of this. He told our counselor that he had been sexually abused by a male cousin. The counselor said that he was acting out with men because of the abuse, so it was like I gave him a free pass. The swingers lifestyle was some thing I told him I wanted no more of after this and he agreed.
So fast forward a bit, we continue to date and I have trust issues with him so we wait to get married. I finally feel like I’m in a better place and tell him I’m ready in 2012 and we were married in Vegas. The last 2 years have been slowly declining and he has tuned into someone I never knew existed. Some examples are bullet-pointed below
1. Got physical with my 17 year old son, shoving him to the ground and tellng me I was to blame. That I pushed him to his breaking point. Mind you this was all about a bagel that was thrown on the floor, my son walked past it and my husband tossed it and was furious. I asked for clarification from my husband and he took this as me not being on his side and pushing him into a confrontation with my son. To this day, will not apologize to my son even though I told him it was important to ME to have that happen. My son moved in with his dad after this incident.
2. Telling me more than once that I was acting like or was a cunt. He NEVER would have spoken to me like this before. This is a man who opens doors for me and bought me flowers, planned great dates, etc.
3. Was hysterically crying and blaming me for ruining his chance to get a bird dog and hunt with his son. I bought a dog when we already had multiples and he didn’t want another. His reaction was way over the top and he said he’d never forgive me for ruining that opportunity to bond with his son.
4. Told me he believed I purposely ran my car into the ditch so I could get him to come on a night he was out with friends. Went back and looked for skid marks on the road and when he didn’t see any, he told me that he believed I ditched it on purpose.
5. Never takes much personal responsibility or blame for anything that goes wrong in his life. It’s always someone else’s fault why HE did or feels something.
6. His 10 year old son heard him say something out of context about wanting to live alone than with my dogs. His son felt that his dad didn’t want to live with HIM. So I tell my husband that he might wan to pull his son aside and explain that what he heard wasn’t what he meant. He blew up and started ranting and raving about “why can’t anyone ever hear me and think something GOOD!? Why does everyone assume I’m the asshole?! I’m so sick of this shit!” I calmly told him that there was a hurt little boy that needed clarification. He slammed the door of the shower and I went and told his son the truth and that he misunderstood. Went back and told my husband that I smoothed it over
7. We had started arguing and at the advice of my counselor, I told him Thai it seemed like it was getting heated so I would like to talk about it later and left the bedroom. He yelled after me and I said I didn’t wan to keep fighting. He screamed that it was OK for me to say what I wanted but that when HE wanted to speak, it was not alright and he pounded down the steps after me. I went into the garage and to my car for safety and he pinned my leg between the car and the door as I was halfway in. He would let me out and wouldn’t let me get in. I had a huge bruise on my leg the next day. Even went to the police station to see what my options were and to cover my ass the next day. They told me that if I was going to tell them that someone laid a hand on me, they’d be obligated to make an arrest, so I left because that would have made it worse.
I told him in June I wanted a divorce and he was angry for about 2 days and then he suggested that we live in separate houses since a lot of our problems stemmed from being in the same home. He says lots of people live different lifestyles and wondered if that could work for us. I was actually thinking this was a great idea. I was still in love with him, but was tired of him bitching about our dogs, complaining about me being in a bad mood, and I was tired of seeing his mess, his kids’ messes, etc. so we actually are living in 2 houses but remain married. It’s been 3 weeks and he has been going out a lot with friends, ignoring or giving me really delayed responses to texts. This wasn’t the way I hoped this would go. I told him how hard to was to not hear a goodnight or good morning every day as we had for years. I told him I thought it would be nice if we could at least text that every day. He replied when I said it, but in that 10 days, never said it to me. So when we saw each other yesterday, I said I needed that from him. He went nuts saying how I was placing rule on him and that we weren’t supposed to have rules, etc etc.. I told him it wasn’t a rule, just some thing I need. ” if you’re fucking holding me accountable, then it’s a rule! I’ll set a fucking alarm, cause you know me, I’ll forget. So let me set and alarm right fucking now” he says. So as he’s speeding down the road he’s settig an alarm ams telling me to make a list of other “things I need form him and things he’s screwing up or NOT doing for me”. He was so angry and irritated that I just blurted out that I didn’t want to see or hear from him for 30 days. That’s where it stands now, as this was all yesterday. So why am I so desperate to be with someone who doesn’t treat me the way he used to, respectfully? Why am I so depressed and worried about where he is and what he’s been up to? I know he’s unhealthy for me but I still want him! Any words of wisdom? I doubt I will last 30 days without initiating contact.
Cat, you don’t need a 30 day break; you need a divorce. Your husband is violent and unstable and he’s escalating. He’s not going to magically go back to being sweet and loving and buying flowers and opening doors. Maybe temporarily, but it won’t last. He’ll continue to resort back to his angry outbursts and the violence will get worse. Every time he gets away with hurting you or your children, the boundaries of what’s acceptable get wider for him. He will continue to excuse his bad behavior and blame you until you are emotionally and physically beaten down and have no escape. If you do manage to get away, you’ll need years of therapy to recover from the damage he’s done. Take advantage of the opportunity you have now, living in separate homes, to disconnect from him. You’re addicted to the highs and lows of the relationship. It’s a rush and you’re just waiting for him to be wonderful again, thinking if you just do or say this one thing right, everything will go back to the way it was, but it won’t. Get counseling, gather the support of your friends and family, and get yourself away from him for the safety of yourself and your kids.
Thanks For the advice Kristine. I was so close to calling him or going over to his house, then I read this. It’s helping me recall the truth. He won’t change. I know this deep down. I told my therapist I’m hanging on to such a tiny piece of hope, but the other part of me is waiting to catch h screwing up so I can say…”There! Now I’m out of here!” She reminded me I’ve had plenty of other “gotcha” moments and I’m still there. Sad but true.
I’m glad you didn’t call him. To him this is a about power and control. As soon as you call, he’s back in control. Stay strong. Although, I’m not sure your husband is a sociopath, this site has tons of information and many people who can offer insight and support for dealing with controlling and abusive people. Journal all the abuse and when you’re feeling weak, read over what you wrote. We tend to let go or “forgive” their bad behavior and it just gives them permission to keep doing it to us. Use this time to emotionally disconnect, so you can take the next steps to getting free from him completely. There are good men out there who will treat you with love and respect. And, don’t be too concerned with his next relationship. As someone once told me “They don’t change who they are just because they’re with someone else.” I wish you all the best!
You and the children need to remove yourselves from the situation. Regardless of what in his past may or may not have set him on this path, none of you deserve this kind of treatment!! My ex-socio claimed an uncle had molested him, but who knows what stories were true and which were created to keep me in the web. Bottom line, you deserve a fresh start! Get out while the getting’s good!
Susan,
What I worry about are his kids, my step kids. I feel like I’m walking out on them. They’re 12 and 10 and I’ve been in their lives since 3 and 5! That’s a tough one for me. When I asked for a divorce, I asked if he’d let me see the kids. He said as long as they wanted it, he would never interfere. He actually is a pretty decent dad to them. I just worry because his son is a liar like he is and he said it scared him that his son was so much like him, which tells me he KNOWS he’s sick and unstable.
Well, the choice is yours with the children. If he is ok, but be aware that later down the line he might use this to hurt you further, that is a tough one I don’t know what I would do. I would probably try to have a relationship with the children, but think how will you feel when he is with someone new?
@Cat, I don’t know if he is or not a sociopath (he have almost all the traits), but I know you are insde an abusive relationship and you need to act now. He is trying to control and hurt you. Forget about the pause and please begin to search for help. You are doing the first step to regain your sanity, what is ahead it’s no easy, but be sure that it will be better than what you are living right now. Best regards.
Nomoreinsanity…..
I know that there would be a better life for me, but I am so sucked in by him. He is stubborn and I know he will not be the one to break the no contact. It will be me, he’ll see me as weak and prey on me even more. I just need to keep that in mind and stay strong and hold my ground. Thanks
And it’s not just that there are good men out there. It’s that you are far, far better off with NO man than with a bad man.
I have been living solo for 15 years now and enjoy being strong and independent. It gets lonely sometimes but it’s worth it to always be able to look in the mirror and respect the person I see.
I am so blessed that I was only entangled with J for three months. The breakup was hard because I had seen him as the answer to over a decade of praying for a good Christian husband. We seemed to be such a perfect fit together, and I could envision a thriving, exciting, satisfying life full of love with him. After I found out who he really is, I would cry to my friends that I was HAPPY before I met J, but they remind me that I will be happy again as soon as the grief is gone. I just need to mourn the lost dream.
I am keeping myself busy with the projects that I set aside to help J when I thought we were going to be partners for life. It’s nice to be able to look at the things I’ve accomplished and to remind myself that I don’t need to have a man to be complete.
I still obsess about him sometimes. I want to convince myself that he’s just an alcoholic, not a sociopath, so that there’s hope for him. But that’s his FAMILY’S problem, not mine. If they want to do an intervention that’s on them. The only way I would even remotely consider contact with J is if I first heard from an AA sponsor that J was active in AA and working on his 12 steps and wanted to make amends to me — but even then I would proceed with extreme caution and want to first see that J had made amends to the people he’d hurt so badly before he even met me. AND I would want him to have probably a year of sobriety.
I know that if he is a sociopath that any amount of sobriety will only make him a sober sociopath. It IS possible that alcoholism is producing symptoms of sociopathy, and that sobriety will bring him back to himself if that is the case.
Either way, it’s not my problem but his family’s problem. I just like having the idea of a set of hoops he would have to jump through if he wanted to have a snowball’s chance in Hell of ever speaking to me again, and having it in a form that requires a TRUSTWORTHY go-between. I feel more in control, because the small part of me that wants him back can say, “Well, he can PROVE himself if he wants to come back. And he can prove himself to an AA sponsor. And I can still reserve the right to relay the message through that AA sponsor that J can go pound sand.”
It’s a crutch for me:
* IF he makes total amends to the live-in girlfriend he’s cheating on.
* IF he makes amends to his family for all the lies.
* IF he makes amends to his tenants
* IF he shows that he’s getting his life on line by fixing up all those rental units, getting SCREENED tenants into them, and following landlord-tenant law by doing things such as putting the security deposits in an escrow account.
* IF he actually sells all those cars he has accumulated but never drives
* IF he has all the cars he actually drives in good working order, none of this business with stuff like spit-and-bailing-wire repairs on the BMW’s throttle linkage
* IF he consistently wears a motorcycle helmet and provides EVERY passenger with a DOT approved helmet EVERY TIME (and he gets rid of the purely cosmetic helmet he had me wearing when we first went riding together)
* IF he does something to make up for the way he uses the soup kitchen as a place to pick up vulnerable young women (Not sure what that particular part of making amends would look like, but that’s not my problem.)
* IF he goes to the churches he was using as camouflage to convince women he was a trustworthy Christian man and confesses to the ENTIRE CONGREGATION and asks the entire congregation for forgiveness
IF his AA sponsor checks all these things to make sure they’ve been done and done consistently THEN I will CONSIDER allowing contact.
This is a way of reminding myself of all the harm he has done to other people and how self-destructive his life really is. Any attempt at contact can be rejected with, “This is not an AA sponsor,” and I can go over the list in my mind of the things the AA sponsor would have to be able to prove to me that J has completed.
I know he’ll never change and he’ll never do these things. I just use them as a way to remind myself how nasty a piece of work he is and that this isn’t something he can just say, “Oops! My bad!” and consider everything copacetic. If every time I’m tempted to allow contact I run through the list, I put myself back in control and remind myself of why there is NO CONTACT.
first, positivagirl is so so right… sociopaths when sober are no better. sometimes worse. addiction is a symptom they hide behind, but it’s not the problem. drnking and using are just a way for them to act out their negative energy and blame their behavior on something else besides themselves, but they have that negative energy in them no matter what, the substances don’t cause it.
AA is actually something i have had to deal with all my life from the sociopathic experiences in my life, it was a part of my childhood and was something i had to deal with again a few years ago. this may not be a popular thing for me to share, and i apologize if AA has helped anyone here, but i do caution anyone be careful with anything to do with AA. if you research the organization and truly look deep into the belief systems, it’s a pretty messed up organization especially as a woman, the views towards women are really unhealthy – see “Chapter 8 – The Wives”, it’s basically literature trying to manipulate women into believing that it’s their duty to accept being treated terribly and even that it’s their responsibility to “nurture and fix an abusive man”. the founder of AA was a complete sociopath… liar, cheater, manipulator, and none of that stopped in his sobriety. i wont go into all my issues with AA cause it would be a whole book, and i don’t want to offend anyone who has found help with recovery through AA, but i will just say take into consideration that it’s a belief system created from the mind of a sociopath, so you have to realize where it’s all coming from, and from my experience with it, AA gives sociopaths even more manipulation tools and more excuses to be they way they are, and to not take responsibility for themselves. just one example, think about how much a sociopath thrives off of the amends process… they hurt people because it’s what they do, but then they go around making these dramatic amends and getting attention for “how much they’ve grown” and their bad behavior is excused. amends give sociopaths a new way to manipulate people into trusting them. they haven’t grown, and they don’t mean it. the amends process is just another tool for them to keep behaving badly. if he is sociopath, AA won’t change him, and could make him worse.
so whether he is using, in AA, sober, whatever… you deserve so much better. you shouldn’t have to be with someone who has to jump through hoops to learn to be a good person… you deserve just to be loved by someone who is good because that’s who they naturally are 🙂 and yes ma’am stick to that no contact ❤
I’m so sorry you had such a bad experience with AA. If somebody’s making amends in a melodramatic way then that’s not making amends; it’s putting on a show.
My big thing is keeping the hoops in mind, because I know J will jump through them the day an AA sobriety chip melts under a recovering alcoholic’s tongue. Which will be when pigs fly. Though, come to think about it, a flying pig is probably more likely than J doing what he needs to do in order to be a decent, worthwhile human being.
All of this is really spot on. 7 years the fool. Also
Rage fits and abuse. We have a child together. I finally
Got the courage to call the police to end the abuse and he was able to convince the police that I was the abuser. I went to jail, 21 days away from my baby. I am on probation. He told me that he was friends with the DA and I should take the plea deal because they wanted to give me 7 years. I have since talked with an attorney ALL LIES! I feel so trapped and I am in many ways, my child my freedom and he knows this so he doesn’t bother with the game anymore. If I show that I am hurt or upset it seems to feed him. I am slowly saving money and I don’t share anything with him anymore. Also I smile when I don’t feel like it and I don’t advocate or ask for anything for myself. I don’t ever want to be in another relationship again. I don’t trust myself. I have enough energy for my darling boy and survival.
Oh gosh that is awful Lily. The lengths that they go to to try to prove you the person who they are. It is like a distorted twisted mirror. I am sorry. Hope you are ok.
I’ve lost so much of the progress I’ve made — I went to church this morning, the place I should have been safest, and J was there with the live-in-lay! Just as smug and smarmy as ever!
I had spoken to the pastor about this, and I’d been gearing myself up emotionally to have J show up and try to sit next to me as if nothing had ever happened. But the pastor just walked up to J and exchanged a few evidently friendly words with him then came to me and asked me what I wanted. I said I wanted J gone. Pastor said he wasn’t “comfortable” with sending J away. I left, but as I was driving off I got so angry I went back. That’s MY church home and they should be supporting me. It got really ugly because I just walked in and confronted J right in front of the whole congregation while he sat there all smug. One of the lay leaders escorted me to a quiet room and heard me out and said that Pastor B just needed time to pray and study and talk to people. They were treating this like it was just J and I had a problem with each other.
I pointed out that J had not been frequenting this church at all and then suddenly she’s showing up with the live-in-lay (a woman he mistreats and badmouths and just keeps around for the money and sex) and I’m NOT asking them to turn aside a lost sinner but to NOT LET THIS MAN COME IN AND ABUSE ME IN THEIR CHURCH. His very presence — strolling in with the LiL as bold as brass — is his way of rubbing it into my face that he’s still living with LiL, still sleeping with her, and the congregation is peachy with how he treats LiL and how he treats me.
Fortunately there was a guest pastor today and the pastor joined us and I pointed out that I am NOT asking them to punish J or take revenge on him — that in fact I’m communicating with J’s daughter about her arranging a D&A intervention for him. But that they have a responsibility to me to keep me safe and to J to STOP ENABLING HIM.
I said that I would gladly pick up LiL and bring her to church if she wants to come, even though that would mean pulling into J’s driveway, because LiL is a sad, broken woman who needs love and help. But that J is another matter entirely. HE is his own god, and he’s not there to worship.
Pastor said he’d “keep moving forward” and get in touch with me this week. But emotionally I’m a wreck.
I told them I’d be glad to meet with pastor, lay leaders, higher-ups in the denomination — and if they wanted to include J in those meetings, so be it. But I can not even TRY to go to worship service at a place where the leadership and congregation are enabling him in his sin, especially when that sin involves harming TWO women simultaneously with his mere presence there. I reminded them that there is SCRIPTURAL calling to banish J from the congregation, to make sure EVERYBODY knows that until he repents he is no longer welcome. That he is to be turned away at the door. I’m NOT asking something unreasonable. It’s right in the Bible. No, the apostles didn’t use the term, “No enabling,” but that’s clearly what they were saying. Cast them off so that they might bottom out or be left to suffer the consequences of their sins on their own.
I’m mad at myself for letting it get to me, but I never dreamed that the pastor woudn’t stand up for me if J showed up. My friend Deb had to work today but she told me this evening she wished she’d been there because she WOULD have stood up for me and told J to take his lies and cruelty elsewhere.
Now I’m back to crying and obsessing and I’m so angry with everybody involved, but mostly with the pastor for dragging his butt about this and putting off dealing with it. I pointed out that when J came two weeks ago with LiL and nobody called him out, he was greenlit to continue the behavior.
See? I’m rambling on again.
The church has a responsibility to stand by the hurting and to defend them against predators. If J wants to be back among the congration, he needs to repent and confess and NOT be allowed to just shoot God the finger on Sundays while everybody pretends that’s okay.
You played right into his hands. He wanted to bait you and make you mad and start drama at the church because he relishes the thought of everyone thinking you’ve lost your mind. He wants them all to know you’re the crazy one and you played right into his hands. It doesn’t matter if that’s your church, your school, your grocery store, your park, or your friends. If he’s there, you need to simply leave. No reaction is the biggest slap in the face to these people. Once you’ve lost control of your emotions, they’re back in control. Take a break from church or find a new one, but I recommend avoiding ALL contact. Saying you’ll take LIL to church is just continuing to put yourself in harms way. Save yourself by removing yourself from his world.
Dating a Sociopath 
Hello all, I just found this website within the last few days during my period of searching for answers. It all begins in January of 2015, I met a women at work, and we hit it off. We became Facebook friends and started chatting constantly through Facebook messenger. As our relationship progressed we moved to text messaging constantly.
Everything progressed to a hotel stay for two nights, which is was wrong in so many ways because we are both married. After the stay at the hotel I immediately went home and told my wife, I could not live with the guilt of it and she too seemed to have guilt based upon discussions we had. After thirteen years of marriage with my wife my marriage began to rapidly spiral downward and it should have, it was my fault and I should have not done this. Hers did not seem to be effected at all, they have only been married for 10 months so I suppose they are still in the honeymoon stage. Our relationship continued to grow, we became closer and closer everyday. She stayed at a hotel with me two or three nights a week every week. I lived in a hotel because I was asked to leave my house, which is understood and her husband was away at police academy during the week.
Continuing on we grew to continually saying I love you and that I miss you – we were in what I thought was love. I did everything for her, anything she asked I did or I bought her. My personal life began to continue to spiral downward as my divorce began to works its way through the process, I was required to file for bankruptcy so that I could save my wife financially. I agreed that I would continue to pay the monthly mortgage and her car for her because this was my fault and I feel that it is my obligation to do this. We found out that are 6 year old had hearing problems which has progressed to a point that she is legally deaf and I had to pay for implants for her because I failed my daughter as a father. My personality is the type that I would give anyone anything that I can to make them happy, to help them through a difficult situation, give them the clothes off my back to help them. I am the guy that stops by the bank every Monday morning to get cash to make sure that I have cash for any homeless man or women that asks me.
