by 12quiet21 » Sat May 28, 2011
In my late teens I dated a boy and ended the relationship. He was angry and made my life at work unpleasant. I began receiving phone calls within the store and at home but this was in the days prior to caller identification. I didn't link him to the calls. A few years later I am attacked from behind in a parking garage after work. I didn't see the face of my assailant. I quit my job. Over the course of the years I received phone calls to the point where I disconnected my phone and obtained an unpublished number. The calls stopped. Thirty years pass and the boy from my youth is now a man, he contacts me via my work email and apologizes for his behavior. We begin talking and eventually dating. In retrospect, I see the control issues and problems from the beginning. He sent flowers every week, gifts, and was very ardent and intent. It was different from any relationship I had ever encountered. He was quick to say I love you, quick to want a commitment. I didn't, and kept fairly good boundaries but found my self esteem lowering due to the subtle put downs and push/pull behaviors. During the course of the years he became enmeshed with my family and was always wonderful to my son. We discussed my stalker of the past and he would bring it up occasionally, ask questions about it, and then would say "it is obvious I could never be a stalker because of my voice, it is so distinct". I remember fleetingly thinking-the voice was distinct and reminded me of him. But I pushed the thought away. He later told me he thought of me frequently over the years and told me I was the only girl he ever really loved. During the last three months of our three year relationship-I caught him in lies and his behavior became increasingly odd. He was angry, sullen, and I withdrew-he would try charming me again. We broke up, he was having an affair with a woman half his age. The oddest part of this relationship was how charming and smooth he was but had a history of broken marriages, frequent job changes, and unstable relationships-I knew none of this. On the day he broke up with me, he said horrible things that made no sense to me.He never said good bye to my son or children. Although he wrote my son a kind letter-one would never know the sick comments he made to me on the day we broke up. It is only after reading about psychopathy that it ties together. I felt emotionally and spiritually drained toward the end of the relationship. He at first mirrored to me that he was a family man and stable-but his stories and behavior were not congruent. I fell in love with an illusion. What was most chilling on the day we broke up is this-he looked at me and his eyes void of any expression and he said "I will use this woman and when I am done with her-I will dump her", he also said "It isn't about wonderful or relationships, it is all about money, sex and power-I have all three". He is wealthy but had never talked like this before. He also suggested I wrap my car around a tree and told me he could give or take the relationship all along. He would not give me a second thought and laughed and told me there was no way I could ever compare to this young woman. He also told me he loved me and wanted to be friends. 
This was such an opposite of the person I thought I knew. What is even more chilling is this-he wrote and told me that I brought this on myself for ending our relationship when we were kids. Who carries a grudge like this for thirty years? He has since relocated to another state with this woman. Funny, I am not jealous of her-I realize she is vulnerable and his next victim. What is odd is this-the phone calls started with the hang ups from the area code he lives. Occasionally I would see him driving past my place of work. He does business in another county and I know he flies in from the state he lives in to conduct his business-but my place of work is over one hundred miles away from his business.
I suspect he was my stalker.He used to bring up the fact that I dumped him, the only woman who had ever dumped him. I remember discussing this with him and telling him who we are at twenty is very different than at fifty. I also shared with him that I was young, inexperienced and sorry to have hurt him. I now suspect he was working out his rage toward me and found me during a vulnerable stage of my life. I was going through a long, drawn out divorce from my husband of over twenty years. I have gone through the worst time of my life in terms of being confused, heart broken, and feeling shame. I also know-he leaves all his relationships with the woman feeling absolutely devastated-his sister shared this with me. His mother and sister have since told me he is a psychopath-has been diagnosed one but refused to get the help he needs. Truthfully, had they told me this in the beginning-I would not have believed them, he was so perfect-almost too perfect which was unnerving.
I went from asking him to get help, to telling him we could not be friends, to writing him for closure-in hindsight this was a mistake. I only gave over my power every time I sought validation of my emotional experience. All I really hoped for was an apology-it never came. I finally emailed him when I realized the best solution was no contact-and told him he was an abusive man with mental health issues. He raged at me and threatened me.