Fastforward to now, her husband is home from the academy and our texting slowed, but not much. She called me on the phone everyday after she left work to talk on her way home, anytime and overtime she had alone time she called me and we talked. two weeks ago her and her husband went and got a puppy. I told her that I guess this is the end of us because this was a big step in their life, to raise a living thing. Her response was that she still loved me more than anything, I treat her so much better than her husband and cannot live without me in her life. Five days later her husband received a letter explaining that his wife is having an affair, from whom I can only understand is my ex-wife. I heard nothing from her that night. The next morning I receive an instant message through our work instant message system that they talked it out and he is willing to work through it as long as I talk to her about work and work only. I was destroyed, I left my wife and kids for her. I filed bankruptcy for her and to completely turn everything off that fast I was appalled. I continued to receive messages from her daily through our work instant message system that were purely work related questions. A week ago a large group of us from the office went to lunch together, I acted happy and enjoyed my self greatly. Before I get back to the office she sent me an instant message that said Be jealous because we went and got ice cream and you guys didn’t. Finally last Tuesday I told her that I can no longer answer anymore questions for her and she should find someone else to answer her questions. She responded noted and agreed, but her question related to the key to my apartment which I ignored, she sent three other messages after that asking me about the key all of which I ignored. She did not send me anymore messages from that point on. I am wondering if she will contact me, and I am wondering if she thinks about what she did.
I have confided in friends, we all agree that she did not tell her husband the full truth. She did not tell him about the two other guys before me that she was involved with while they were engaged.
I am confused because I want her back, everyone tells me that it would be no good for me, I deserve so much better because I am honest and I am a really good guy who would do anything for anyone, but I believe she does too.
I have been suicidal over this, I destroyed my life, but more importantly I destroyed my ex-wife’s life. She is destroyed and I can apologize time and time again, but it will get me nothing and I know that. I try to work past this everyday, she is the last thing I think about before I go to bed and the first thing I think about in the morning.
Jamie, you are not alone. Feel free to message me On fb under Amy Corley Heinz. I have tons if info that may help u tremendously. I work with women whove been thru what weve been thru and i am 4&1/2yrs out and he still drags me thru court for whatever nonsense he thinks up. But if people like us bleeding hearts cant act and help each other, give it 1,000 yrs and the population of those capable of feeling love, empathy, loss, heartache, charity, etc is all but nonexistent. Cant wait for ur reply.
I’m sure my story is no different than anyone else’s – and here I thought it was so “magical”, so I don’t need to go into details. I just need to add my tiny coda to these messages so at least I can feel HEARD. We were soulmates, we were lovers, I was “his girl” and his everything. And then he dumped me with no warning or explanation for someone else. Dangled a bit of ‘friendship’ in front of me with contact every month or so – and assurance that he just needed “some time”. Treated me like garbage and offered no sane explanations. Until someone told his wife we’d had an affair – and then suddenly he was the coldest bastard I’ve ever met.
This has devastated me. For 9 months I’ve cried every day and just screamed “WHY!??” in my house. Wondered how I could go from being “the one” to being absolutely nothing. Missed him like I’ve never missed anything in my life. Spent a week in the mental hospital for being suicidal in February. Wondered if the heart-wrenching pain (which most of my friends just couldn’t understand) would ever end. If I’d ever get answers. If I’d ever stop wondering what the hell happened to my life.
And then someone told me he might be a sociopath. And I found this website. And our relationship follows the pattern EXACTLY. And I finally found some room to breathe. SOMETHING that made sense. I’m still fairly obsessed with thoughts of him…but it’s clearing. I’ve accepted that I will NEVER get answers from him . I’ve accepted I was used and discarded. And I’ve accepted that he’ll do this to every woman he ever gets involved with. That I don’t need to be jealous of who is sleeping with, but grateful that it is no longer me.
Thank you. This information just might have saved my life. And now I feel like I actually have one.
I just read both of your stories and I am sitting here right now after almost three years of living with a man who was actually diagnosed as being a sociopath, but I still can’t leave. I have made multiple attempts. He has gone through every stage described (assessment, gaming, discarding) and yet I keep allowing myself to be reeled back in. He has done so much damage to me that I haven’t been able to work. Just two weeks ago he physically assaulted me when I was planning to leave for Vermont (we live in Ohio) and 1.5 years ago he was arrested and convicted of aggravated menacing for threatening to kill me. He also cheated on me and devalued me to his family and friends when I have been nothing, but good to him. You might ask what is wrong with me…why am I still here? I am bright, attractive and have a masters degree in social work. I want so much to leave, but when I do he somehow gets me to come back because he knows I am sad and he knows I am grieving. So, then he.acts nicer, says he misses me sexually and compliments me but then once I am back and he gets what he wants and once again he is cold and uncaring again.
Tomorrow, he is leaving for Las Vegas and I am paralyzed with fear that he will cheat on me again and/or do many other horrible things that could jeopardize my physical health as he did before. A big part of me wants to be gone before he gest back, but I am afraid.
Can someone help me?
Amy it takes strength and courage to leave. Particularly when you and your world has been broken down. Ask yourself where do you want to be 5 years from now?.if he has already tried to kill you you are in a dangerous place and this will only get better. He has nothing to offer you that you do not have within. I promise you. He is an empty cage and he lives off of you not the other way around.
Amy,
Do not do this to yourself, you are putting yourself in a very dangerous situation if he is already threatened to harm you and that should be priority number 1 on your list – yourself.
You should use this period of time when he is gone to get rid of him forever.
Agree jamie!!
Amy –
Thank you for writing to us about a difficult situation, I know how hard that can be. Before I dated a sociopath, I was married to an abusive man. He strangled me. I was lucky enough to get away, but took him back because I was a stay at home and didn’t know if I could live on my own.
I spent four years saving money and documenting EVERYTHING. One day when he went to work, I had 7 friends come help me move in only 6 hours to a location he knew nothing about. I had him served with papers. And I began re-building. Luckily, I never lived with the sociopath or let him meet my children – I was smarter and stronger.
You CAN do this too. Get support. NOW. Not just this forum. Get a counselor. Find a group at your local YWCA. Enlist the help of friends. Save money. Find a place to live. DO IT. The sooner you do, the sooner you can begin a new life. A life you clearly want. You have been manipulated for years. You have lost sight of your own goals, you’ve lost self-esteem, and most damaging – you’ve forgotten how very VERY powerful you are. Of course you are afraid. You’re human. But you can do everything you need to and fight through that fear. Every step you take will build you up. Lean on whoever you need to – but DO THIS. Save your own life. Please. It is the only one you have and it is worth so so much more than what you are living now. You don’t deserve this and never have. Love yourself enough to know that. You are worth it.
Amy,
I am a man and we all have gone through your troubles. Getting sucked in over and over again by the one person you love. You have to understand that they dont love you like you want them to and they never will – they do not have the ability to do it. With that said Amy, please protect your self both physically and emotionally and disappear for a few weeks. Fall off the map – this will give you sometime to hide from him and to get over him. Please don’t ask yourself any questions, the questions will continue on and on and you are going to drive yourself insane. I know, we all know, I have been there and we all have been there. I left my wife and children for a sociopath only to have her rip my heart out of my chest and stomp on it and now I have nothing. I have been in the darkest places, I have made the trips to the ER for suicidal tendencies and it is not worth it.
Happiness comes from within, not from the outside. Life is what you make of it and if you let him control your happiness you are never going to experience true enlightenment.
I ask you, we all ask you, please protect yourself. It is your time, it is your moment to take happiness and run with it.
I knew from the beginning this man is a sociopath, so many signs were there even in the first few weeks since we met.. but as we all fall under their charming charismatic personality it was really hard to resist… and in the moments of their “temporary sanity” it felt great.. felt like there is hope that it will get better… It never did, never does, and never will..
Verbal and emotional abuse at its worst, tracking every number in my cell phone, calling and texting my friends abusing them, throwing me out of his house on a regular basis, ripping/trashing my clothes and possessions, never-ending questioning of events of my life, hacking into my laptop and Kindle, watching me on cameras that he had all over the house, constantly breaking up with me and then dragging me back… Lying and cheating, but accusing me of things that only happened in his sick imagination… total absence of any empathy… I think I could go on and on…
And yes, after all this I managed to come back to him! He even managed to lure me into moving in with him… only to my huge regret and being thrown out of his house few weeks after I moved in, and having to stay in a hotel. Luckily, I found apartment fast and moved out…. Unluckily, I got sucked back into this madness (I never initiated any contact with him after breakups, but he could never ever leave me alone… always started texting or calling or e-mailing apologizing… until I gave up).
Three weeks ago his abuse escalated to physical violence. Long story short, he hit me with his fist in my nose several times that my nose exploded with blood, kicked me with his feet all over… I finally ran out and drove away… to the police. Now I have an Order of protection so he can’t contact me in any shape or form. And he is facing assault charges, case is with District Attorney office.
I feel I am finally free!… Not at best cost, but as I clearly see it now otherwise I still could’ve been sucked back and stuck in these circles of hell…
I like that sentence ‘temporary sanity it was great’…. this is true. But if they can be sane sometimes, why can’t they be sane all of the time? They can’t as once they have captured you, they cannot bear to let you go.
There is no “temporary sanity”. Sociopaths mimic real people. “Seeming” normal is their tactic to win our trust, and keep us involved while they take what they need. Sociopaths are not sane in any way.
Omg SURVIVOR! I had to reread your name and date bc I thought I may have written that about my life.. I was with mine for 8 years..he has never hit me but he showed the signs when he was angry..you all know that dark blank glossed over stare they give that tells you to shut up NoW or else! WeLL started off punching holes right by my face but never my face…breaking my phones..computers…and once smashing our glass coffee table…it happened over the span of 8 years so I justified away and blamed myself for accusing him and angering him..lol what a crock they make us believe huh! Always told myself ATLEAST he’d never hit me. Now he is 6’5 and 200 lbs. If he hit me he would do damage!! I always told him if I find out you cheated or if u ever hit me I am out! About About 2 days ago he grabbed my phone and started looking for anything at all to start his usual ugly shLt w me and after about 30 min I said I am doing nothing wrong can I please have my phone..after about an hour of this I stood up and grabbed it! Wrong move!!!! He jumped up and I saw it comin thank God so I plopped face down on the bed w my arms protecting my face and he pounced on my back and grabbed my hair and snatched back my head and told me I was up to no good and hiding something if I took it like that. I was stunned! I started to cry bc I knew it was over. He did it. He forcefully and intentionally caused physical pain to me. He then backed off and started to apologize. And I stood up to straighten myself up and said how it was over bc I know he won’t stop there from now on if I stay. He agreed and blamed it all on me bc he can’t trust me..UM I have been the loyal and faithful one the whole time so that little gas light action can kiss it! I then got up and left and told him to get help bc he will do it to the next and the next! He has anger issues! He said it was not just his fault it was mine too…lol I said no sir! Abuse in that form is alllllll u!! Bye…… Hm saw his brother and sister today and they told me his version and OMG what a joke! But these people know him! I told them the real story and they freaked out bc they never expected physical violence bc he has never done it to anyone else..I just say to that it hasn’t bc he hasn’t been involved w any of them as long as me..and unless he gets help it will now happen quicker and more frequently! And blame me or whatever if it makes u feel better but there is NO JUSTIFYING A MAN OVERPOWERING A WOMAN BY FORCE!!! I will never let that slide by like he thought I would bc he is used to me wanting to fix it but he broke one of two of my cardinal sins so now he will see what it’s like to not have miss fix it. He can go get his greener pastures! I feel sorry for him actually..I may be heartbroken for long while bc I thought he was my ONE and I pictured us grown old together..but I remember the positive confident social butterfly I used to be..seemed I was always happy but now this shell of a person I’ve become has to remember how to think on my own..no more freaking out if I miss a call, no more asking permission to do anything, I can wear what I want now instead of being this classy lady all the damned time. And I can remake friends with whoever I want and rekindle old friends I lost due to this relationship ..I’m almost 40:/ so dating scares me and is not something I will ever take lightly again..I no longer believe in soul mates OR Prince charmings bc to me they are all sociopaths..narcs..or psychopaths! He has been caught on dating websites and told me he is bored and likes to talk to Friends on there..lol! OMG I am a fool for staying! Yet godforbid I even have a childhood male friend say hi! That would be a week long silent treatment to teach me my lesson! OMG yay no more bullshit lessons! Wow. Sorry I’m writing a novel..it just brings up more and more bullcrap when I think of it all. The crap were on the days I called ” doesn’t love me days”… Toward the end the doesn’t love me days lasted longer than the I love u days and I should’ve seen this ending well before he grabbed my head…it could have been worse and I know that but I darned sure won’t be there to see if it will or not. Thanks for all of your time and allowing me to vent a little. I have only one friend left and she must be ready to chop her ears off lol.xoxxoxo good luck and lots of self love to all
Omg SURVIVOR! I had to reread your name and date bc I thought I may have written that about my life.. I was with mine for 8 years..he has never hit me but he showed the signs when he was angry..you all know that dark blank glossed over stare they give that tells you to shut up NoW or else! WeLL started off punching holes right by my face but never my face…breaking my phones..computers…and once smashing our glass coffee table…it happened over the span of 8 years so I justified away and blamed myself for accusing him and angering him..lol what a crock they make us believe huh! Always told myself ATLEAST he’d never hit me. Now he is 6’5 and 200 lbs. If he hit me he would do damage!! I always told him if I find out you cheated or if u ever hit me I am out! About About 2 days ago he grabbed my phone and started looking for anything at all to start his usual ugly shLt w me and after about 30 min I said I am doing nothing wrong can I please have my phone..after about an hour of this I stood up and grabbed it! Wrong move!!!! He jumped up and I saw it comin thank God so I plopped face down on the bed w my arms protecting my face and he pounced on my back and grabbed my hair and snatched back my head and told me I was up to no good and hiding something if I took it like that. I was stunned! I started to cry bc I knew it was over. He did it. He forcefully and intentionally caused physical pain to me. He then backed off and started to apologize. And I stood up to straighten myself up and said how it was over bc I know he won’t stop there from now on if I stay. He agreed and blamed it all on me bc he can’t trust me..UM I have been the loyal and faithful one the whole time so that little gas light action can kiss it! I then got up and left and told him to get help bc he will do it to the next and the next! He has anger issues! He said it was not just his fault it was mine too…lol I said no sir! Abuse in that form is alllllll u!! Bye…… Hm saw his brother and sister today and they told me his version and OMG what a joke! But these people know him! I told them the real story and they freaked out bc they never expected physical violence bc he has never done it to anyone else..I just say to that it hasn’t bc he hasn’t been involved w any of them as long as me..and unless he gets help it will now happen quicker and more frequently! And blame me or whatever if it makes u feel better but there is NO JUSTIFYING A MAN OVERPOWERING A WOMAN BY FORCE!!! I will never let that slide by like he thought I would bc he is used to me wanting to fix it but he broke one of two of my cardinal sins so now he will see what it’s like to not have miss fix it. He can go get his greener pastures! I feel sorry for him actually..I may be heartbroken for long while bc I thought he was my ONE and I pictured us grown old together..but I remember the positive confident social butterfly I used to be..seemed I was always happy but now this shell of a person I’ve become has to remember how to think on my own..no more freaking out if I miss a call, no more asking permission to do anything, I can wear what I want now instead of being this classy lady all the damned time. And I can remake friends with whoever I want and rekindle old friends I lost due to this relationship ..I’m almost 40:/ so dating scares me and is not something I will ever take lightly again..I no longer believe in soul mates OR Prince charmings bc to me they are all sociopaths..narcs..or psychopaths! He has been caught on dating websites and told me he is bored and likes to talk to Friends on there..lol! OMG I am a fool for staying! Yet godforbid I even have a childhood male friend say hi! That would be a week long silent treatment to teach me my lesson! OMG yay no more bullshit lessons! Wow. Sorry I’m writing a novel..it just brings up more and more bullcrap when I think of it all. The crap were on the days I called ” doesn’t love me days”… Toward the end the doesn’t love me days lasted longer than the I love u days and I should’ve seen this ending well before he grabbed my head…it could have been worse and I know that but I darned sure won’t be there to see if it will or not. Thanks for all of your time and allowing me to vent a little. I have only one friend left and she must be ready to chop her ears off lol.xoxxoxo good luck and lots of self love to all
@Amy
The first and main person that can help you is yourself. You already know how to deal with the legal system, but you have to maintain yourself strong to avoid giving him another break. Maybe it is a good idea to contact some battered women services, they can help you to design your plan to escape all this insanity on practical terms. As stated before, the other part is your work, a work that will take a lot of energy and determination that begins with no contact. All my best wishes for you.
Thank you so much for your caring response. I met with a friend today and I am also going to contact a battered women’s group tomorrow. I have to do this for my own sanity and to get my life back so I don’t continue to live under his “spell” anymore. I may even leave the State.
Thanks again…
Amy
Amy!
CONGRATULATIONS!!!! I’m thinking you did the right thing at the right time, you saw the opening to leave and did it. You’ll be fine I am sure, because you are very clear about what he really is. If you were in a stage of romanticizing and giving him the benefit of the doubt, you might still be in danger of staying with him. You’ll heal completely and be fully recovered and thriving in no time. Really – since you are absolutely aware that he has you under a “spell” – you are already free. In the last months I’ve talked so many women in the grocery store, at parties, – seems like everywhere I go – who’ve been with sociopaths, it’s shockingly common. There seems to be a vast difference in outcome of painful dragging on and more damage, or a clean break, between the women who see the sociopath for what they are and women who still somehow have a blind spot and believe parts of the “fauxlationship” were real.– It’s so hard for all of us. Each and every one of us is amazing who have gone through this maze of crazy with a sociopath. I still learn about the dynamics of this type of hijacking of our lives everyday. I was with a sociopath (married for 10 months). Everything blew up and he moved out 10 days after I told him I wanted him to leave. Fortunately, sociopaths have so many other women that if we are clear and strongly stop all contact, they give up fairly quickly. They don’t have time to hang on to old prey who aren’t putting out anything for them to gain: money, housing, sexual release, entre to resources, access to countries, material possessions. That is all they care about. All the best to you!!! You have done a great job of getting away.
@Amy,
I wish you the best. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. This is the first step to regain yourself.
Thanks you I will do my best and try really hard not to get sucked back in again….!
@Amy,
No contact. This is like an addiction for us and everyday we have to say no contact, until the day you stop crying, until the day you lose the count of how many days without contact, until the day when you have the desire to “just say hi” and you say to yourself “for what?”…give it time
Thank you for this. It IS just like an addiction. I had to see mine at a school event today and it was like no time had passed at all. I wanted to leap into his arms. NC starts today. Thank you for the advice. I have to take it EVERY day.
No contact is the answer to regain control of ourselves…this is the way they lose control over us.
I will do my best to not only give it time, but to remind myself every day through journaling the reality of who he is. The longest I was able to stay away before was ten days…pitiful I know even after all he did to me. This time I may take a job offer out of State and/or block everything (his emails, calls etc.)
I never knew a site like this existed and just happened upon it last night when for the fourth night in a row I couldn’t sleep, due to my pain and distress.
Tonight, now that he is on vacation I am starting to move forward again and maybe I will sleep. Although, I must admit I am still waiting for his call and imagining the worst of what he is doing while out of town.
Thank you to everyone for listening…
Amy
@Amy,
Don’t feel bad for getting back to him, this is all part of the hard process of see at last that no matter what you do it will never be enough for the sociopath. I had a relationship with my “Pinnochio” when I was a teenager, and after more than 20 years I accepted him back in my life. Big mistake that costs me more than 4 years, my sanity, my physical health, all my savings, and almost the relationship with my daughter and my family. But there’s life after the chaos, so stop bpthering about what he is doing and start to think, to plan and act wjat you Will do.
Thanks for pointing that out. That I need to worry about what I am doing and no what he is doing. It seems most of my energy is spent trying to stay “one step ahead of him” in order to protect myself. I will work harder to do this so I can get myself and my life back. Your example also helps me to know that the no contact needs to be forever since I, too, would probably fall right back into it even a year from now.
Thanks again…
Amy
I have gone 6 months with no contact. I think it has been that long but I have lost track now. It is a loooong process to get to this point. Took me 2 years. Just allow yourself to make mistakes but also make small ‘no contact’ goals. Being in a relationship with a sociopath can be like an addiction. I survived and am stronger now because of it. Damaged still but that takes longer to heal (if ever). Just know that you can do it. No contact is definitely the key.
Well done for six months no contact woo hoo I hope you reward yourself Alicia!!
Amy….you are on the right track now…we understand, we love you, and have all been where you are….keep writing and writing it really helps….and don’t blame yourself for anything…..these guys will try to steal your soul….you were just unlucky to meet one,,,,,this site is the best thing that has helped me for the last year and a half…….no contact isn’t easy but so worth it. Love JoyousJohnny
Thanks Johnny I hope you are doing well today.
Hi Joyous Johnny,
Thanks so much and this site has helped me to know I am not the only one who is going through something like this. Other people don’t understand how addictive the person and the cycle can be. I think the other thing that has been hard for me to comprehend is the lack of true emotion of a sociopath, the lack of depth when he has seemed so caring at times. It is all just a veneer and that is so beyond me that I can’t really take it in.
@Amy and Johnny
It is chaos…and that’s no way to understand it. Forget about to trying to give sense to the insanity of our sociopaths.
there is no way to ‘understand’ anything about ‘them’….keep in contact with us..stay busy….treat yourself….sometimes my treat is taking my 2 little dogs to a new park, giving my self pedicure….having some really good ice cream just a little…OR sucking on my fav gourmet lollypop CANDY APPLE that lasts an hour……LOL
Hi again……..another thing I did was change my password to “safeandhappy”….to remind myself each morning something positive.
The chaos is so true that was the only consistent thing he ever brought to my life. The idea about treating myself to happier people and activities is also great..
Thanks again…
Amy
@JJ
great idea!
i met a this guy together for 6 years loved him to death, he was that prefect man the soulmate he was the first man i ever loved i was in my early 30s. i was engaged a few time before him, he treated me like a queen but he also had a very bad drinking problem then once he caputured me he began to abuse me, first he brought drugs into the relationship and i was clean from using for 7 yrs, and i told him when we met i was clean didnt drink i dont even smoke weed and he replied i dont do drugs and so on anyways when i saw that i walked away went up to our place i went to bed few hrs later i wake up he talking to my cat and i was confused can into the bedroom told me to get up i did he grabbed my neck and told me im never to leave him and the next time i do he will kill me and my pets. i was so scared and prelexed because the hrs leading up to all this was sweet loving so i was like what the hell. anyways he kept abusing then next day all loving like nothing happened and then days later the abuse was more volient and verbal and emotional and i kept saying why me what did i do for this to happen then he leave i hear then hes with other women but his thing to me was “i will die without you, you are my love first true love” “i cant live with out you” all that manipulating bullsh*t and i bought it. as the yrs went on he began to isolate me i would work he would go insane that im having sex with customer and staff and i never spoke to ppl because he would start and beat me and tell me how im garbage and so on, so then he started to move us around he never held a job in an out of jail manipulating me to stay when i was ready to leave then one day he pounded my face in broke my check bone came very close to busting my eye my dog saved me that morning anyways i charged him with domestic asslut but at the same time he was the one bring in money at this time he was making good money holding a job for close to a yrs i was impressed but i found out i had cancer and he was in jail and i now had to go back to work and i wasnt working for 3 yrs at this time because i wasnt allowed to be out of his sight he calls me from jail telling me he is changing and crying f*cken lies and lies but i believe and i took him back, thats when he became more abusive and insane
i was scared all the time but have month of again the loving man who made me laugh spoiled me pampered me and i was like he is changing and i was so happy god i honestly believe him i defended him my family couldnt stand by me and watch me turn from a beautiful woman to a woman with no soul, i was walking and talking but dead inside no joy only if he allowed it, never could i have anyfriends he would go mad only he could and made me hate his so he can use that against me and his family he pitted us against each other then tell me thye hate me they like me i was losing my mind i tried many time to kill myself to escape him he would never let me go, then he lost another job i was working at this time best job ever we both living great house cars money then he blew it all away moved to a different province and isolated me even more my cancer came back he would never take me the dr never cared i sat in a 1978 trailer no water no washroom no nothing in minus 55 death was looking good, when he would go to work take my truck so i was stuck and have no way to leave when i did get the chance to i packed and left he called me threating to kill himself and it will be on me and guilting me so i went back wrong thing to do thats when he became the devil but only to me no one ever thought he did bad even when he beat my face him his family no not him insane anyway to the present time, we moved once again i always wanted to move by a river a lake and we moved to a beautiful lake land for the animals it was breathtaking i believe it was going to be good false happiness anyways i was again far from my family and close to his i had no friends just my truck so i week there he met up with an ex and thats when the abuse again started talking about her every 2 secs he stop wanting sex pushing me away so i lock my self in a room and wished to die he would again oh i love u and so on and i fell for it because i loved him to death i followed took care of him always defended him never went against him i finally got the courtage to leave becuase again talking about this girl. didnt see him for a month but he and his family asked me to come back agin the promise to change when i went back the loving man he once was was bad pamping loving all that great bull didnt last long but the physical abuse because more instense and i was and is very sick i lost my teeth lost too much weight from my sickness and his abuse, so he had complete and utter control over me he made sure my truck couldnt run so i could never leave couldnt us the phone alone just was a prisioner in my own home the only solace i got was when he left to do what ever he claimed to be doing so this winter that passed i had enough and i didnt care to be trapped i wanted a real life well this is how i saw what insane is i told him im leaving pack a bag told him i iwll be back for my pets he went a got gasoline and started to pour it on me and smiled while i begged him to stop and think of what hes doing and hes said ” you did this not me ” i ran into my room with gas pouring on me i closed the door anyways then he tried to klll my pets and then he pour the gas around the cottage himself and got out the lighter and the only way he wont do it is if i say im staying so i scream im staying he grabbed me by my thoart and bashed my head on the floor then strangled me i swore i would never leave so it came as a complete shock that 3 wks ago he was cheating and i caught him at her house and he wasnt mad i caught he was mad that i was standing up to him and i was going to leave so the day b4 i was leaving i went to the bank with him and he again with the charming self but i didnt believe it i leave for 2 days after telling me how he cant be with out me dying with out me love me to death and he had moved that girl in that i caught him with so now im confused and sicken and angry and hurt broken alone not understanding how this is and he wont explain he gives alitte then pulls back im the only woman he does this with he still playing and i just want closure i cant fuction i dont know whats wrost living that or this
Hey there =)
Now, finally im done reading all comments here. Took me over 3 weeks. Found this Blog because of a “friend”, and it seems that she’s a soc. So i started to read as much as i can about those types of creatures. I will write more the next days, think it takes a bit time to sort my thoughts for a clear summary.
Thank you for this site, and all people here who help each other =)
greetings from germany
Greetings to you from UK soraya:)
I know it may have happened at an early age and most certainly shouldn’t have happened, but my mother during my teenage years was the “bestfriend” type. Which i now understand she should’ve been a mother first.
I was 16, two months before I turned 17. I was gullible, naive, everything a normal 16 year old girl should be. Well, I met a guy and who was soon after introduced to my mother.. He was an “underground tattoo artist”. He was 28 at the time. We didn’t have to hide whatever it was between us. My mother was apparently okay with the idea. On the first day of meeting him, he made it clear that he had a criminal background, even showed us his record (quite lengthy may I add). That was the start of it. He seemed honest, open, and caring.
At 16, you may have guessed, I fell head over heals. Harder than I have anyone before. My dad was never in my life and my step dad, well, wasn’t a father figure towards me either. So, i guess I jumped at the first opportunity at an older man who promised me security and all the things that i craved from my father.
After a couple months go by, the same old mainstream thing happened, he slept and got with my best friend of two years behind my back. He tore me and my mother’s relationship apart (Even kissed her and turned it around on her when she was the one who told me right after it had happened), as if it wasn’t bad already. Of course, after a few weeks of him dating/harming her, he came back to me. I had the fragile mind, the dependence on him, and desperation. I dropped who was so called my best friend even after her telling me all of the abuse she had encountered, which I later find out was like.
Soon after, he goes to jail. (Not saying for what). For the first two months he was locked up, I went to a psychologist was diagnosed with depression. I was abusing prescription pills and other narcotics at the time. Not to mention, this was happening during my senior year. Kept my grades up, though only getting about 12 hours of sleep a week, still managing to graduate early in January of ’14. After high school, not even two months after, I land a job. Still abusing, more and more, as the time goes on that he’s in jail. In the total 10 months he was locked up, I sent money and came every weekend to visitation. Everything was happy go lucky so it seemed in the abundance of letters we sent to each other. I was the only one he had to talk to, to depend on, to control. Because, everyone who was “there” bailed, left him high and dry after this charge, (Third offense)
Three months into my job, a few months before my 18th birthday, me, I bail him out. For $1200. I felt accomplished. Not only did I get my so-called “man” out of jail but I was 17 at the time and it just astonished me of how much love, energy, time, and money I had spent. I thought I proved something to him as well. I thought everything was going to be great, as it seemed in our letters.
After he gets out, it felt odd. The love I had for him was still there and I felt as though he still cared. I thought maybe he’s just not used to being out in the real world and not used to me having a fast paced, long hour, job (Waffle House waitress). Three weeks of him being out, something happened that basically changed my whole life. My whole existence.
One, day after having intercourse, he showed me the tip of his penis. Green ooze was appearing to come out. He showed me and told me that it may be Chlamydia and blamed it on me, seeing as though I had slept with ONE person who had been celibate for 2 years before meeting me, while he was jail. At the time, I didn’t really think about it. He showed me and told me, why not think differently, right? That day, he calls and sets up an appointment for the both of us to go get checked and treated. The day of the appointment, he doesn’t show. I go. They look and said it didn’t look like anything serious, maybe a small yeast infection, no big deal. They take blood just in case. A few days go by and I’m coming up with every excuse in the book to convince myself that he didn’t do what was obvious to any outsider. I get a phone call and get told I have tested positive for Gonorrhea on was supposed to be our one year. There I was, 17 years old and was given an STD from somebody who I gave up everything for. Shame, guilt, worthlessness, stupid all wrapped in one.
I move out of my moms right after, get off the drugs, and try to get my health and basically my life together. (Thinking I knew everything lol, what a joke.) Being fresh out of high school, working minimum wage, paying my own bills without “mommy and daddy” got hard, but I held my own, still the memories of him raced through my mind frequently. I eventually move back into my mothers’ because she needed help with the bills (Step dad had moved out). So, I willingly, She’s my mother, whether she raised me right or not, I loved her.
I move back in with my mom about 4 months later. Two weeks in, my mom offers my ex a place to stay, because he had gotten kicked out from his previous “residence”. I had asked her why at the time was she letting him back in my life, knowing he had given be Gonorrhea, (Even though, i missed him and I was in desperate need for just his presence), I was puzzled as to why she even offered. Her reasoning was because he was my happiness and when I was with him, I seemed “whole”.
A few weeks go by of the new move in situation. I was still working. Putting all of my frustration and focus into work made me the top server. I was gaining recognition.
During those few weeks, I underwent verbal threats, blamed for everything, vigorous yelling, and sexual abuse all behind closed doors. At the time, I was basically hypnotized, I didn’t think nothing wrong with the treatment I was receiving. I was subjecting myself to him, all of me, giving him the power to control my every thought and motion, as long as I was making him happy. I wanted to make him happy. I wanted to the impossible, I wanted him to atleast know the feeling of real happiness and what true love felt like. I thought I deserved everything. I was out for self destruction, some say.
This was the only time I can say my mom stood up and actually played the role of a mother. One day, I was sitting at the kitchen table with my mom when all out of no where, he comes storming down stairs, screaming, turning, red, pissed off at something that he was going to blame me. He had never disrespected me infront of anyone, not even my mother, but that was the first and only chance he had. As he was yelling, I was crying uncontrollably. My mom just sat there.. she couldn’t believe it. He had screamed at me, asking did I still want him here and did I still love him. He had me so wrapped up in him and his mind games, that I said yes with a large knot in my throat. That’s when my mom stood up and basically told him to get the fuck out of her house.
At the time, i didn’t understand of course. I felt as though i vitally needed him. I loved him. I was heartbroken.
After he had left, my mom had told me that she had seen the signs of emotional abuse but wasn’t quite sure since everything was said and done behind close doors, but definitely knew for a fact that night. If it wasn’t for her standing up at that moment, God only knows where’d I’d be.
In emotional distraught, no pride, dignity, self worth, no friends, no family, I sought out my new best friend. Drugs. Crystal Meth to be more exact. I didn’t get hooked on it per say but I enjoyed the high. It made me feel whole, like I could make it. I was on it for 3 weeks. My ex found out and decided to contact me after 3 months. He then had the audacity to tell me that he has been waiting on ME to get my shit together and that he would never be with a “junky”. He tried to kiss me and try to convince me that everything was still the same as it was before. But, I pulled away, something felt different. That’s when he admitted exactly a year after that he, himself, had given me Gonorrhea the year before. And, that I or no one deserves to be put through what he put me through. That’s when I knew I wasn’t the only young girl he was gonna abuse and use to his every advantage,… I feel sorry for the next girl.
But, I also feel sorry for myself. I’ve gotten better. Me and my mom are talking more, I had recently got back into contact with my dad. Met some new friends, everything’s going smoothly. I’ve gained more wisdom. I’ve grown up way faster than any teenager should.
I just can’t help but wonder, what mental and emotional factors can result from a two year abusive relationship with an adult male sociopath that happened during my adolescents?
I know that already realize there many red flags all over this guy. The fact that he pursued an innocent 16 year old girl would be enough to put this guy to the curb forever. It sounds like your mom may have been a young mother. Sometimes really young moms don’t seem to know how to fully be mom and it feels more comfortable to be a friend. You have your whole life ahead of you and you deserve much better than what you have had. The guy you’ve described sounds like a sociopath. If he is, he won’t change but, he may very well change you to someone you won’t like very much. Give yourself a breather and wait for the right guy, closer to your age, that will respect you, your mom and himself. Cut this guy loose permanently and resist his efforts to pull you back into his drama. He deserves to alone, away from innocent, trusting people that he will harm and secretly enjoy harming.
I was 15 and he was 48 he was like an uncle to me and then It got romantic and one day he just left and messaged me when he did i dont know why. I was at a very bad place since my family went broke and my parents they were both unemployed and i didnt have any friends and wasnt going to school and we were staying at our moms friends spare house that she used in the summer which was in the middle of nowhere and it was small. Anways he was basically all i had and he was my parents friend. I loved him at the time because he use to give me rides and play the part of a parental figure i didnt have he also mirrored me allot and flattered me by telling me how hot i was. then when he started wanting sexual favors from me i started to question him. Eventually my parents got into a dispute with him and they turned into enemies and he started messaging me afterwards but we couldnt see each other anymore. And he left the state to go back home (long story) it took me along time to get over him but then my parents got a job and we got a house and i had friends again and i went back to school and forgot about him but sometimes i still think about it and wish i told someone. Hes wanted by the police now hes a predator and did bad things with other younger kids (gross) and apparently he did this to plenty of other girls young and old. But i thougt he actually cared about me i mean he would take me out of town when things were bad i thought he was a good person but he was just a pervert and wanted to take advantage of me but luckily my parents saw his true colors before he could finish me off. We never had sex but we almost did a few times but other people saw us together and he could tell i didnt want to but he still drove down deserted areas when we were alone in the car and i thought he was going to rape me then he got a phonecall from his wife from another state and it was about something money related so he dropped me off at home. i feel like i was manipulated very much emotionally and hope he gets caught but if not i hope he doesnt expect me to still be waiting for him. He was a sociopath/pedophile and he used my parents and situation to get close to me and groomed me so he could get what he wanted from me which was sexual gratification. I’m glad he’s out of my life and i wish everyone who has a story to tell about people like this can get over their experience with these awful people
Hi, thank you for being so brave to share your story here. How my heart went out to you, when I read your comment. I wanted to ask have you had counselling for what has happened to you? I want you to know that this is not your fault. There is absolutely nothing that you did, to deserve this. It is no reflection on you at all. They are clever predators. They can catch people who are much older, and less vulnerable off guard. I am so sorry that this has happened to you, and I hope that you get the help and healing that you need.
Finding this website has been a blessing in itself back in 2010/2011 time frame I had been on deployment and had been sending money home to my ex-fiance for our wedding we had been dating on and off for roughly 4yrs. During my time on deployment my ex had gotten very jelious over my sisters engagement to her 7yr bf and was upset at the near size of my sisters ring. Upon returning home my fiancé decided her way of getting back at everyone which nearly cost me my life was to get married to an ex of hers around the same time my sister was getting married. The worst part of the whole situation is her Mother found it humorous on what her daughter was doing to me when realistically my fiancé was trying to get back at her Mother because she raised my ex to tell stories and lie to get what she wanted. My ex went as far as to say that she had gotten raped by a cop when she was 22 playing Victim. Every story my ex always turned out the victim even though she was the persecutor. She now is married to this new guy and has 2 kids with him. It bothers me that the relationship continues because I have been 5yrs in recovery over the mental torment. However, Recent events has yet again attracted me to a third Sociopath one that I work with. This one gives mixed signals and like creating drama where it doesn’t exist. Something that my ex fiancé did. She makes it seem like your doing her a favor by hanging out with them and when they say they don’t want a relationship with you but there actions tease you into thinking that they do. This most recent situation has done nothing but brought up past experiences because in the beginning of meeting this new person it felt like yet again I had found my soulmate. The pain it’s caused me in such a short amount of time has even been making me contemplate suicide again. The Push and the pull is just to much and even cutting contact doesn’t seem to work. My overall issue is being able to avoid these kinds of people entirely. It seems like just when I get flying straight again another sociopath is right there to replace the old one.
Hi Chris you mention the repeating patterns, and say that just as you get straight you meet another one. Do you think that you are looking for something that you fel is missing within you? I read once, that the lesson will repeat until the lesson is learned. I once found this a very hard statement, until I realised that it was probably true. I hope that I have broken the cycle, and won’t attract another. Simply as I wouldn’t tolerate that type of behaviour towards me. Treat me bad once I will walk away, as I deserve better. You do too. Don’t settle, and you have to love you. Treat yourself, like your own best friend.
Hello again,
now i want to tell my story with my “ex” female friend, i met about 7 years ago. Firstly i met her at school, but we never spoke to each other, she only said “hi” to me, if she saw me.Years later we have seen us at our confirmation. And what i remeber was that she came from nowhere and spoke to me a bit about that confirmation and later told me “we will become best friends”. That was the first time i hold distance, because it sounded too strange, to say that to someone you spoke the first time.
So, i gave her a chance after that strange comment, and she gave me her number. We phoned pretty much, found out we have similar interest in Anime and Manga. (Japanese Cartoons and Books), and some TV Series. Then i noticed, that she has same strange behavior. For example she couldnt go outside, and if, the next days she had to spent at home, often in the dark. Or she couldnt really recognize, if she said anything bad about others, her dad or mum, she always had her excuses. Then she said she is an adopted child. She told me when she was younger, her uncle killed someone next to her while she was there. But i dont know if its true or not.
But she said her whole family there was strange, bad and criminal. And she mentioned that she can see the aura of other people, and ca see the colour and so on, to judge over the whole character/details about the person.Later then she told me she is diagnosed with asperger autism. I have to say at that point about her past i really felt bad for her, to make such experiences. I informed myself about autism to understand her better.
Oh and by the way, she ended school at class 9! (dont forget german school system), so she hasnt any school leaving certificate. The thing is, she was at over 7 different schools! And she always had problems with the teacher there, or was bad with the other children. She told me, that they dont treat her good. But after she told me, that she manipulated food at home economics subject at school, and wanted to gave that to the people. Its strange..i excused that with her autism and bad past. Or she was very rude to the school principal, because she was rude to the teacher in class too and so on.