I am left saddened to know someone could be so vindictive and sick and how creepy it is that I allowed someone like him in my life. I am working on healing my mental health, it has been a slow process. I am also working on letting go of the shame of being involved with someone so sick. It takes time. Thanks for listening.
Although I did not suffer a nervous break down-I did lose almost one and a half years of my life grieving and trying to get my mind back together. It was horrid.
This was such an opposite of the person I thought I knew. What is even more chilling is this-he wrote and told me that I brought this on myself for ending our relationship when we were kids. Who carries a grudge like this for thirty years? He has since relocated to another state with this woman. Funny, I am not jealous of her-I realize she is vulnerable and his next victim. What is odd is this-the phone calls started with the hang ups from the area code he lives. Occasionally I would see him driving past my place of work. He does business in another county and I know he flies in from the state he lives in to conduct his business-but my place of work is over one hundred miles away from his business.
I suspect he was my stalker.He used to bring up the fact that I dumped him, the only woman who had ever dumped him. I remember discussing this with him and telling him who we are at twenty is very different than at fifty. I also shared with him that I was young, inexperienced and sorry to have hurt him. I now suspect he was working out his rage toward me and found me during a vulnerable stage of my life. I was going through a long, drawn out divorce from my husband of over twenty years. I have gone through the worst time of my life in terms of being confused, heart broken, and feeling shame. I also know-he leaves all his relationships with the woman feeling absolutely devastated-his sister shared this with me. His mother and sister have since told me he is a psychopath-has been diagnosed one but refused to get the help he needs. Truthfully, had they told me this in the beginning-I would not have believed them, he was so perfect-almost too perfect which was unnerving.
I went from asking him to get help, to telling him we could not be friends, to writing him for closure-in hindsight this was a mistake. I only gave over my power every time I sought validation of my emotional experience. All I really hoped for was an apology-it never came. I finally emailed him when I realized the best solution was no contact-and told him he was an abusive man with mental health issues. He raged at me and threatened me.
I am left saddened to know someone could be so vindictive and sick and how creepy it is that I allowed someone like him in my life. I am working on healing my mental health, it has been a slow process. I am also working on letting go of the shame of being involved with someone so sick. It takes time. Thanks for listening.
Although I did not suffer a nervous break down-I did lose almost one and a half years of my life grieving and trying to get my mind back together. It was horrid.
by colibri » Sun Jan 16, 2011
Im new to this forum, and I havet ever belonged to any kind of online discussion group before, but I think maybe sharing my story in a safe way will help me. Maybe my story will help someone else too?
I read somewhere in the guidelines to keep postings short. My story seems like it's kind of long. Im not sure how to make it shorter. I hope it is okay...
It never would have occurred to me to label my husband a sociopath, and when shortly after our marriage he started belittling me and overtly trying to control me and just plain being self absorbed and mean, I didnt know what to think. All I knew was that I was heartbroken, and I wanted to cry all the time. I couldn't believe that someone I loved so deeply, who had treated me with warmth and kindness for so many years could suddenly take such pleasure in knowingly and deliberately causing me heartache. It was as if over the course of a few weeks the loving man I married changed into someone else with completely different mannerisms, goals, and values. I was beside myself, but also too shocked to know what to think or even say anything to anyone.
To summarize what happened, in the first few months we were married, he convinced me to quit my job, close my business, leave a life I loved and all my friends to move to a city where I just have not been able to create a good life for myself. All the while he did this while alternating between expressing general contempt for me and lavishing me with affection. Sometimes he took pleasure in hurting my feelings. Sometimes he told me how wonderful I was and how much he loved me. I knew that the move and changes he proposed would not be healthy or good for me, but he preyed on my strong belief in honoring my marriage vows. Either I had to leave him and break our vows, which would represent a great failure on my part, or I had to give up everything else I valued. Of course that isnt how he convinced me. He convinced me by turning on the charm and asking me to trust him. He asked had he ever done anything before to hurt me or undermine my trust in him? (The answer was yes but I didnt yet see it that way.)