She also told me, she manipulates boys to make them in love with her, and then she only treat them like rubbish and to push them away like they were nothing. I have to be honest, i thought she is joking, i never thought this was true..but it was/is till now!!! And she finds it funny that they seemed to love her after all that she has done to them, still! She said she needs to do that because its like an impulse, and she need to let that free in that way, instead of otherwise. I was so stupid to believe that she would manipulate me her only friend or her family..She also told me, her mother teached her social rules while she has an overload and so on. But all i can say, she only acts, if it has an advantage for her! Thats her only motivation, not to learn social skills to treat someone better, or so have it easier in society.
There where often strange, things, if i told her about things i heard about news, or anything else which bothers me, some things about past, people who werent nice, she agreed with me and had her own story. Its like she judged bad about people which werent nice at all, but she always wasnt nice to others, especially to her father or anyone else, who had criticism about her, about whatever it was. She also often said “I’m the queen of the world” of nowhere O.o Its was purely honest…Oh and she sometimes said of nowhere “I’m a bad and unsocial person” and giggled. But i said no you arent, i dont know you like that. She never answered then. She also told me that she can see trough people and see their weaknesses, the takes them and plays with them. She also tells about herself tob e a genius, but after here IQ Test she is high intelligent but not genius. She also said that she knows everything about anyone and so on. Her cousin is stupid, everyone is stupid, only she is a genius. Like that.
One time she told me about some thing “she had to learn” from her mother. It was that she wanted to hurt people physical, or had the tendencies/thoughts about that. So her mother told her to not do over hours a day. And then her mother sat down, put her arm at the desk and said, now show me if you would hurt me, or if you learned to dont hurt people. Then my friend walked up and down for hours if she should do that or not. It was the final test from her mother, finally she didnt do anything with the knife she was holding.
I thought it was about autism, though it sounds strange. But now i have the feeling nope…I never read that people with asperger autism need to manipulate others and find it kind of exciting or joyful or so, or to hurt people. It was so strange, but i closed my eyes and found excuses.
Then she wanted a dog. She said she loves animals, that while she had two bunnies. But only one was her “prince” and favourite, and the other which was outside of her room, she totally ignored. She never gave any of them a carrot or anything else to eat, or she cleaned, nothing..Always here mother did that. I thought how could she like animals if she acts like that?
Ok, she wanted a dog..she said with a dog she can learn to go outside and to people. At that time she also said she knows german soccer, all “eleven” from a famous soccer club. She said she wrote them online and had contact to them, via facebook, skype, now whatsapp and so on. And she said she worked over 4 years on that, to make contact to them. And she said she wants to marry one, but couldnt decide which one, make a baby with one and leave him 4-5 years later, because then he will get boring. And she couldnt live monogamous.
So her favourite dog at the adoption centre wasnt available anymore, so she got one from brasilia (where she came from as street child). I mean, she lives with her parents, so not only she can decide to have a dog or not. Her father took him. So then the problems began. Firstly she wanted to teach her dog with a picture of one of the soccer player to jump to him if he sees him. But that never worked. I had the feeling after the dog wasnt useful to her, her “alergic reaction” started, she hated that dog, treated him bad, talked bad, gave everyone the fault why the dog is here, and make her life that bad now. Because the dog is too loud, stinks, is stupid. Where is her animal loving side? I question if she ever had that.
Also i questioned her if she simulates her allergy to get rid of the dog, she answered oh i never thought about that, but it could be possible please tell me if you notice that. I also told her to make an allergy test, her answer “no i dont want to make my father that favor”. Because at that time she wanted to totally get rid of the dog, but her father kept him. I mean, come on, it hadnt to do anything with her father at all, that test should be for her to know whats wrong. She also told about kill phantasies only for science with other peoples bodies. She masked her behaviour as apserger autism behaviour. I mean come one..i cant believe i believed her that shit : /
To switch to another story, i met a man online, me matched pretty good and before i finally met him real, she told me noooo my gut instinct tells me he is dangeours, soziopath, he will rape you. and then she told me two stories about her mothers friends, which met someone online and got raped in public in a corner. She confused me because im not that stupid, surely i met him only in public places and so on. I dont know what was wrong with her.
And she was totally against him because he was born and lived 10 years in russia at a very poor place and is now here 11 years in germany. She just made very wide open eyes after i showed her a picture of him. On a day where i was because of a news article interested in some biographies of serial killers and i told her at the phone, on that day she told me about my boyfriend: he is a reformed alcoholic, he is manipulative, a sociopath and he will become a serial killer, she said she would never believe him anything!, she said he has to be aggressive, violent because he was for two years at the army (voluntary).
She also said if he will live in our city, she will stop our relationsship, because of all that and his very very bad and purely black “aura”. The thing is she never had contact to him, so why she tells that?
Oh and while talking bad about my boyfriend, and she said sociopaths recognize each other i questioned her “so why you see him as sociopath and recognize him”. she also said about herself she thinks she has sociopath behaviours.
I want to a short summarize here. The relation to my boyfriend is nearly broken, and i noticed at that point i got the whole time manipulated too. The thing is i tried to find proves of here statements because for me she was a friends..and normaly i believe friends. My fault i know. Painfuly i made the experience how destructive she was. I have the feeling she didnt want me to do forward in life, she didnt wanted me to have him as my boyfriend. I mean because of my education i hadnt that much time for her or also other friends, with my boyfriend less than before. I have the feeling that was all her Plan.
Greetings Soraya
Sorry i forgot to ask, how you think about her? Abour her behaviour?
thank you!
Soraya
I am sharing my story not as a victim but as the predator! First I ask for forgivness from all those that I have hurt! My sociopathic behavior has ruined every relationship I have ever had and it is not restricted to women exclusively sociopathic behavior will eventually ruin any type of relationship I may have, be it friend, girlfriend or wife! I recently turned 51yrs old so I’ve ruined a lot of lives in that time! And up till recently I never could figure out why! I started looking online searching for clues to the reason based on patters I have noted about myself over the years! This searching has brought me here based on my findings I have determined that I am indeed a sociopath! Now that it is clear to me what I am, I can tell you I’ve been this way, either born or shortly after birth this is who I am! I did however during my discovery of my sociopathic behavior determine that there are various degrees of severity from extreme… to mild tendencys! I put myself on a scale of 1 to 10 I’m a 5 Anyway the real reason I’m sharing here is to validate the exsistance of sociopathic behavior to all those victims that have/are enduring or been a past victim of our behavior! Everything I have read here is true and correct! If u even think after testing a sociopath that u are with one….Run the fuck away as fast and as far as you can safely do so! But without failure or hesitation do run away and Never..Ever..look back! What I’ve just revealed I do so because I care and caring for/about others is not possible within a full blown sociopath! I however do care and feel regret for those I have hurt! What I’m trying to say is I’m asking for help if any cure or remedy exsists other than my death! And honestly if I knew what I was to become I would if I could have told my parents to kill me at birth! I Hate what I am! Not wanting to kill myself but to understand myself and and possibly change or control my behavior to a morally acceptable level! So if anyone out there has ANY knowledge that may help me…Please post it for me and others like myself so the hurting and ruining can stop! Please forgive me! Brian (Sociopath seeking the Cure)! 😉
Yours is a comment I have heard frequently from quite a few sociopaths Brian. I know that people will jump on the bandwagon, and say ‘if you care, you can’t be a sociopath’. I think that socio’s can care, after the fact, if it ruins things for them, but at the time, they are impulsive, self centred and serving, and rarely think about the long term consequences of their actions. You haven’t done anything to me, for me to forgive you for, point is can you forgive yourself?
Have you tried counseling with a specialist? For a long time? You should congratulate yourself that you’ve figured it out. It took me 5 years to figure it out and each moment got worse. The guy would tell me, “I know there’s something very wrong with me, but I don’t know what.” I didn’t know either. I assumed he had ADD with depression, but now I can see that wasn’t it. I had never encountered a sociopath, so that didn’t even come to mind to research. Really, congrats for figuring it out. Try researching the PHD who researched psychopaths and then he looked at random brain scans and found out he was one too. He family wasn’t very surprised. But, once he knew, he learned how to “act” more like a normal person and people treated him better and he felt better and he had a better life. The guy was like in his late 50’s or 60’s before he figured it out–after studying it all his life at university. Found it: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/03/how-i-discovered-i-have-the-brain-of-a-psychopath
Good luck.
Thank you for your comment!! I have heard of a few sociopaths who want help. Or at least, do want to change. I know that the one in my life, did try – and he did change radically, although – not enough. Unfortunately the damage that he had already done, made it impossible to move forward. Also he struggled to not repeat the same pattern of behaviour. Sometimes he would go off, to the land of crazy and that pattern did repeat. What is the answer? I really don’t know….. It almost seemed like repeated, habitual behaviour.
Frankly, it is terrifying. I never knew of people like this. The brainwashing and self-esteem killing and becoming him (“You are the female version of me,” in essence, has hurt me so badly, I feel like I’m going to die (the pain is so great for someone that apparently didn’t even really exist kills me). I still cannot believe it’s true. But, I kept a journal and can find many weird things that happened that I wrote down which helps me know I was barely hanging on, but I didn’t totally lose my sanity, except to become so freakishly desperate to be with him.
@Making it out,
Sadly it’s true. Give yourself time and the gift of no more cintact and everything will be better.
How are you doing today no more insanity?
Hi Positiva! I’m on a good point in my life again. I have a really good work. I’m bless4d with the company of a great group of family and friends that knows the importance of reciprocal love. I think at last I have learned my lesson and Im hopeful that I will not allow never again my self esteem to be crushed again. He tryto contact me from time to time, but it doesn’t have anymore power over me..he knows it and that means less attempts to bother me. From time to time I remember my Pinocchio, but he doesn’t have a face or a voice anymore…it is as if the man I loved with all my essence just dissapered because he never exist. How are you and Phoenix Rising? Again, thanks to giving the insanity a name and a way to be free of it!¡Eternamente gracias!
YAY I am loving hearing this. Me too, I now work with youth homeless, which I love, working with a great staff team of people, who are a joy to be around. He still sends the texts, but I don’t respond and I don’t feel anything any more either, I am too busy with my own life. I am doing really well. Life is finally growing. Think PR is ok too, really good to hear from you, and hear that you are doing so well (me too) which is always a good inspiration also for other people – you will recover – and life is amazing afterwards as it can never be worse than being owned, contained and controlled. That was like being in a prison. They are the prison guard. There for their entertainment and amusement – ugh never again.
We are the ones who allowed them to put us on a prision of lies. Everything was so confusing that I was unable to recognize the truth or seek help…with his manipulation I was isolated…and his insanity touched me on a way that I just let him put me on “prison”. Almost two years after our last personal encounter and after a lot of attempts of him to keep controlling me…at last I feel free of his poison. To all the followers of the blog, give it time give yourself the gift of no contact..your sanity, your health, your family and friends your finances will come again with a new sense of yourself.
YES!! And the biggest lie…. of all, was the lie that I told myself. Back in December I knew I had to make a change. I needed to return to work. To work as part of a team. I realised that Just being here, writing when I did, kept me isolated, and was stopping me from moving forward. Oddly though, working full time, I have more passion to write. As there is no pressure anymore, I can just do it as I want to. Thank you for sharing your good news, it means a lot, and what a journey we travelled together!! x
@Positiva
Desde la distancia y el tiempo un gran abrazo de letras y mi eterno agradecimiento. (From the diatance and time receive a bighug of letters and all my thanks… Im not sure if i transated it correctly but its more or less what I mean to say on my main language.) Thanks for showing me the exit of my prison.
Hi,
reading all your stories it’s a confirm of what I recently realized, that I have been victim of a sociopath for almost 5 years. He is never been my actual boyfriend, cos there were something in my mind that kept telling me he has a real dark soul, but still he harrassed me with his love for all this time.
The last – dramatic – episode made me realize how low my life went because of him and it gave me the courage of leave everything. I have lost a lot and things would never be the same, but I am free from the obsession.
The problem is that now I am falling in love for someone else that probably is also a sociopath. He told me some days ago – maybe joking, maybe not – that someone have said to him he is a sociopath. He has a lot of different version of the truth, he is always worried about hiding the truth, he never want to see me but sometimes he is very nice, mostly by the phone, and he is super dominant.
I am afraid I am attracted by those kind of guys. Have you ever realized you love the same problematic pattern in men?
Are you going to wait for your life to go so low with this new one? How far…. You see the signs… What is going to be different?
I have never been ashamed of surviving what others are capable of, in fact once I fight back the bitterness and anger I fill with pride that it wasn’t in my heart to even fathom their true intent. Inasmuch as it hurts to breathe the stagnant air of the world’s disease, too many, looking out for themselves at any cost, I would rather endure the hell I have, losing all that others covet in their attempts to emulate what they can only pretend to be. I prefer it be that I don’t have it in my heart to see such things even coming than to go thru life so ugly inside that that is all I see or expect from others, unable like he is, to ever trust anyone, knowing what he himself, and those of his character, themselves are guilty of, while I go thru life trustworthy albeit naïve, expecting the same from others, yes even to my own demise. Self preservation, not one of my strongest traits for sure, predators prey on those they mistake for weak, in their desire to have what is not really in them. The ugliness, spread in their attempts to imitate what comes to the kindhearted naturally, is the only reality they know. It is sad for me, and those like me (yes there are and always have been and always will be, others), knowing what we have learned trusting the unworthy, but not as sad as it is to be them. “We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.” – Anais Nin
Still though, I admit that I have wasted too much time wondering how they can dare look at themselves in their clouded mirrors and just why I was so naïve, so easily duped, controlled, deceived , that I allowed myself to invest or abandon, and then ultimately lose, everything. It wasn’t much, but for me it was enough, and well, here is my answer:
When he showed up on my doorstep, I had spent the better part of the previous 2 yrs so traumatized by being stalked by a sadistic man who didn’t handle rejection well that I was reluctant to leave my home for any purpose but to work and attend church, I had lost my father only 6 months before and needless to say I was grieving and vulnerable and had turned to God. I had sunk quite a bit of money into the house I raised my family in, I loved that home dearly, it’s walls held my heart and soul and a lifetime of possessions and accumulated memories (both good and bad), it wasn’t much but for me it was enough and all I had, with much emphasis now on “Had”. If I were indeed the “gold digger” I’ve heard he and his favorite and only sister in law claims I am to justify his sad self, I sure as hell would not have been so willing to settle for so much less than I already had nor would I have invested so much, yet alone everything.
You see, I had promised my father I would invest that money he worked every Saturday of his life to leave me with, intending to lower my mortgage payment which sky rocketed when I refinanced the home I raised my family in to fix it up to be the beautiful yet simple home in the hood I truly cherished. In hindsight clearly I let my father down when I loaned the last of my inheritance to a dishonest man instead , but I truly believed I was investing in my future (not just his) as I had been assured that I was, and yes it sickens me to know that what little my father worked so hard to leave me was swindled from me the way it was, solely because I was gullible enough to trust the promises of a man unable to actually be who he pretends to be and who now rides a motorcycle he didn’t pay a dime for , simply because clearly, Justice in today’s courts is determined more by who is the better liar and which lawyer is willing to be the most unscrupulous and yes I do have all the paperwork to prove that and every other claim I have made regarding these matters. Yeah, I get that it is quite hard to believe by today’s standards of what a normal sensible person would do that anyone could be so kindhearted albeit naïve as I proved to be, to trust so blindly and be so easily conned as I had been. Still though, putting the relationship above my own best interests and believing in him should not have cost me all it did, and if he was actually the kind man he only pretends he is, he would not have lied so naturally or worked so diligently to assure that I had nothing when it all would finally fall apart, especially for the reasons that it did; my refusal to take the blame for catching him in just one of the many lies he had managed to get away with, up til then.
You see, I was lonely I suppose, lost, with little faith in mankind when in walked the smooth talking man who I would not learn until it was too late was not the sweet misunderstood and mistreated honest guy he claimed to be, but actually a narcissistic drunk with an itinerary for self preservation even if that meant destroying the once professed best thing to ever happen to him. Selling me out and what we might have had, for what he misconstrued would be his benefit, although he might have won everything underhandedly, I assure you it will indeed ultimately prove more his demise than mine.
Do not be deceived: God will not be mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also
Reap. Galatians 6:7
Now I concede I made many mistakes from the day we met, trusting him blindly for example, believing in him without questioning any of it and unlike him, putting the relationship above my own best interests. Yes he saw early on with my desire for peace and to please, that I would be an easy mark for him to succeed and indeed I made a lot of mistakes, while it appears he only made one: believing that once I was broken down by his head games with nothing left to go back to that I would be a willing doormat for him to control as he saw fit.
From here on I will refer to the Narcissistic man I mistakenly thought so much of that I married him, believing he not only understood the vows sworn to me and to God, but actually meant them, simply but truly thankfully, as the X.
Numbers 30:2 If a man vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth
Now, I believed quite mistakenly that the X was a good Christian Man, who, as he claimed, had been taken advantage of by a string of promiscuous, drunken women before me that he claimed only used and lied to him and that he remained in his first marriage solely for the sake of the daughter he adores, that is until (at least as he claimed) she cheated on him with her current husband, motivating him (only because she wouldn’t end it) to do the same. And that his second wife, who, unknown to me at the time, he had only finalized the divorce with the month prior to our meeting (proof of his inability to be alone for any duration), and who was, (also as he claimed) a serial cheater whom he only married out of the kindness of his heart, because she needed health insurance so desperately. Always making himself appear the martyr when relaying the sordid tales of his previous failed relationships, in everything he claimed about them, he was the mistreated victim, not so different I am sure than what he now says to others of me, in his attempts to explain why he was so quick to throw away what , not only he had said to me himself just the day before it all came tumbling down , but so many others had often told him was “ the best thing that ever happened to him”. Which was indeed the case, that is until I stood up for myself once his many lies began to unravel and his mask fell off. Although I do confess it had slipped a few times before, if only I had opened my eyes. Yep, Hindsight is 20/20.
As part of his charade to ensnare me ,the X attended church with me every Sunday from the day we met , that is until returning from our Honeymoon 20 months later when he not only refused to go back to church anymore , claiming tithing was too costly and the politics unsurly, (unfortunately my attempts to prove his stance wrong proved he was more right than I care to admit, only adding to my growing lack of faith in such things) but also upon the return from our honeymoon, the X had begun drinking himself into blackouts more weekends than not, a behavior he had managed to control somewhat up to then. Truthfully, the first argument of the too long yet short lived marriage should have been my exit, when only a week after the honeymoon ended, and after what was a decent enough night out on the town together, he suddenly turned angry because at 1:05am I let him know I didn’t want to drive him to yet another bar, realizing only then that once he started he cannot stop. Telling him “no” so uncommon for me that it must have caught him as off guard as his words did me. “I don’t know why I even married you” he said, when I told him I had had enough. It hit me with the sting of those words what was my reality, what I wanted had no merit, I had signed on to serve him, not just to wait on him hand and foot but become his designated driver forever and the only one of us that would remember his ugly blackouts in the mornings, which up to then I had only gotten a slight bitter taste of but from then on would grow in frequency, too often cruel behaviors btw that at least to him were excusable because he was drunk. As is the nature he preyed on me for, I settled in to accept and make the best of my lot in life , unaware still , just how trying, and in the end devastating, that task was going to be, leaving me a shell of the woman I am by the time that house of cards would crumble.
His blackouts, (which he had confided to me about in our beginning when he was still trying to bait me) a behavior pattern, like many others that would soon begin to resurface only once he had me. Admitting that his drinking had been a problem in his previous relationships , claiming for one because he was trying to keep up with the drunken women before me, ( yes I fell for that , lmao) but also because he was so miserable with those other women he was too “kindhearted” or so he claimed to “abandon”, but he had reassured me in those first conversations that he had no desire to live that way and that those past habitual blackouts would not be a part of our life together. He claimed he wanted more for us than any of that and so we made a pact. “ No lies, deception or sneaky stuff, Best friends forever 24/7”, I knew I could meet those conditions and believed naively due to the fact that it was a phrase at least in part that had been coined by him , that he could too.
Now, I didn’t expect perfection from the man, I knew and accepted that he was flawed, we both carried the baggage from our pasts and incorrectly I believed we would help each other unpack. But in order for us to have done so, there needed to be not just a mature level of mutual acceptance and responsibility in owning our human shortcomings and mistakes but a true commitment to honesty (not just a fear of getting caught), a genuine care for the values we each held dear and then each needed to have only the best intention for the interests of the other. In hindsight none of that was the case, well, at least not on his part. Sacrifices for the greater good a constant demand made of me that I met upon each occasion the need arose, growing more despondent though for doing so, as the double standards became more and more prevalent with the passing of time. His way or the Highway, he proved incapable of sacrifice of any kind, yet alone any sort of compromise, that is unless doing otherwise made him look bad, all behaviors dependant on his audience.
Proverbs 20:10 Differing weights and differing measures— the Lord detests them both.
Always promising some future reward for all that he insisted I let go of (i.e. what little retirement I had managed, that inheritance, my lifetime’s accumulation of possessions (the furnishings, household items, appliances, TVs, beds, memorabilia, clothes), the rent from the property he insisted become my boys’ and then finally 90% of my paychecks; throwing a fit at the end that he wasn’t getting more. Knowing how it turned out I can’t believe I once credited him for making me believe in people again.
When we met, my oldest 2 kids off at college, my youngest son, though already 18 and a young father of twins was finishing his senior year of high school. A disabled child on the autism spectrum receiving minimal Social Security benefits of 700.00 a month, I had made it clear from the beginning that I intended to fulfill my obligation to see the young father thru school, not just high school but Trade school as well. The X assured me he had no intention of moving into the home I loved so dearly or help me pay my bills there and that he sure did not need my help to pay his bills, so it was agreed that we each would maintain our own households although I slept every night in his bed, his need to hurry the stages of the relationship along so speedily in true Narcissistic love bombing form (needing to cage me before I caught on that the man I thought I had fallen in love with was really no more than a facade) and also because simply he was too insecure to let me out of his site, hell I was even expected to shower with the door open.
At the time making only 13.00 an hour myself , I covered the mortgage in the house my son lived in until he finished his schooling as was agreed on (had it not been, I assure you I would never have agreed to move in with the man and none of it would have played out the way it did). I raised three kids on my own and got ’em all to college, I had no intention of bailing on the last one before my job was thru, they are indeed the best of my fruit, who they each are, the proof.
Using the kid’s Social Security Benefits to cover the utilities, in spite of his claims otherwise, not one penny of the X’s ever went to my house or my bills. What my property cost to shelter my son thru the last of his school only meant that much less of my money would make it into the X’s hands. Contrary to his claims, I purchased my own personal items ( ask anyone who actually knows the real me ( not the person he tried to make me out to be) I really am not very high maintenance) and still I managed to drop the X a couple hundred each month for that first year. I cost him no more and probably much less than he would have spent jumping from one dating relationship to the next as he always had and has ever since.
Taking with me into the X’s house only those things he allowed me to and some that I just snuck in. Moving from a nice 5 bedroom house into a 2 bedroom house that was literally falling down on itself, I had to abandon or give away most everything I had worked my life for up to that point, letting go of and/or giving away anything that duplicated what the X had (unless I could prove mine was better, which most of the time even if mine was better, I was still the one to sacrifice, sacrifice not part of his persona for sure).
What little I tried to hold on to was claimed as evidence that I was not committed to the relationship, so that when I finally could stand no more of being the one he blamed for his unraveling lies I had none of the 4 beds I once had of my own to sleep on, yet alone any blankets or even one of the 3 TVs. The five bedroom house I had once filled with such things, either no longer mine, at the X’s insistence, or what little remained of my life before, too damaged from the neglect he insisted become of it, to save. His intent to make sure I had nothing to go back to as he held divorce over my head to get his way in everything , successful; actually keeping me there though, thankfully, not so much . Yes, the echo of his words as I let everything I had go “Trust me” sicken me today.
10 months into the relationship, just before I was to receive that inheritance from my father, I asked the X to help me find a motorcycle. I had offered to loan the X money for one for himself and initially he declined , claiming he would rather save up for one for himself, making himself appear too righteous for debt, he wouldn’t admit just yet the real reason being a large old debt that made him obtaining a loan from a bank impossible. So, although he was suppose to be looking for a bike for me to buy, the first bikes he looked at were not ones suitable for me at all but more for him and when he found the bike he wanted he asked me if my offer to loan him the money was still good, assuring me, my family and friends that he would repay the money into a savings account, replacing the nest egg it was intended to be, as he promised, not so different than if I had just left it in savings or he would have done had he opted to follow through with just saving up for one for himself.
Psalm 37:21 The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives;
Unfortunately for me I trusted him blindly, loaning him the money not just for the bike but a few days later he hit me up for even more to pay off what he claimed then were the only debts he had, so that we could start fresh in our life together . Yep, I gave him yet another cashier’s check. But wait, then I was gullible enough to just hand him yet another 5 grand to stuff away as well (now, if I was lying about it being a loan and it was truly a gift as he claims, why didn’t I include that third cashier’s check made out to him also for that 5 grand when I quit accepting his excuses and demanded the repayment finally be followed thru with? because it was not part of the loan and I really wasn’t trying to get anymore than what he had promised to repay me, you see, I am honest, that’s why ). I concede though that I ended up getting half of that third cashier’s check for 5 grand back, using it to help my kids with some surprises that came up, the other half though was, (unbeknownst to me as it was happening) squandered as the X saw fit, a TV for example, and some gambling among other things I was unaware the money was being used for, that is until he informed me it was gone, a bit of shock to me, denying my gut feelings as I had begun to realize only then that he blamed me for the lifestyle he insisted on living, which was farther from his means than he was willing to admit, another flag waving too high for me to justify now that I ignored, feeding the anger I have not just for him and all his half truths and outright lies but for myself for being so gullible and naive, needing so badly to believe.
Having met just before Thanksgiving in 2008, understandably our first Christmas was not blended , but after loaning him the last of my nest egg, Christmas 2009 should have opened my eyes to the way he thought things should be between us when the savings account the X had promised the repayment of that money I loaned him would be deposited into was not accessible to me (to this day I am not sure it even ever actually existed, though in one of the arguments he claimed at trial that we never had about it outside of the divorce, he stormed out and returned claiming to have closed it). So the year I had more money than I ever managed to accumulate or probably would ever be able to accumulate again, I could only afford $30 sweaters for my kids, and a $10 doll for my twin baby grand girls, because he had managed to swindle half of that small inheritance from me under the guise of repayment that by that Christmas due to one excuse after another had not yet materialized, while his family were given lavish gifts triple what I could muster for my own. I still feel the sickened feeling that overcame me as I wrapped the gifts he managed for his family as well as the meager ones I managed for mine, and How as I wrapped his lavish gifts feeling disgusted by the extravagance of them as much as my feelings about them, I rehearsed the words to speak with him about the vast difference and why it should not have been so, always more careful than I ever should have been not to rock the boat.
Now , when I confronted the X about this imbalance, he assured me like he always did that once we were married and he’d taken care of those mystery bills (the very ones he later denied in court even existing, calling me a liar in regards to them( although the tax return listed in the discovery does indeed reflect but a minimal portion of that debt cancelation he had claimed to me to have paid but denied on the stand as being real), that I would then finally see the fruits of my extensive financial investments in that slowly closing in prison of a life with him, and things would not always be so lopsided. It was at that time that I began to attempt explaining the term double standards to the X. Yes, I am gullible and truly believed at that time still , he just didn’t get it. Trying to reach his conscience, he would rage when I would question whether he would want the same for his daughter as he evidently expected me to accept from him.
Kindhearted people too often being preyed upon by them, I have known many Narcissists in my lifetime. I had not yet been schooled on the psychology of Narcissism though, but looking back now, obviously my education had begun, I just had not realized yet what it was that I was seeing. I chuckle still as I recall him exclaim that he could relate well with all my exes, evil men, drug addicts, pedophiles, violent men and thieves, who like him, once they realized they could not be who they pretended to be, sought to destroy me.
Damn, if only I had opened my eyes sooner and googled, way back when, the words I did when I had the first of the many ah ha moments in my quest to understand just how he could live with himself. Double standard, Liar and Coldhearted; Yep that’s how I stumbled upon my start at understanding the disorder, I simply googled the words that best described the beast I found underneath his mask.
Now, my mother had been ill for several years and a year into my relationship with the Narcissist, she was in the final stages of her life. Mom hated the X, saw right thru him, but I wrote it off to bitterness and ignored her warnings and hence sadly avoided her, a guilt that will haunt me forever. The X’s insecurities, ( which I then still believed were due to all the women that he claimed had cheated on the poor man), made him so clingy and controlling that he couldn’t even allow me to be away from him so I could spend her last night on earth with her. I won’t elaborate more than just to mention that though I was willed my mother’s home, the ex would not allow me to claim it because he did not want the liability of the property, causing me to lose yet another tidbit of what might have been some future security for me. Any such thing that might have given me any security outside of him a threat to his mission, in his attempts to own every part of me and force me to be totally dependent on him. Too broke by then because all of that inheritance the X had managed to con me out of under the guise of repayment, to even cover my mother’s services myself, the X covered my portion of the bill split with my sisters and then a week or so later I was given monetary gifts from his family to assist with her services, because as they claimed then and so many other times, I was family. The monetary gifts btw I handed straight to the X upon opening those cards. It was only a little over a month after Mom passed that we called off the wedding briefly, when I inquired once again as to my name still not being on the account the X claimed the repayment of that loan I made to him only then still that summer before was being paid into, He then claimed to close the account stating that he no longer owed me any of it because I had paid him so little to sleep in his bed, so I left.
Unable to stand anything he took as being critical of him, any time I ever tried to speak with him about anything, he managed in narcissistic rage, to turn it back on me. So, true to his penchant for projection, the argument quickly turned from being about me having the audacity to inquire of the repayment of that loan he had indeed promised to repay (but only then let me know he felt he no longer owed me), to all the money I put toward the house my son lived in thru school and the money he fronted to cover my mom’s services. It was during this month of indecision, that I realize now way too late, that I should have bailed and filed suit then for the repayment of that loan but instead I continued to believe that he wasn’t as evil as he proved to be later but just didn’t get it, needing to believe too much I suppose that he was kind and decent and trust worthy. But the red flags were already there and waving higher than they even had before.
You see when we split for that near month, among other sick claims and head games, the X insisted I repay that money to his family that had been given in sympathy cards to assist with my mom’s services. (of course his brother denied that they wanted the gifts back ( this by the way is just among the first of many experiences where the X relayed to me words he put in other people’s mouths, it’s a narcissistic trick he played well to keep me feeling insecure about all my relationships). Because of that statement by the X that his family wanted their money back I held an hour long conversation with his brother regarding many things, i.e, the family’s claimed admiration of me, a few of his own marital disappointments, his brother’s issues and insecurities, our financial agreements regarding the two households between us, as well as that large loan which his brother later claimed in court to know nothing about. The definition of Perjury being: A crime that occurs when an individual willfully makes a false statement during a judicial proceeding, after he or she has taken an oath to speak the truth.
It was upon one of several attempts to reconcile during that drawn out argument over the loan when the X drew up the written agreement to repay the Loans I had made to him that previous summer, but also he did so only after I agreed to begin sending him 350.00 out of each of my paychecks ( at the time 700 Monthly, half of my earnings) plus agreeing to allow him absolute power over my property and because he was only getting half of my meager earnings he insisted also that he begin collecting and keeping the rent he collected from that property where my son and his roommates were living, which for the next 4 months was an additional 600.00 for each of those months. By doing so the X assured me that not only would the repayment of that loan be affordable to him finally, that is once he took care of the upcoming wedding, drunkfest he insisted our reception be, honeymoon and the debt he claimed had only then mysteriously cropped up (and oddly continued to do so, though true to my too trusting nature, I mistakenly never demanded proof as to those payments reality or what he did with any of my money for that matter) and that he would in turn cover my personal needs, debts and all groceries etc. Since all meals had to meet his tastes only anyway, and since all my extra money was going to him already, leaving me nothing to carry in my own purse, I conceded. Not yet married, I took this as a sort of trial run that he insisted I prove capable of.
So, he looked out for his interests, made the purchases he wanted, always shopping ( among other things) while I was at work. He paid his bills while mine sat to mount and my interests all went to shit, assuring me he would undo the damages later. I can’t even explain how any of it made sense then because it sure doesn’t make sense to me now, he was just that good at convincing me to trust him, perhaps I just needed to believe I could trust someone, and he knew it. Now in regards to that written agreement about the loan he claims never existed, he ripped it up later in one of the several arguments over that loan he also claimed at trial that we never had about it. Claiming as he shredded the note that I had to prove I trusted him or just leave, so again I left, however briefly, having been distraught to realize only then that in all my attempts to prove my commitment to him believing his empty promises, he had made sure there was nothing and nowhere already by that point for me to go back to. So yeah, unfortunately I stayed, erroneously believing doing so was my only chance to recoup any of which had obviously already been swindled from me.
Oh my goodness there was my chance to get out and I blew it, as I could have put off the marriage if not indefinitely as he claimed then there was no money for the wedding, big drunkfest he had to have or the honeymoon he boasted in his narcissistic showboat fashion to everyone we would take. But no, instead I handed him another 3 grand, my last tax refund with dependant deductions. In my defense I was in love, but not with the man he really is.
Now, it was decided when we left for our honeymoon July of 2010 that the 600 he had been collecting since the previous April ( and keeping) in rent from my property would become only 300.00 beginning that August, allowing my son to then keep 75.00 wkly for his needs. It was also at this time that my son , following thru with his part in our plans for him, began Trade school, graduating that following May and becoming gainfully employed that next June, so from August 2010 Thru June 2011 the X received no less than 700.00 monthly from my bank account plus that 300.00 in rent from my property which he claimed fraudulently in court had always been deposited into the property’s account, when in fact it did not for most of the duration of our relationship. Considering the rent he collected as part of what he expected me to pay him in rent for a house with no mortgage and minimal bills. Those deposits he claimed at trial he always made didn’t actually begin until Nov of 2011 although he had been collecting the rent since April of 2010, and my bank records prove so, as well as the truth that he lied when he claimed he only received at most a couple hundred a month from me, again meeting the definition of perjury.
Ninety pages of the 137 page transcript have at least one of the X’s lies or half truths documented on each, testimony proven false even if only just in part by info, and / or bank records listed in my discovery or testimony that the judge did and too much that the Judge did not hear. Again Perjury being: A crime that occurs when an individual willfully makes a false statement during a judicial proceeding, after he or she has taken an oath to speak the truth.
Claiming at trial I only ever gave him at the most 200.00 monthly while he paid for everything, when in fact my bank records do show I purchased my own personal items and his own testimony did state that I was paying him a couple hundred here and there in cash from the beginning , though he didn’t admit that was true only until the time my bank records reflect that as of April 2010 I put in at least 1000.00 monthly towards his household, a household, remember, with no mortgage, minimal utility bills and no control on my part over how any of it was spent. Half of my income plus the rent from my property went into the Xs pocket to spend as he saw fit,( his money was his money, my money was his money) meanwhile ( because he was collecting and keeping the rent from my property) the other half of my earnings plus my sons Social Security Disability covered my obligation to shelter my son until the kid graduated Trade school as we had agreed was my obligation prior to the marriage. The X’s claims that he put any of his money into any of my interests or debts or those of my kids are just some of his many lies. What little I make is what carried me and mine, before and after the marriage, while whatever was left over of mine plus his own earnings (twice what I made btw), was pissed away as he chose, i.e. Gambling, showboating, taking care of his interests only and keeping up the pretenses he must ; destroying any hope of actually having, what he pretends to, for real. So, me and mine did not cost him a damn thing. Much to his chagrin , he just didn’t get it all. Now as far as where his money went? That was all on him, blowing it in his showboat fashion, gambling and drunkenness, creating the false appearance he presents to the world.
In spite of the amount of money being transferred from my bank account to the X’s , and the amount of rent he was collecting and keeping, and all that he chose to spend however he saw fit, I was given no more than 20.00 weekly for lunch, if even that, was not even allowed cash to keep gas in my own car thus allowing the X to monitor my mileage. I was held accountable for every minute I was out of his sight, lunches (I began taking my hour lunch at my desk most days to avoid his crazy making accusing inquiries) and I sure as hell couldn’t stray from the path commuting to and from work, every minute and every mile was audited by him, as well as my phone records on the phone he insisted I carry as yet another means of monitoring me and my contacts with the outside world. I couldn’t have conversations with friends if he weren’t present without answering for it, all conversations had to be in front of him and on speaker phone, soon my kids didn’t even bother calling anymore, thankfully my relationships with them have healed and we enjoy long visits now that they are no longer compelled to escape as quickly as they could, sickened by his insistence to drink to excess with him, (alcoholics really cant handle the ability in other’s to pass up the drink (perhaps it reminds them of their weakness for it) and non alcoholics are just not usually too comfortable being around drunks). Anyway, thankfully no real damage was done to my relationship with my kids. Add to everything else he completely controlled, Except for my bachelorette slumber party at the church we attended which btw really sent him into a tizzy, I was allowed one girls night out with my girlfriends just once in almost 4 yrs, only to endure two days of hell for it, ensuring I would not dare risk doing anything like that ever again. I was unable to even shop alone for groceries EVER, and the few times I joined him on his shopping sprees I had no say about purchases or in the meal planning, unless he was feeling generous or needed to hold something over my head or make himself look good to whatever audience he was hoping to impress at the time, and for sure I was not permitted to do any personal shopping EVER; once though, I was allowed 30 minutes to go pick out a gift for one of the friends he allowed me (then later managed to turn on me, more a loss to her than for me though for sure). All purchases were made by the X, at the approval of the X, and though my money was going into his account as reflected in the bank records listed in the discovery, I had no say what so ever in how he chose to spend it (though I did learn that if I wanted something to make sure he had an audience and therefore I was more likely to get it) and what little was purchased supposedly for me was held over my head as gifts that I was to feel indebted to him for. In the final months of that prison I was trapped in, I managed to open a pay pal account and began spending at the most a couple hundred a month of what little money was accessible to me ( remember by then 90% of my payroll was going straight to his accounts leaving me access to a mere 10% of my gross wage of 1800.00) so what little I had managed to keep in my personal account , I finally began to spend on some doll houses I made with and for my granddaughters , of course the one I made for his granddaughter cost as much as the others had all together, (nothing but the best for his although mine were so much more grateful for so much less, I understand well it has to do with the hearts each has) allowing his little one hers, in the end he sent me and mine just the empty baskets that once held the treasured little staples the lil girls had made with me to fill the dollhouse cupboards, excited when the baskets once full of such treasures arrived that day, the lil girls learned a life lesson on the cruelty of people 4 year olds should not have had to learn, refusing to give me the dollhouses we created together, causing much damage to them he stored them instead in a heap in his garage, claiming them as marital assets, he priced them at 500.00 a piece, made form cardboard boxes and one that I saved from the trash, collecting the furnishings and old dolls very cheaply on eBay. No more than a few hundred went in to the lot. But He knew I cared about them, their real value to him being the pain keeping them from us caused. Yes the Narcissist really is that sick. Now, if those Doll Houses were indeed marital assets worth 500 apiece, they were the only ones of any value I managed to get, compared to the motorcycle he got free and clear, as well as the appliances, tools, smoker, furniture and all the other household marital assets he managed to keep deceitfully.