He told me I just couldnt see how bad our life really was and how much better it would be if I trusted him and made all these changes in my life. I loved him. We had a history together of many years of what I thought was a good and loving relationship. I had been genuinely happy for all those years. They are the happiest years of my life. He told me that he needed to make these changes because he was miserable and his life was terrible. He asked me how I could face myself if I put my needs before his need to be happy. He pulled out all the stops. He promised me that our new life in our new city would be everything I wanted and more and better. I was heartbroken that the life we had built together, that I was so satisfied with and thought he was too, was such a great source of misery for him. I was just plain heartbroken. And I see now, I had been manipulated and manipulated again until I couldn’t see straight. I agreed to move with him.
After settling into our new apartment in our new town I was miserable. I was angry. I was confused. I felt like I had let myself down, and it was dawning on me that something was terribly wrong. I had been manipulated. I had surrendered and allowed myself to become completely financially and emotionally dependent on someone I was realizing I simply couldn't trust. Still I never in a million years would have thought to label my husband a sociopath, and I never would have thought that he had a psychological pathology that was driving him to treat me that way.
I can be a pretty single minded person when I see I've made a mistake or when I feel I have something to learn in my life. I’m ashamed of that part of myself. In my personal life my single-mindedness and need to understand and solve things in my relationships is not a very healthy coping mechanism, and I have hurt many people I love in the name of trying to understand and fix things. Still I felt like I needed to understand what I had misunderstood about my husband and our relationship in order to get my life back on track. I felt I needed answers about what was going on so that I could heal and start to trust my husband again. I never imagined what I would discover.
Without accusing him or calling him out, I started asking him all kinds of questions about any inconsistencies I saw in his promises and stories about himself. When his mannerisms would shift in the subtle creepy way I was starting to notice, I would just start asking him questions to see what he would say. No matter how bizarre and inconsistent or mean what he was saying was I would just stick with him, showing interest and listening to what he said. He seemed to love having me as his captive audience. He started confessing all kinds of things about his inner life I had never guessed. I started feeling really uneasy. Something was really wrong.
He shifts fluidly between being an attentive caring husband and confessing thoughts and beliefs that previously I thought horror and thriller writers made up in order to tell scary stories.
My husband assures me that he would never hurt me because he loves me. His own personal ethic is that there is family and then there is everyone else. He treats family well. I am family. He would do anything for family. He just doesn't care about anyone else. I've always seen him treat family well. How could I miss how horribly he thinks it is okay to treat all other people?
And so here I am. I have read many definitions of the behaviors that indicate a person is a sociopath. My husband doesn't quite fit them all, but the core of the descriptions fits him perfectly. He doesn't cheat on me, but it isn't because he thinks it would be wrong-it turns out- its just because he isn't interested. Violence turns him on, not cheating. He hasn't actually murdered anyone, but that is because being imprisoned would be inconvenient for him or his attempts have been thwarted. He also tells me that he knows there is something wrong with him and he just wants to be loved and love me and have a good life. He tells me he wants to be a good person and that he can't control what he imagines or take back his past behaviors. All he can do is be a good person everyday from now on. He tells me that he is an even better person than someone like me for whom being a good person is easy.
Wow. Writing parts of my story like this makes me realize that if anyone I knew told me this story or if I saw my life in a movie I would be incredulous that my friend or the character didn’t just flee. If this story is true (and it is, just not complete) then why am I choosing to subject myself to this now that I have named and know it? Why am I choosing to accept this life and this future when I can’t imagine anything ever changing or getting better?
I don’t even attempt to hide my contempt for him when he shares his violent fantasies or expresses his bizarre ethic about how he treats strangers. If he can forgive my terrible hurtful behaviors, why shouldn’t I be able to forgive him? I vowed to love him and be by his side in sickness and in health. Isn't his sociopathy just an illness? Doesn’t he treat me well most of the time? Isn't he completely supporting me because I can't get myself together enought to find decent employment? If I leave him, what does that say about me? What kind of failure does it represent on my part? If I break my commitment to him, and I have treated him poorly and violently, then aren’t I just as bad and sick a person as he is? Aren't I just as responsible for this situation as him? All the signs were always there I just didn’t know how to read them. I just totally misread them. How do I face this colossal failure on my part and rebuild a good life for myself?
All the websites Ive looked at say dont spend time contemplating like that, just run. Just get away. Wow.
Sorry my story was so long. Thanks for sticking with it.