Also, His claims that he made expensive purchases out of the kindness of his great big heart for ungrateful me and my kids, such as cheap jewelry paid too much for and only given to me in front of audiences to bolster his ego, ( none that I asked for and all soon broken and turned to junk really , even the diamond in my engagement ring so flawed that no pawn shop would give more than 50 bux for it and the man made stones in the band it was soldered to, (an uncanny resemblance of the marriage it was supposed to represent ), a refrigerator for one kid and a set of tires for another. Those purchases were not solicited by me nor them, I had asked him to help the one kid find a used fridge and help the other to fix a flat, and I won’t waste any energy to reveal any more than that of the truth about them in this rant beyond the fact that those purchases made by him, like any gift he gives, were actually just more of his intent in true Narcissistic fashion to have us all feeling indebted to wonderful him. Show boating being a character flaw he relies on to make himself feel big because he knows deep down better than anyone how truly small he really is. Now contrary to his claims, (Lies rather) the money for those such purchases and the 2 grand divvied for my daughter’s wedding did not take out as much from his pocket or account as I was and had been putting in, also proven in the bank records in both of our discoveries. Hell, between us we made over 70 k a year, and yet he protested dropping 2k to my daughter for her wedding, not allowing me to even give her a wedding gift on top of it except for a 10.00 platter I took to her bridal shower so I wouldn’t show up empty handed, oh and because of the 2 k doled out for her wedding, her Christmas gift that year was an inexpensive bottle of wine, still though, her mother’s daughter for sure, she was quite grateful. Hell, I , as the mother of the bride wasn’t even allowed a new outfit for the occasion, I look back at it all, and yes I feel sick.
And yet he has called me the gold digger, hilarious as that is, when you take into account the 17 grand in Cashier’s checks handed to him by me expecting a promised return, the thousands that went into his account from my own each month and all the rent he collected from my property that he kept contrary to his lies on the stand and my small 401k earned before I even met him that was dwindled to half in the course of that marriage of two years, used on the taxes and insurance for his house, only a few hundred went to Christmas gifts he otherwise would not have allowed me to purchase for mine even though the year before he had assured me would finally be more balanced with his, and a trip he wept in his whisky over how we couldn’t afford it otherwise, Blaming me, when in reality it was due to his showboating short man syndrome’s effect on our finances. The fact is, it is doubtful he will ever find another foolish enough to give so much for so little in return and do so blindly without question.
Now, leaving the house I cherished to an 18 yr old to share with roommates, I protested constantly the way it was maintained by them but was undermined and criticized as being controlling . The X joined forces with my then 18 yr old manboyson claiming his intent was to keep peace between us, when in fact (as he was doing in all the relationships that I was ignorantly trying to nurture, and true to his narcissistic form, making sure I mistakenly believed he was the only one I could trust) he actually worked very efficiently at feeding animosity between me and most everyone else but especially my youngest son. Insisting it was the boy’s house to live in as he pleased, I was not allowed any say as to how the house was taken care of. Assuring the kid with too much on his plate already that the house and all that I was forced to leave behind were now his, to do with the best the kid could with no help whatsoever to maintain it , financially or with more than minimal verbal direction, (at one point the kid who had never roofed a house before had shingles dropped off and some tools but nothing more in the way of assistance to see the job through) and eventually as mentioned earlier I wasn’t even allowed to collect the rent from the roommates anymore, yet alone say how it would be applied once the X collected it, and the majority of which sure didn’t go back into that house as the X claimed on the stand at trial. Rent again btw that the X collected instead and kept for himself for all months except the last 6 months from November 2011 to July 2012 when we thankfully, finally split. That rent he kept, also proven by the bank records listed in the Discovery but lied about under oath by the X, claiming he always deposited it. It should be noted though that in order to get him to finally begin those deposits of rent into my account ear marked to handle my property Nov. of 2011, to make up for what he was losing the X insisted 90% of my payroll begin to be directed into his bank account. OMG every time I thought I was evening the mess out , I was really just getting sucked in deeper.
Now, it should not have surprised me as it did, that his family would lie for him, thinking back to how they had already proven capable and quite willing to do so, when I stumbled upon that trait in their family dynamic early on. All of them refusing to admit doing such a thing any sort of faux pas. I suppose to them it isn’t lying, but loyalty. Claiming , when I had made the mistake of confronting them for helping him destroy our trust that first time I caught a glimpse of his many lies, that I was the one in the wrong for expecting otherwise from him or them. So yeah, they can accept at least some credit for the man he is and the life he lives. Blame cognitive dissonance I suppose and then pity them, for they too are either being duped or are trapped in the midst of their own Narcissistic Hells to endure.
They say apples don’t fall from the tree, I know, and to think they carry themselves like they are above folks like me an mine who own even the worst parts of we are and then holding it against us. Biting my tongue the day My ex brother in law informed me (After seeing him pour massive amounts of whisky down his own son while canoeing down the river that day) how surprised he was to see how together my successful college kids actually were in spite of how he had surmised I had raised them. All I could think was really? ( The man had no clue) . Feeling the sting of the ever growing slights against me, I had not yet realized the X’s inclination to speak in lies and half truths about me to others in his attempt to devalue me in their eyes, true to the Narcissists pattern preparing for that inevitable eventual discard. I kept to myself how I wasn’t surprised at all the people each of our kids showed themselves to be as his stumbled around slurring nonsense after having passed out drunk on the river that day , knowing what I had seen of the examples not only set but encouraged by each of us for the younger generations. Yes I swallowed my words too often as they looked down on mine for what he got caught for while making light of what theirs got away with, their concept of right and wrong more connected not to actual sins or simple misdeeds but whether or not you get caught. Chastising me and my kids for what they saw as a pothead mentality and the worst of who we are, making fun of mine for what they deemed made them peculiar, one for being too moral to drink before turning 21, another for wanting nothing to do with drinking to excess and yet another for refusing to watch a pirated movie, and then our admissions to what makes us all human, behaviors of which they considered kept us beneath them; while they in turn are masters at hiding their true character from the outside (Gluttons, gamblers, drunks, showboats, backstabbing backbiting gossips (speaking ill of not just outsiders but even of each other when backs are turned). Drinking games with a breathalyzer to determine whose blood alcohol is higher. Heralding the alcoholic old man as Grandpa .22 , a title given him by a 3 year old. Encouraging the next generation to try to beat him at the game. How truly sad for their children encouraged to aspire if not to win but at least join the ranks (thankfully mine wanted little to do with such things and yet for what was actually a higher standard, were criticized). 40 sumthing yr old Grown ups hiding the fact that they even smoke, or anything reflecting any connection to my kids from the hood, and all the other antics they deny being any part of who they really are. Keeping up their facade even more exhausting for them I am sure than it had been for me as I tried to figure out their rules to what was and what was not allowed to be revealed to the world. Yes, I am thankful me and mine are not ashamed to own even the worst parts of who we are, it allows us to work on bettering ourselves every day, while they are stuck I s’pose with who they really are, no matter how much they try to hide it. Teaching my children since they were young, “ There is nothing noble about being superior to some other person. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self’.” ~Hindustani Proverb
The X’s mother use to sing my praises claiming her elation that her poor mistreated baby boy had finally found a woman just like her , just as convinced still, I am sure, as I once was, that he was indeed the victim in all his failed relationships as he asserted he was (although in the end, and quite proudly, I proved I am not much like her after all, finally taking the stand against my Narcissistic husband that she never did dare take against hers). I was often pressured to call his parents Mom and Dad, but something in my gut knew better, so I respectfully refused. They claimed I was family but really, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to join forces with what I knew of them, knowing what I did of all they value, the blind loyalty leading them to the great abyss, the drunkenness, the gambling, the showboating, the hypocrisies, the conceit, hearing how they thought they were above most everyone and how they all spoke behind each other’s backs sickened me and though’ initially I felt bad for my sister in law knowing what was said about her in her absence. When she rolled her eyes or would stomp away as I was being complimented or simply accepted, at first I had tried to redirect attention back to her. But when her Catty games became too apparent to keep telling myself it was in my head as the X claimed it had to be, I still thought to much of him for sure. But once I chalked it up to jealousy, I tried even harder to win her friendship with no success. Around everyone else, at least when I was present, she would act as though all was fine between us, but if left alone in a room together she wouldn’t acknowledge my existence and played childish face book games her husband had told her to cease while mine accused me of making it up and being the one stirring up trouble. Misguidedly believing his loyalty would be with his wife or that he was just blind to what was going on , I tried to tell the X how I was being treated but like he did in everything he turned it back on me and swore it was all in my head. Hoping that he was right and it was just in my head I sucked it up and endured, because you see, I know I can fix me, but indeed once it all fell apart the ugly hearted x-sister in law’s true colors came out for sure but just how that played out isn’t worth the energy to speak any more of. So, in spite of their claims otherwise I always felt outside the loop and yes part of that is on me for refusing to lower myself to their level, but I stayed true to who I am and as is my nature and had become my mode for survival in that world I was only beginning to feel imprisoned in, I tried to make the best of things, inviting those I believed were my friends along whenever I could, though most of those particular friends had actually been picked for me by him, still I naively believed they were indeed my friends, most of such friends he had picked for me btw still remain an important part of my world today, having more respect for me than they actually ever did for him. Yep, I wasn’t even allowed to pick my own friends, or even keep my old ones for that matter, but today my world is filled with them, tried and true, with backbone and character and kindness and strength in their hearts and a lot more respect for me now than they had for me then when I was attached to and controlled by him. Yes, I lost a few I cared too much for, but I understand now God was actually protecting me, making sure I invested no more than I already had in the wrong people. “You don’t lose friends. You just realize who your real friends are.”
And so then the lies began, or just began to unravel rather, as in reality I learned after it was over that the lies were always there pretty much daily from day one and sadly I will carry the consequences of the first of his lies to trap me from the very start for the rest of my life, a constant reminder of the disgusting man that proved so unworthy of the love and trust I realized too late I had been giving too freely and for way too long. But you know, believing in and trusting that vulgar man enough to marry and invest or abandon all I ever had, should not have cost me everything simply because I had begun to catch on to all the lies he is not yet man enough to own the truth of and most likely never will be. And the fact that his family could think otherwise is just proof how truly flawed their understanding of right and wrong is. Knowing that God has little care for the treasures of this world stolen from me, I cherish the love he has blessed me with to reward me for the faith I proved is in me when I put it all in His hands, the love and life I have now, unlike anything they will ever know. I understand that as they may appear rewarded for evil here in satan’s realm based on the materialistic things they cherish the most, it’s what awaits us all on the other side that matters and yes, I find much solace knowing what the bible says of such things.
Proverbs 22:22-23
Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court, 23 for the Lord will take up their case and will exact life for life.
If you succeed in cheating someone, don’t think that the person is a fool…Realize that the person trusted you much more than you deserved.
Yes his lies had begun to unravel, lies reminiscent of those behavior patterns he had initially sworn would remain part of his past and not our present ……as long as I played by his rules that is. Rules he made up and that only applied to me and of which he changed often without bothering to tell me so. Lies denying or minimizing the black outs and all the ugliness that came with them, the gambling , the spending, the porn, the strip clubs, the lies about where he went and what he did with his time before and after work and the truth to what he did with both his and my money, and the lies about the disease he willingly infected me with as just another part of his trap for me, truly the only thing in the end that he gave me that he didn’t take back.Lying about its origins being from him as he knew it was, blaming me, shaming me, tormenting me , all for his sadistic satisfaction of keeping me believing I could do no better than him, that I owed him. Yes, there were times I wished for death, my pain so deep, so great I saw no other relief, but thankfully I would not hurt those who truly loved me in that way and so I escaped and am blessed today. The pill I take each morning to suppress the disease, once a constant reminder of what he got away with doing to me now seen instead as a reminder of how blessed I was the day I made my escape.
All of it was mere Lies concocted to portray the illusion of the appearance he needs to portray to the world, instead of actually doing the work it takes to live it for real. All the double standards and the real truth that the only reason he audited my every move was because he knew what he himself had done, was up to and therefore expects the same from others. Double standards, a narcissistic trait, as I have only finally come to understand now. His inability to trust similar to my inability to see any of it coming. Clearly, we do not see the world the same or have the same expectations from it and as far as what is in his heart, well, thankfully it is not in mine.
I do prefer the rewards I have been blessed with for putting it all in God’s hands as I believed I was suppose too (even if it meant trusting blindly to my own demise), than the sad lonely life he has created jumping from one vulnerable woman to the next. At least 5 that I know of have been thru his infected bed since we split only 2 yrs ago, as he denies it being infected at all, so sad for them, though not so different than he had with me for as long as he could that is, then tormenting me over it to the point I had wished for death, believing because of it, that I could do no better than him. Yes, my time with him was indeed the lowest point in my life. But as for my life since I escaped that hell I tried to make the best of, God sent me a good man (everything the X could only pretend to be and so much more) to help me thru all that God knew I was about to face. So the ex runs women thru his life as he always has in assembly line fashion while in comparison I have been with the same man now since only shortly after I realized the many truths about that mistake of a marriage founded on his countless lies, and yep, we have been living happily ever after since (feeding much of the X sister-in-law’s continued animosity (roflmao btw).
Psalm 18:16-24 He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters. He rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me. The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me.
The X may ride a motorcycle today, paid for by the money my father earned working every Saturday of his life to leave me as a nest egg, but that is all he will ever have, inanimate things as incapable of love as he is. The only love he will ever know is love that he has to steal via the disguises he doesn’t have it in him to keep on for very long. I do have to wonder though, the kind of Karma they have created for their own inheritances one day or those they wish to leave for their children. And as far as whether or not it was his intent to cause me to lose it all when he told me to abandon everything I had for a life with him, well if he had ever sincerely cared even the slightest bit for me, he would not have been so diligent in making sure I walked away with so little of what I once had while he himself managed to carry on, not just unscathed but so much better off and at my expense. If he weren’t the Narcissist his lies proved him to be, he would not have needed to resort to perjury to get away with everything.
He lost a diamond, I lost a lowly cockroach or perhaps more something like a diseased blood sucking tic, but in return I gained a heart of gold, while his will forever be no more than a heart of stone, empty and cold and alone, in his endeavor for self preservation. The true measure of a person’s character being the fruits left behind in the lives of those they touch, there sure remains quite a bit of good things in theirs that only arrived when I did and do still remain there, leaving me with nothing that I once had, true… Nothing that is except a beautiful future ahead with him and them behind me and sadly only his leprous legacy he denies to remind me just how blessed I am to have escaped the prison he built intending to hold me but instead is now no more than a prison of his own making for his miserable self. As much as he tries to deny it or conceal the truth to the lies told to those who still need to believe him to be able to look at themselves, simply, it is what it is, their own Narcissistic hell to endure. “
“The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love. For what is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
As for me, my life is filled with love and I am Free! What little I escaped his prison with has since grown to be so much more and I am blessed finally to know the love I once blindly albeit mistakenly sacrificed all I had for, only this time around it isn’t costing me anything, yet alone everything.
Hello, unlike most of you I’m actually a guy who came across a female sociopath. I feel kinda like an outcast since all you have problems with male sociopaths because women sociopaths are a whole different evil. I’m 18 years old and im about to leave for college, I live just west of Chicago in a suburb and attend one of two highschools. I hit puberty late so I didn’t have many friends and I was annoying until I finally caught up to everyone physically and mentally. This year I finally started to make friends, I was always very good at understanding people so
I was good at socializing just not well practiced. I’m pretty smart FYI (34 act). I met this girl named Lilly through a friend about 9 months ago, we started off as friends and soon stayed up till 5 in the morning texting. To tease me she used to snapchat nudes of herself occasionally but she demanded we stay friends. After a while I started seeing her as more of a friend because she really understood me, she knew me unlike anyone else and she was incredibly smart, not to mention beautiful. Her eyes were black but a very bright black that shined, I would also describe her soul this way. Eventually I told her I had feelings for her and she sweetly rejected me. She had serious drug problems like most sociopaths do, OxyContin and Cocaine being a favorite.. By the way she is only 16. I remember reading things on the internet about 16 year olds doing drugs and thinking it was so fucked up but here I am living it. — Anyways, I was always concerned with her drug use but she was convinced she could handle it. Lilly never let me out of her life because she had a use for me. I was her intellectual boyfriend. She loved to separate things so she had a boy she was physically into and me who she was intellectually stimulated by. She always made me jealous in an intentional but subtle way, she’d talk about him
And say she wished he could be like me. I found out later from her friends that she was plotting to have sex with me over the summer to lose her virgnity, not because she loved me but because she trusted me and wasn’t worried about how I thought of her. This all took place in winter and spring, fast forwards to summer. She tried to convince me that everyone was selfish and nobody cared about anyone else; that when you help an old lady cross the street you’re doing it to feel good about yourself not to actually help her. I agreed to an extent but explained that love was also taking a play. She didn’t believe in love. I begged her to let me teach it to her through example but she wronged me (not enough time to explain) and I managed to cut her off for a month until she used a friends phone to send me a heartwarming text that was unresistable to reply to. When we finally started taking again she immediately played hard to get, but she wasn’t even playing she just didn’t care enough about me to reply soon. Eventually I fell back in love and started flirting with her, I explained that I wanted to touch her and make her feel good. She came back and told me that she told her family we were dating and that they wanted me over for dinner. I found out later that she was joking after she sent me a snapchat of her making out with her favorite drug dealer. She explained that she loved me more than him but didn’t want to jeopardize our friendship. I cut her off and found this website. There is more to this story but I don’t want anyone to cry and I need to give my thumb a wrest from typing (iPhone) so this is the end, I wish you all strength in ignoring the sociopaths in your life.
My story is pretty textbook. He and I were both married, both unhappy. He pursued me, flirted with me, made me feel beautiful and adored. He loved me with his whole heart…or so he told me. Soulmates, puzzle pieces, the perfect couple…the whole nine. When our affair was discovered his ex-wife and some friends told me that he was having affairs with multiple women, but I wouldn’t listen. He admitted to inappropriate texts, because he felt so inadequate in his marriage, and I accepted it. After my divorce he let me stay home and not work, so I could be there for my son and take care of our home. Fast forward three and a half years, tens of thousands of dollars getting my divorce, living a happy normal life with him and my teenage son, when the discard began. His feelings had changed, I had too difficult a time with his travel schedule (he’s a pilot), he was having trouble accepting my son’s father’s influence over him, and he was thinking seriously about wanting a child of his own (even though he’d been married three times). We sought counseling through our church and left for a vacation together with my son, hoping to have time to reconnect. While on vacation, I discovered that he had been cheating on me for months with five other women, including threesomes and all manner of depravity. He was using all the same lines on the new women that he used on me. Because I had his iPad for two hours, I had conversations with all the women and let them know what he was doing, so I likely messed up his little harem pretty well. It got physical when I returned with the iPad from where I had hidden, and I called the police to come. I was six hours from home, with my son as a witness to the whole situation, and no way to get to a car rental to get out. His mother, who was not present when the struggle for the iPad happened, told the police that I was lying, even though I was the one bleeding and bruised after finding out that my entire world had just collapsed. His father, who was embarrassed by what he’d just discovered about his son, drove me and my son to a car rental a half hour from where we were staying.
When I was able to get home, he made it difficult for me to get into the house to get my things. I waited til he left on a trip and moved out in two days to a storage unit. I stayed with family until I found a place to live, which I am now in the process of moving into. I am still jobless, but have some interviews lined up, and have my alimony and some savings to live on for now.
I am beyond devastated, my son is devastated and my life is completely turned upside down. I am doing a lot of praying, a lot of crying and leaning on my friends and family for support. Tomorrow he will drop off the last of my belongings that he has, and I will have a friend here to help him, because I cannot handle seeing him. When that is done, he will be blocked and deleted in every possible way, and I will have no further contact with him. His house is in the foreclosure process (a result of his most recent divorce), and I am hopeful that he will leave the area entirely once the bank evicts him. Until then, I will scan every parking lot I pull into for his truck in order to avoid bumping into him.
I am so sorry that you are hurting so much. I know a woman who was married to a psychopath airline pilot. She wrote a book. I could put you in touch (but wonder also is he the same pilot). …
Thanks….I’m so glad I found this site. It’s already helped me understand what’s happened. I think a career as a pilot would be attractive to a sociopath or psychopath, since it allows them the freedom to wreak havoc and play their little games.
Yes because they love to hide. Travel gives them the ability to do this.
My husband (of 15 years) just left me for my sociopath (ex) best friend that I have only known for 10 months.
Can I ask all of you how long was your relationship with the sociopath …. I’m worried she may take him to the altar and be my kids step mom. She’s still married but my husband just filed for divorce. I’m blindsided. I’ve only known about the affair for a month.
She played my best friend until the day I found out (accidentally, saw texts on my husbsnd phone) I’ve never heard from her again. The texts on my husbands phone from her ….. I can’t wait for you to be my new husband (she’s still married), im the luckiest girl in the world, the I love you’s (stabbed me in the heart), IM so glad you are telling your family it’s good to have it out in the open, I can’t wait to have your sexy arms around me …. Ugh and there were more.
She was the bestest friend I’d ever had. I see how she was a sociopath now. I wanted to be with her all the time. She tried separating my husband and I when we were together …. Our families were always together, she wouldnt take No for an answer, if I was upset with my husband she would charm him subtly. I noticed it sometimes and it annoyed me but she was my best friend so I let it go.
She told my husband a month ago that I am mentally unstable and that I abuse him …. So he believes this now. He is like a different person now. It’s so heartbreaking. We have kids so I have to talk to him. He’s like a puppet …. He’s trying to take the kids from me which he would never do. Ive been a stay at home mom for 15 years. Our relationship was pretty good , we weren’t headed for divorce. But she has penetrated his brain and he believes he needs to do this …. He wants it done fast and again she’s not divorced. Her husband knows about the affair. My husband is friends with him still. My husband makes more money than hers so I’m not sure what her end game is. We had an amazing life. She told me 6 weeks ago that she wanted my life … I didn’t think she really meant it.
my husband was a strong, very successful, put together guy, but now he’s lost his mind. He’s spending all our money furnishing his new apartment shopping with her (going to all her favorite high end stores) and taking her to lunch and dinners. $2000 for pots and pans at Williams Sonoma anyone?? Oh and so much more.
Is there any way to make him realize she’s a sociopath?
I don’t want this divorce.
His parents won’t talk to me now because he told them I abused him and they are loyal to their son.
I felt my husband was brainwashed and that she must be a sociopath because what kind of person can play my best friend while stealing my husband? So I googled “brainwash sociopath” and found this sight. Thank you for this information.
I was duped by her and now my husband is even moreso.
I wrote a very poignant story which could have been me / except for the ending, thank God. Every woman, mother, daughter’s nightmare. It wasn’t until I had read the kind of literature, posts here and on other sites, that I realised I have been involved with three socio/psycho/narcs/ whatever you want to call them. Why is a total mystery. Maybe I’m a hopeless romantic and they hone in on people of that disposition. But it wasn’t just me they hurt. My first husband almost destroyed out daughter with his discarding of her. Dreadful. Anyway, this is a cautionary tale. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eloise-Loving-Sociopath-Catherine-Lockwood-ebook/dp/B00K1T4NE4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1439355527&sr=1-1&keywords=eloise+loving+a+sociopath
I’m so scared I’m wrong and possibly lose the love of my life but I’m more scared to be right because I won’t have the excuse of he loves me to justify staying in a disgustingly unhealthy relationship anymore. This site has nailed him to a T, and the red flags have been blatant since day flipping one. He was arrested after our first date, his “crazy” “ex” had called the police because she was jealous he was moving on and claimed he had abused her. I felt sorry for him, I felt guilty because it was my fault she was jealous. To this day this is the only version of the story I know, but I’m positive this is not at all what really happened. We’ve been dealing with the legal ramifications ever since, he was supposed to be done with his probation this month but his stupid “bitch” probation officer hates him for no reason at all and is trying to revoke it. Since January everything in our relationship has changed, he’s cruel, ignores me, doesn’t touch me and I can’t remember the last time we had sex. He’s always full of excuses and blames his lack of interest on the stress of his upcoming court date. There have been many signs that he’s cheating, I found an active account on the dating site we had met on, the username was the same except he changed the numbers. When I confronted him on it, he told me I was wrong and that was indeed his exact username from before and that I have a terrible memory. Everything he does to hurt me is caused by some wrong I’ve done to him, he never apologizes and has me almost convinced I am indeed crazy. My biggest fear is being abondened and every time I try to bring up issues he punishes me by just leaving and telling me he doesn’t think he wants to be with me anymore, that I’m just always telling him he does everything wrong. I’ve bailed him out of jail numerous times with high bails, I bought him a car, all with promises of being paid back. When he needs my help he never asks he always presents it in a way that he’s doing me a favor. The first year of our relationship he was using H, he’s been in recovery since last March, but I fear if he does get off probation he’ll start using immediately. I’ve sadly given too much money on his habit then I’d like to admit. He’s now using subutext, a medication to help with his recovery, a medication that I unfortunetly now use regularly and am afraid to not have access to as I have learned has terrible withdrawals. I had no idea when he started having me take it that it was even what it was, I mean I knew he was using it to help with his addiction but he told me it would help with my depression and constant headaches. He use to just give it to me and now uses it as a weapon, this is of course my fault on even taking it but I truly thought he only wanted the best for me. My family has helped him in so many ways, we currently live with my parents but I’m guessing not for long as they don’t like the way he treats me. I’m afraid I’m going to lose my family. There is of course so much more I could say but ultimately even with all of this I don’t want to live without him. I love him more than anything and can’t imagine him not in my life, please help me, how did you all find the strength in yourselves to do it, because rite now I feel worthless.
Hi Scared and Alone, thank you for reaching out to us. This is the first step!!
What I want you to do, PLEASE, is to get access for drug support yourself. NOW. As soon as you can, please.
He gave you his medication deliberately, so that you would have an addiction too. Then he has further control over you and your life. Can you talk to your family about this?
You say that you love him? I am telling you that while you are in the relationship with the sociopath you do not know what or how you think/feel. Simply because they use mind control over you.
You are in a dangerous situation, and at risk of going down a hard drug pathway. (I do know that subutex is prescribed for heroin addiction). This man is never going to save you, or be the one who is there for you, but he could go on to ruin and destroy your life.
You say that you fear losing your family. I can tell you that if you choose to not allow your family to help you, continue to use his prescribed drugs, and get an addiction to that (I also want to tell you that subutex will have an impact on your looks and will rot your teeth)!! Your family might end up detaching for their own sanity and to try to help you.
You cannot fix him. He will not change. You need to know this. He won’t ‘get better’ or ‘make a recovery’. This is the way that he is. This can only get worse…. not better. The only solution to this, is to remove him from your life, and to start focusing on you and your own life. You really need help and support from a specialist drug agency for your dependency to subutex. As things could really get far worse for you. Thank you for commenting.
Hi scared and alone.. Your story hits home with me. Honey u know that eventually down the line that unless u both seek help to quit drugs it will be a down hill spiral. But if he is holding subs over your head then all u need to do is google suboxone or subutex doctors in your area and call each and every one until you find the cheapest monthlythat is accepting new patients! Just tell the doc you have been taking them andneed to get a legal script to week down properly. Voila! You don’t have to be on heroin or anything else to get that! I know from personal experience… So get your own script then make going to work and makin money your New thing. Depend on yourself day by day as much as you can until u don’t need anythin at all from him except to see the doorknob shove him in the azz. He sounds like mine in so many ways. Ill be it that u stay up crying over somethin he did and he looks at u like U have two heads then rolls over for a peaceful night sleep leaving you to pick up your own pieces..??? Has this happened?? He is not the love of your life..he is the lesson of your life.. And I am not preaching bc I also need to heed my own advice! Lol xoxox
@scared&alone, you are doing the first step, recognizing that what you are living it’s not love. You are dealing with a dangerous person so please look out for help in the appropriate places, in your case with a protection order. Expect a time as when you leave an addiction and give yourself the gift of time space and no contact…the strength will come.
It’s been one week since I ended all contact with my sociopathic pilot ex boyfriend. I haven’t cried in three days. I’m still angry, and the events of our breakup and my discovering the truth still run through my mind often, but I feel that I’m leaving it behind and have turned the corner toward healing. It’ll be a long road, but I’m on it and moving forward. Eliminating contact has been a huge step, but one that was well worth it!!
I came across this website looking for answers myself. I would share my story but honestly everything you have written here on your site rings true for me and happened to me. I wish there was a way to ‘out’ them. Even your Karma seems it was written for me. Thank you all for answering my questions about this dirtball!
Thank you and welcome to the site 🙂
I can do this too about 1 person I regrettably dated.
I know he was a pathological liar. He was narcissistic and displayed many symptoms of anti-social behavior. In short, I think he was a combination of psychopath, narcissist and charismatic sociopath. As bad a person as he was, he had friends and people seemed to like him which was very confusing. It had to be superficial charm. He mirrored what I was looking for and wanted. He had a terribly ugly side too and once that came out, it seemed to really upset people.
The claims he made:
1.) He was looking for his dream woman which was why he was on a dating website. Truth: he was an a**hole with a temper and a drinking problem who constantly lied. He loved to party and wanted a responsible woman to be seen with him, put up with him & enable him.
2.) He went to that site b/c women were after his $$$.
Truth: Women in town did not want to date HIM. I was not originally from the same town where I lived at the time. He had grown up there. Had I grown up there too, I probably would have heard stories about him, been advised to avoid him and to not trust him.
3.)He lived in a rundown home/fixer upper.
Truth: He lived in a great big house in an affluent neighborhood that his parents paid for.
4.) He didn’t like to drink
Truth: He was an alcoholic.
5.) He worked hard all day long reading and doing other noble things.
Truth: He spent his days doing nothing and things that were criminal b/c he didn’t have to work. He did this all while sitting in a house that his parents paid for.
6.) He was arrested for 2 DUIs and was asked to put a Breathalyzer unit in his car. He screamed that it would “ruin” the dash in his car.
Truth: He didn’t want people to know he had to put a Breathalyzer unit in his car which usually indicates trouble with the law.
7.) The police took his license away.
Truth: He drove anyway.
8.) He would say he wanted to take me to Shanghai to “get lost.” He also would try to lure me with nice vacations and trips to great hotels.
Truth: He never followed though on any of it so much that I began to distrust everything he said.
9.) The day before I left him, I suspect he knew that I was planning something. I went into his office where he deliberately had a picture of engagement rings up on his computer screen for me to walk in on. For a year and a half after meeting him and after claims that he wanted a family and a wife, he never did anything to try and make that a reality. Every now and then, he would say things here and there about a honeymoon or having a family to keep me interested. By the time I left him, I knew he was a liar. I knew the jewelry website was an attempt to have me believe he was interested in something he wasn’t. I ended it the next day to which he was furious.
There were so many other lies besides these.
It was highly distressing having dated a sociopath. While in his company, I had such a hard time believing that this human being did not care about anything but himself. Ultimately, my desire to help him and that fact that I felt sorry for him damaged me. I fended and supported someone who was false. At the time, I convinced myself that his substance problems were causing his lies. However, I realized I was wrong. He had substance problems maybe because he was a sociopath and it didn’t matter if he drank or not. He was still the same terrible liar with no remorse or conscience.
I never thought or knew that even being near a person that destructive could tear my life upside down, but I assure you it did.
Who knows what he said about me. I was asked to lie for him many times. He made up excuses for why it was necessary which I believed. One example was he asked me to tell people that we met at my place of employment rather than the dating website. He said he would be “embarrassed” if people heard that we met that way. I took him at his word. I have accepted that he probably told people we met through some other means and the lie was only to serve his purpose. (not b/c he was embarrassed) Never again will I ever want to be near such a person. And, I also hope that someday he gets what is coming to him. I truly do.
I hope one day he gets what is coming to him. But do you think that he would notice? Or even learn? Likely he would blame someone else for what is happening to him, as they don’t take personal responsibility for their actions. They love to shift the blame, and play victim. Yours sounds like he is SPOILED, SPOILED by his parents, given everything that he wanted in life, never having to work for anything. Is just a spoiled brat who is used to getting whatever he wants. Its doubtful he would ever learn too much as his parents would bail him out.
My mom recently came and swooped me away from my sociopath or psychopath Im not sure which he is. I am just trying to get this out. I agreed to leave him and by doing this I left my job with him he was my boss. We were also supposed to be engaged soon. We have been together 4 months and he was the best lover I ever had and I thought my new best friend. He seemed like a harmless boy, very funny, creative and attentive. He said it was love at first sight. Our fights started pretty soon within a month he started to put me down call me stupid, whore, trash, cunt, shrew, his exs name which was my middle name and say I made him want to puke and hit me although he said he never would. One particularly scary evening he was angry with me because my feelings were hurt and he got out his gun to scare me. He swears he was suicidal. His roommate moved out and he blamed me and he insisted I move in but I wouldn’t because I wanted him to stop yelling at me and putting me down. I had never experienced this before and thought he could get better because I thought he had been abused as a kid. This is the second time I left him. After I came back the first time he promised to get help and cried sorry hed ever hurt me but within two weeks after him screaming in my ears that I was a broken child and he hoped my first baby died he told me the next morning that everything had always been my fault and he lied about wanting therapy and I should except it was me making him scream at me because of my insecurities. He had also made jokes that made fun of my body and always insisted it was a joke. He knew I had anorexic tendencies. He also made fun of me for being raped in public and humiliated me. He has threatened my friends and posted terrible things about me on facebook and left the windows open for me to lose my cats blaming it on the maintenance man. He has tried to knock me off my bike and steal my bike since I wasn’t ready to move in with him. He is now claiming I am just a drunk to everyone he can talk to. Somehow I still miss him and feel heartbroken. I think I am just too in shock about what to do. He would never let me spend a second away from him. If I did go out he would accuse me of cheating even with women. It also scares me terribly he hurt an animal as a child. I know I cant have kids with him or even pets. Still I battle in my head if I am just crazy like he insists. Soon Ill have to go back home and I know he will show up. A part of me is afraid to get a restraining order because that I fear could be his snapping point. So far he has only bit me and scared me with the gun. I still get his texts he says we will just be friends for six months and see a therapist till I trust him again and he will be patient because we are soul mates.
Chloe this man is a bully and is not your soul mate. He uses this to keep control of you. This man is a bully, abusive, with no respect for you. You deserve so much more than this chloe. It wont get better. It will only get worse.
Thanks for the encouragement. I’m home , now dating and friends with this man I’ll call S secretly. He is acting perfect again it’s very confusing and I’m still afraid I’ll try to flirt with others but when I have a bad experience I can’t resist him . I have to really leave him soon or I fear losing my mom and friends who have hellped i. m me. He says he’s in therapy and cried a lot saying he wishes he never hurt me . He’s on a work trip without me calling all the. time
I haven’t been in contact with my sociopath in 8 days. I started dating and have been very lucky with support from friends. I found out a friend I was very in love with wanted to date again and I feel very happy and grateful to truely talk and feel cared for. I’m never going back. I’m free. I’m still vulnerable and emotional but I’m walking into the future the genuine future 🙂
Hi!
So today I saw my ex socio at the office again, and my heart just has been racing the whole evening. I don’t know why I am still not over the whole thing yet, it’s been 2 months since I ve been discarded. So I m gonna share my story here and see if that helps.
So, it started in about Feb, 8 months ago. She is a coworker, and works closely with the team which sits next to my team. She is extremely extrovert, charming, extremely charming, I should say. My general policy has been, never to get involved with anyone in the office, to which I had stuck strongly. At the time, and in general, I am a very confident guy, charismatic myself, and people enjoy their time around me. I dont know if thats why she caught me,.. but now i think about that time and keep asking “why me?”…
In the initial phase, she just went on and on, about why do i not date this girl and why not that girl.,. and i said, most of the times, that I dont want to date someone from the office. But she kept insisting, you should date this girl etc. Which was surprising to me, since we dint know each other much. In some ways I remember asking myself, why is she showing interest in me, among all these guys around here. To be honest, it flattered me too. After a few days the questions turned into, ‘so what kinda girl do you want to date?’.. now i realize that that was the assessing phase, in which i gave out a lot, which she later used. Then after, she frequently used to come to the office, and used to sit next to my table. I found it little weird, but more flattering. She started telling me everything going on in her daily life, most of the times without me asking. I was trying to stick to my rule of no-dating-in-office, and resisting personal conversations with her. I even said a few times, I want to be professional with everyone in the office, and gave her reasons why I dont do personal talks with the coworker. But slowly, she tried to convince me, why it was okay to have personal conversations with the coworkers. And with her confidence, and charm I started to doubt myself.
She scheduled dinners with me, and i kind of forced her to bring few coworkers, just so as to make sure its not a ‘date’.
I resisted for months to open up and talk freely, but she was there, every day. I used to work late, and she was there late with me. A lot of times, now, even when my work was done, I started finding myself sitting there, talking with her till 2 o’clock in the morning, just not-to-be rude. Then I remember thinking to myself, ‘she is sitting there talking with you, so late, about everything in her life,.. seems like she really likes you, and she is putting in so much efforts and you are the one being an asshole and resisting.’, she is quite honestly pretty, and successful. Then after those thoughts, I decided, I am going to try and date her.
Then I started going on dinners with her, and sending hints, you know the way you do to test the water. And in every situation, she just gave positive signal. And I got more and more drawn in.
Now, we never officially dated, we never slept together, but the long long conversations just made me get attached to her so bad! I should mention, she has a boyfriend. Now, while talking, always she pretended the boyfriend was only for a year or so, the relationship was falling apart, they hardly ever had sex anymore etc etc, She even said that they are about to breakup. But they were also in the process of buying a house together, which dint add up, but I dont know why my mind dint catch that! somehow I just overlooked it. It eventually turned out, that they have been together for more than 6 years.
At the very same time, she was also talking with this guy from Dublin online, and always told me about him. I thought he was like a pen friend to her. Some of the other things she mentioned were
1. She has sex with guys, and once she is ‘done with them’, she behaves as if they dont exist.
2. She did that with a guy in her previous job, and he couldnt let go and acted weird, so they had to fire him, with a shrug.
All this, while she had the current boyfriend. I dont know why i overlooked this too. She even constantly lied. I tried to encourage her not to lie, because I thought, she was lying to be nice, or as a defense mechanism, since, working in all male offices could some times be hard.
Now we have been having awesome time for over 3 months. And i am completely hooked. I have never had such awesome time with anyone. I also remember thinking to myself, that i have never been with someone for so many months without even a single fight.
The biggest thing happened, when she decided to meet this guy from dublin in NY. To me, it seemed like a vacation, so i said, i would like to come too. So we both went, had a lovely first day. The next day she hung out with the guy from dublin, and i wandered NY. But when she wasnt responding to her phone, by evening, i got worried, since, he was essentially a stranger. So I went to the hotel, and walked on them having sex. And my mind was blown.
The next day we came back, and she told me the other guy had called her 5 times and she dint respond. After coming to seattle, that guy was messaging and messaging, but i saw some evil enjoying smile on her face when she read those messages, but she dint respond. Apparently he was getting discarded. And when I questioned all this weirdness, I got discarded.
Later i found she has done this to many many guys, for years.
It was such a short time. And i should be over it. I understand she is a negative person. But i cannot stop thinking about her. “that time was so nice”, “maybe its because her mom was a sociopath. If i talk with her nicely, and ask her to get help, maybe she ll change”, “her boyfriend should know about how horrible she is”, “what can i do so that she doesnt do this to anyone else”… on and on and on… Since this was not as bad as what some other people face, I dont know why I cant get over it.
I hope writing this down here, would help! Actually I already feel better, and my heart has slowed down, which was racing for hours.
I totally relate to the looking back and wondering how I could have glossed over the red flags!
Hello everyone,
I am not sure who this girl was that I dated but I know something was wrong with her. We met online and she and I got along great however I notice that she moved very quickly and wanted to have sex with me soon. She put a lot of emphasis on being physical with me rather than wanting to know me as a person. She used her sexual desires as a way to mentally screw with me and it doesn’t help when I am a virgin. I knew something was wrong and after 2 months she told me she was confused and that she was still in love with her ex. she. I told her we can’t see each other anymore she when ahead and asked if things worked out between us in the next 6-8 months could we get married. She was also not legal citizen in this country and is sponsored to stay here. I told her to move on and she would still text me time to time even though I told her we shouldn’t be talking. This last week she texted me and wanted to get back together and then the very next day says she did not mean it and that she was just upset. She went back to a man who left her and broke my heart. She only wanted to be with me for sex so she could get over him. She lied to me, manipulated me, and she has no concsious of what she is doing. She doesn’t care about anyone but herself. Either this person is severely immature or she has an issue. Either way I hope I smart enough next time to cut my losses and run.
I am new here, wondering if I’m in the right spot. Maybe I can get some feedback? My current husband and I were both in dead marriages in the Fall of 2008 when we met via his post on Craigslist. We met, we were immediately drawn together. He bounced back to his wife a few times over a 5 month period and then we were finally together. It all started out like a dream, great sex, very affectionate, treating me like his “fairytale princess” he was much more sexually adventurous than I ever was and he asked me if if I would be interested in going to swingers functions, but only interacting with each other or me with another female while he was there. I went for it and it remained just us being together or sometimes me with another female while they guys looked on. About a year into the relationship, I found a condom in the back seat of his truck. I was devastated. He lied and said he had been masterbating in his truck on his way to work and wore a condom to keep it clean. I bought it, but soon stumbled on some emails that lead me to believe something else was up and I confronted him. He admitted to putting ads on CL to have MEN perform oral sex on him. Long story short, we went to a sex addiction counselor and to sexaholics anonymous meeting for a few months. He told me that he had been doing this in his previous marriage as well but had never been found out.
We continued to live together and he told me he would do anything to regain my trust. Then there was a postcard in the mail from the courts for an appearance for indecent exposure. I confronted him and he said he had been with another guy in a parking lot and got busted. He went to court and was given probation and was told that this wouldn’t stay on his record, and it didn’t. He had no further issues that I know about as far as getting caught, but who knows what he was actually doing. I was so I love with him that I was willing to work through all of this. He told our counselor that he had been sexually abused by a male cousin. The counselor said that he was acting out with men because of the abuse, so it was like I gave him a free pass. The swingers lifestyle was some thing I told him I wanted no more of after this and he agreed.
So fast forward a bit, we continue to date and I have trust issues with him so we wait to get married. I finally feel like I’m in a better place and tell him I’m ready in 2012 and we were married in Vegas. The last 2 years have been slowly declining and he has tuned into someone I never knew existed. Some examples are bullet-pointed below
1. Got physical with my 17 year old son, shoving him to the ground and tellng me I was to blame. That I pushed him to his breaking point. Mind you this was all about a bagel that was thrown on the floor, my son walked past it and my husband tossed it and was furious. I asked for clarification from my husband and he took this as me not being on his side and pushing him into a confrontation with my son. To this day, will not apologize to my son even though I told him it was important to ME to have that happen. My son moved in with his dad after this incident.
2. Telling me more than once that I was acting like or was a cunt. He NEVER would have spoken to me like this before. This is a man who opens doors for me and bought me flowers, planned great dates, etc.
3. Was hysterically crying and blaming me for ruining his chance to get a bird dog and hunt with his son. I bought a dog when we already had multiples and he didn’t want another. His reaction was way over the top and he said he’d never forgive me for ruining that opportunity to bond with his son.
4. Told me he believed I purposely ran my car into the ditch so I could get him to come on a night he was out with friends. Went back and looked for skid marks on the road and when he didn’t see any, he told me that he believed I ditched it on purpose.
5. Never takes much personal responsibility or blame for anything that goes wrong in his life. It’s always someone else’s fault why HE did or feels something.
6. His 10 year old son heard him say something out of context about wanting to live alone than with my dogs. His son felt that his dad didn’t want to live with HIM. So I tell my husband that he might wan to pull his son aside and explain that what he heard wasn’t what he meant. He blew up and started ranting and raving about “why can’t anyone ever hear me and think something GOOD!? Why does everyone assume I’m the asshole?! I’m so sick of this shit!” I calmly told him that there was a hurt little boy that needed clarification. He slammed the door of the shower and I went and told his son the truth and that he misunderstood. Went back and told my husband that I smoothed it over
7. We had started arguing and at the advice of my counselor, I told him Thai it seemed like it was getting heated so I would like to talk about it later and left the bedroom. He yelled after me and I said I didn’t wan to keep fighting. He screamed that it was OK for me to say what I wanted but that when HE wanted to speak, it was not alright and he pounded down the steps after me. I went into the garage and to my car for safety and he pinned my leg between the car and the door as I was halfway in. He would let me out and wouldn’t let me get in. I had a huge bruise on my leg the next day. Even went to the police station to see what my options were and to cover my ass the next day. They told me that if I was going to tell them that someone laid a hand on me, they’d be obligated to make an arrest, so I left because that would have made it worse.
I told him in June I wanted a divorce and he was angry for about 2 days and then he suggested that we live in separate houses since a lot of our problems stemmed from being in the same home. He says lots of people live different lifestyles and wondered if that could work for us. I was actually thinking this was a great idea. I was still in love with him, but was tired of him bitching about our dogs, complaining about me being in a bad mood, and I was tired of seeing his mess, his kids’ messes, etc. so we actually are living in 2 houses but remain married. It’s been 3 weeks and he has been going out a lot with friends, ignoring or giving me really delayed responses to texts. This wasn’t the way I hoped this would go. I told him how hard to was to not hear a goodnight or good morning every day as we had for years. I told him I thought it would be nice if we could at least text that every day. He replied when I said it, but in that 10 days, never said it to me. So when we saw each other yesterday, I said I needed that from him. He went nuts saying how I was placing rule on him and that we weren’t supposed to have rules, etc etc.. I told him it wasn’t a rule, just some thing I need. ” if you’re fucking holding me accountable, then it’s a rule! I’ll set a fucking alarm, cause you know me, I’ll forget. So let me set and alarm right fucking now” he says. So as he’s speeding down the road he’s settig an alarm ams telling me to make a list of other “things I need form him and things he’s screwing up or NOT doing for me”. He was so angry and irritated that I just blurted out that I didn’t want to see or hear from him for 30 days. That’s where it stands now, as this was all yesterday. So why am I so desperate to be with someone who doesn’t treat me the way he used to, respectfully? Why am I so depressed and worried about where he is and what he’s been up to? I know he’s unhealthy for me but I still want him! Any words of wisdom? I doubt I will last 30 days without initiating contact.
Cat, you don’t need a 30 day break; you need a divorce. Your husband is violent and unstable and he’s escalating. He’s not going to magically go back to being sweet and loving and buying flowers and opening doors. Maybe temporarily, but it won’t last. He’ll continue to resort back to his angry outbursts and the violence will get worse. Every time he gets away with hurting you or your children, the boundaries of what’s acceptable get wider for him. He will continue to excuse his bad behavior and blame you until you are emotionally and physically beaten down and have no escape. If you do manage to get away, you’ll need years of therapy to recover from the damage he’s done. Take advantage of the opportunity you have now, living in separate homes, to disconnect from him. You’re addicted to the highs and lows of the relationship. It’s a rush and you’re just waiting for him to be wonderful again, thinking if you just do or say this one thing right, everything will go back to the way it was, but it won’t. Get counseling, gather the support of your friends and family, and get yourself away from him for the safety of yourself and your kids.
Thanks For the advice Kristine. I was so close to calling him or going over to his house, then I read this. It’s helping me recall the truth. He won’t change. I know this deep down. I told my therapist I’m hanging on to such a tiny piece of hope, but the other part of me is waiting to catch h screwing up so I can say…”There! Now I’m out of here!” She reminded me I’ve had plenty of other “gotcha” moments and I’m still there. Sad but true.
I’m glad you didn’t call him. To him this is a about power and control. As soon as you call, he’s back in control. Stay strong. Although, I’m not sure your husband is a sociopath, this site has tons of information and many people who can offer insight and support for dealing with controlling and abusive people. Journal all the abuse and when you’re feeling weak, read over what you wrote. We tend to let go or “forgive” their bad behavior and it just gives them permission to keep doing it to us. Use this time to emotionally disconnect, so you can take the next steps to getting free from him completely. There are good men out there who will treat you with love and respect. And, don’t be too concerned with his next relationship. As someone once told me “They don’t change who they are just because they’re with someone else.” I wish you all the best!
You and the children need to remove yourselves from the situation. Regardless of what in his past may or may not have set him on this path, none of you deserve this kind of treatment!! My ex-socio claimed an uncle had molested him, but who knows what stories were true and which were created to keep me in the web. Bottom line, you deserve a fresh start! Get out while the getting’s good!
Susan,
What I worry about are his kids, my step kids. I feel like I’m walking out on them. They’re 12 and 10 and I’ve been in their lives since 3 and 5! That’s a tough one for me. When I asked for a divorce, I asked if he’d let me see the kids. He said as long as they wanted it, he would never interfere. He actually is a pretty decent dad to them. I just worry because his son is a liar like he is and he said it scared him that his son was so much like him, which tells me he KNOWS he’s sick and unstable.
Well, the choice is yours with the children. If he is ok, but be aware that later down the line he might use this to hurt you further, that is a tough one I don’t know what I would do. I would probably try to have a relationship with the children, but think how will you feel when he is with someone new?
@Cat, I don’t know if he is or not a sociopath (he have almost all the traits), but I know you are insde an abusive relationship and you need to act now. He is trying to control and hurt you. Forget about the pause and please begin to search for help. You are doing the first step to regain your sanity, what is ahead it’s no easy, but be sure that it will be better than what you are living right now. Best regards.
Nomoreinsanity…..
I know that there would be a better life for me, but I am so sucked in by him. He is stubborn and I know he will not be the one to break the no contact. It will be me, he’ll see me as weak and prey on me even more. I just need to keep that in mind and stay strong and hold my ground. Thanks
And it’s not just that there are good men out there. It’s that you are far, far better off with NO man than with a bad man.
I have been living solo for 15 years now and enjoy being strong and independent. It gets lonely sometimes but it’s worth it to always be able to look in the mirror and respect the person I see.
I am so blessed that I was only entangled with J for three months. The breakup was hard because I had seen him as the answer to over a decade of praying for a good Christian husband. We seemed to be such a perfect fit together, and I could envision a thriving, exciting, satisfying life full of love with him. After I found out who he really is, I would cry to my friends that I was HAPPY before I met J, but they remind me that I will be happy again as soon as the grief is gone. I just need to mourn the lost dream.
I am keeping myself busy with the projects that I set aside to help J when I thought we were going to be partners for life. It’s nice to be able to look at the things I’ve accomplished and to remind myself that I don’t need to have a man to be complete.
I still obsess about him sometimes. I want to convince myself that he’s just an alcoholic, not a sociopath, so that there’s hope for him. But that’s his FAMILY’S problem, not mine. If they want to do an intervention that’s on them. The only way I would even remotely consider contact with J is if I first heard from an AA sponsor that J was active in AA and working on his 12 steps and wanted to make amends to me — but even then I would proceed with extreme caution and want to first see that J had made amends to the people he’d hurt so badly before he even met me. AND I would want him to have probably a year of sobriety.
Fat chance of any of that happening.
If he is a sociopath he will always be a nightmare drinking or not, sadly granny
I know that if he is a sociopath that any amount of sobriety will only make him a sober sociopath. It IS possible that alcoholism is producing symptoms of sociopathy, and that sobriety will bring him back to himself if that is the case.
Either way, it’s not my problem but his family’s problem. I just like having the idea of a set of hoops he would have to jump through if he wanted to have a snowball’s chance in Hell of ever speaking to me again, and having it in a form that requires a TRUSTWORTHY go-between. I feel more in control, because the small part of me that wants him back can say, “Well, he can PROVE himself if he wants to come back. And he can prove himself to an AA sponsor. And I can still reserve the right to relay the message through that AA sponsor that J can go pound sand.”
It’s a crutch for me:
* IF he makes total amends to the live-in girlfriend he’s cheating on.
* IF he makes amends to his family for all the lies.
* IF he makes amends to his tenants
* IF he shows that he’s getting his life on line by fixing up all those rental units, getting SCREENED tenants into them, and following landlord-tenant law by doing things such as putting the security deposits in an escrow account.
* IF he actually sells all those cars he has accumulated but never drives
* IF he has all the cars he actually drives in good working order, none of this business with stuff like spit-and-bailing-wire repairs on the BMW’s throttle linkage
* IF he consistently wears a motorcycle helmet and provides EVERY passenger with a DOT approved helmet EVERY TIME (and he gets rid of the purely cosmetic helmet he had me wearing when we first went riding together)
* IF he does something to make up for the way he uses the soup kitchen as a place to pick up vulnerable young women (Not sure what that particular part of making amends would look like, but that’s not my problem.)
* IF he goes to the churches he was using as camouflage to convince women he was a trustworthy Christian man and confesses to the ENTIRE CONGREGATION and asks the entire congregation for forgiveness
IF his AA sponsor checks all these things to make sure they’ve been done and done consistently THEN I will CONSIDER allowing contact.
This is a way of reminding myself of all the harm he has done to other people and how self-destructive his life really is. Any attempt at contact can be rejected with, “This is not an AA sponsor,” and I can go over the list in my mind of the things the AA sponsor would have to be able to prove to me that J has completed.
I know he’ll never change and he’ll never do these things. I just use them as a way to remind myself how nasty a piece of work he is and that this isn’t something he can just say, “Oops! My bad!” and consider everything copacetic. If every time I’m tempted to allow contact I run through the list, I put myself back in control and remind myself of why there is NO CONTACT.
hey Granny,
first, positivagirl is so so right… sociopaths when sober are no better. sometimes worse. addiction is a symptom they hide behind, but it’s not the problem. drnking and using are just a way for them to act out their negative energy and blame their behavior on something else besides themselves, but they have that negative energy in them no matter what, the substances don’t cause it.
AA is actually something i have had to deal with all my life from the sociopathic experiences in my life, it was a part of my childhood and was something i had to deal with again a few years ago. this may not be a popular thing for me to share, and i apologize if AA has helped anyone here, but i do caution anyone be careful with anything to do with AA. if you research the organization and truly look deep into the belief systems, it’s a pretty messed up organization
especially as a woman, the views towards women are really unhealthy – see “Chapter 8 – The Wives”, it’s basically literature trying to manipulate women into believing that it’s their duty to accept being treated terribly and even that it’s their responsibility to “nurture and fix an abusive man”. the founder of AA was a complete sociopath… liar, cheater, manipulator, and none of that stopped in his sobriety. i wont go into all my issues with AA cause it would be a whole book, and i don’t want to offend anyone who has found help with recovery through AA, but i will just say take into consideration that it’s a belief system created from the mind of a sociopath, so you have to realize where it’s all coming from, and from my experience with it, AA gives sociopaths even more manipulation tools and more excuses to be they way they are, and to not take responsibility for themselves. just one example, think about how much a sociopath thrives off of the amends process… they hurt people because it’s what they do, but then they go around making these dramatic amends and getting attention for “how much they’ve grown” and their bad behavior is excused. amends give sociopaths a new way to manipulate people into trusting them. they haven’t grown, and they don’t mean it. the amends process is just another tool for them to keep behaving badly. if he is sociopath, AA won’t change him, and could make him worse.
so whether he is using, in AA, sober, whatever… you deserve so much better. you shouldn’t have to be with someone who has to jump through hoops to learn to be a good person… you deserve just to be loved by someone who is good because that’s who they naturally are 🙂 and yes ma’am stick to that no contact ❤
I’m so sorry you had such a bad experience with AA. If somebody’s making amends in a melodramatic way then that’s not making amends; it’s putting on a show.
My big thing is keeping the hoops in mind, because I know J will jump through them the day an AA sobriety chip melts under a recovering alcoholic’s tongue. Which will be when pigs fly. Though, come to think about it, a flying pig is probably more likely than J doing what he needs to do in order to be a decent, worthwhile human being.
All of this is really spot on. 7 years the fool. Also
Rage fits and abuse. We have a child together. I finally
Got the courage to call the police to end the abuse and he was able to convince the police that I was the abuser. I went to jail, 21 days away from my baby. I am on probation. He told me that he was friends with the DA and I should take the plea deal because they wanted to give me 7 years. I have since talked with an attorney ALL LIES! I feel so trapped and I am in many ways, my child my freedom and he knows this so he doesn’t bother with the game anymore. If I show that I am hurt or upset it seems to feed him. I am slowly saving money and I don’t share anything with him anymore. Also I smile when I don’t feel like it and I don’t advocate or ask for anything for myself. I don’t ever want to be in another relationship again. I don’t trust myself. I have enough energy for my darling boy and survival.
Oh gosh that is awful Lily. The lengths that they go to to try to prove you the person who they are. It is like a distorted twisted mirror. I am sorry. Hope you are ok.
I’ve lost so much of the progress I’ve made — I went to church this morning, the place I should have been safest, and J was there with the live-in-lay! Just as smug and smarmy as ever!
I had spoken to the pastor about this, and I’d been gearing myself up emotionally to have J show up and try to sit next to me as if nothing had ever happened. But the pastor just walked up to J and exchanged a few evidently friendly words with him then came to me and asked me what I wanted. I said I wanted J gone. Pastor said he wasn’t “comfortable” with sending J away. I left, but as I was driving off I got so angry I went back. That’s MY church home and they should be supporting me. It got really ugly because I just walked in and confronted J right in front of the whole congregation while he sat there all smug. One of the lay leaders escorted me to a quiet room and heard me out and said that Pastor B just needed time to pray and study and talk to people. They were treating this like it was just J and I had a problem with each other.
I pointed out that J had not been frequenting this church at all and then suddenly she’s showing up with the live-in-lay (a woman he mistreats and badmouths and just keeps around for the money and sex) and I’m NOT asking them to turn aside a lost sinner but to NOT LET THIS MAN COME IN AND ABUSE ME IN THEIR CHURCH. His very presence — strolling in with the LiL as bold as brass — is his way of rubbing it into my face that he’s still living with LiL, still sleeping with her, and the congregation is peachy with how he treats LiL and how he treats me.
Fortunately there was a guest pastor today and the pastor joined us and I pointed out that I am NOT asking them to punish J or take revenge on him — that in fact I’m communicating with J’s daughter about her arranging a D&A intervention for him. But that they have a responsibility to me to keep me safe and to J to STOP ENABLING HIM.
I said that I would gladly pick up LiL and bring her to church if she wants to come, even though that would mean pulling into J’s driveway, because LiL is a sad, broken woman who needs love and help. But that J is another matter entirely. HE is his own god, and he’s not there to worship.
Pastor said he’d “keep moving forward” and get in touch with me this week. But emotionally I’m a wreck.
I told them I’d be glad to meet with pastor, lay leaders, higher-ups in the denomination — and if they wanted to include J in those meetings, so be it. But I can not even TRY to go to worship service at a place where the leadership and congregation are enabling him in his sin, especially when that sin involves harming TWO women simultaneously with his mere presence there. I reminded them that there is SCRIPTURAL calling to banish J from the congregation, to make sure EVERYBODY knows that until he repents he is no longer welcome. That he is to be turned away at the door. I’m NOT asking something unreasonable. It’s right in the Bible. No, the apostles didn’t use the term, “No enabling,” but that’s clearly what they were saying. Cast them off so that they might bottom out or be left to suffer the consequences of their sins on their own.
I’m mad at myself for letting it get to me, but I never dreamed that the pastor woudn’t stand up for me if J showed up. My friend Deb had to work today but she told me this evening she wished she’d been there because she WOULD have stood up for me and told J to take his lies and cruelty elsewhere.
Now I’m back to crying and obsessing and I’m so angry with everybody involved, but mostly with the pastor for dragging his butt about this and putting off dealing with it. I pointed out that when J came two weeks ago with LiL and nobody called him out, he was greenlit to continue the behavior.
See? I’m rambling on again.
The church has a responsibility to stand by the hurting and to defend them against predators. If J wants to be back among the congration, he needs to repent and confess and NOT be allowed to just shoot God the finger on Sundays while everybody pretends that’s okay.
You played right into his hands. He wanted to bait you and make you mad and start drama at the church because he relishes the thought of everyone thinking you’ve lost your mind. He wants them all to know you’re the crazy one and you played right into his hands. It doesn’t matter if that’s your church, your school, your grocery store, your park, or your friends. If he’s there, you need to simply leave. No reaction is the biggest slap in the face to these people. Once you’ve lost control of your emotions, they’re back in control. Take a break from church or find a new one, but I recommend avoiding ALL contact. Saying you’ll take LIL to church is just continuing to put yourself in harms way. Save yourself by removing yourself from his world.