I read somewhere in the guidelines to keep postings short. My story seems like it's kind of long. Im not sure how to make it shorter. I hope it is okay...
It never would have occurred to me to label my husband a sociopath, and when shortly after our marriage he started belittling me and overtly trying to control me and just plain being self absorbed and mean, I didnt know what to think. All I knew was that I was heartbroken, and I wanted to cry all the time. I couldn't believe that someone I loved so deeply, who had treated me with warmth and kindness for so many years could suddenly take such pleasure in knowingly and deliberately causing me heartache. It was as if over the course of a few weeks the loving man I married changed into someone else with completely different mannerisms, goals, and values. I was beside myself, but also too shocked to know what to think or even say anything to anyone.
To summarize what happened, in the first few months we were married, he convinced me to quit my job, close my business, leave a life I loved and all my friends to move to a city where I just have not been able to create a good life for myself. All the while he did this while alternating between expressing general contempt for me and lavishing me with affection. Sometimes he took pleasure in hurting my feelings. Sometimes he told me how wonderful I was and how much he loved me. I knew that the move and changes he proposed would not be healthy or good for me, but he preyed on my strong belief in honoring my marriage vows. Either I had to leave him and break our vows, which would represent a great failure on my part, or I had to give up everything else I valued. Of course that isnt how he convinced me. He convinced me by turning on the charm and asking me to trust him. He asked had he ever done anything before to hurt me or undermine my trust in him? (The answer was yes but I didnt yet see it that way.)
He told me I just couldnt see how bad our life really was and how much better it would be if I trusted him and made all these changes in my life. I loved him. We had a history together of many years of what I thought was a good and loving relationship. I had been genuinely happy for all those years. They are the happiest years of my life. He told me that he needed to make these changes because he was miserable and his life was terrible. He asked me how I could face myself if I put my needs before his need to be happy. He pulled out all the stops. He promised me that our new life in our new city would be everything I wanted and more and better. I was heartbroken that the life we had built together, that I was so satisfied with and thought he was too, was such a great source of misery for him. I was just plain heartbroken. And I see now, I had been manipulated and manipulated again until I couldn’t see straight. I agreed to move with him.
After settling into our new apartment in our new town I was miserable. I was angry. I was confused. I felt like I had let myself down, and it was dawning on me that something was terribly wrong. I had been manipulated. I had surrendered and allowed myself to become completely financially and emotionally dependent on someone I was realizing I simply couldn't trust. Still I never in a million years would have thought to label my husband a sociopath, and I never would have thought that he had a psychological pathology that was driving him to treat me that way.
I can be a pretty single minded person when I see I've made a mistake or when I feel I have something to learn in my life. I’m ashamed of that part of myself. In my personal life my single-mindedness and need to understand and solve things in my relationships is not a very healthy coping mechanism, and I have hurt many people I love in the name of trying to understand and fix things. Still I felt like I needed to understand what I had misunderstood about my husband and our relationship in order to get my life back on track. I felt I needed answers about what was going on so that I could heal and start to trust my husband again. I never imagined what I would discover.
Without accusing him or calling him out, I started asking him all kinds of questions about any inconsistencies I saw in his promises and stories about himself. When his mannerisms would shift in the subtle creepy way I was starting to notice, I would just start asking him questions to see what he would say. No matter how bizarre and inconsistent or mean what he was saying was I would just stick with him, showing interest and listening to what he said. He seemed to love having me as his captive audience. He started confessing all kinds of things about his inner life I had never guessed. I started feeling really uneasy. Something was really wrong.
He shifts fluidly between being an attentive caring husband and confessing thoughts and beliefs that previously I thought horror and thriller writers made up in order to tell scary stories.
My husband assures me that he would never hurt me because he loves me. His own personal ethic is that there is family and then there is everyone else. He treats family well. I am family. He would do anything for family. He just doesn't care about anyone else. I've always seen him treat family well. How could I miss how horribly he thinks it is okay to treat all other people?
And so here I am. I have read many definitions of the behaviors that indicate a person is a sociopath. My husband doesn't quite fit them all, but the core of the descriptions fits him perfectly. He doesn't cheat on me, but it isn't because he thinks it would be wrong-it turns out- its just because he isn't interested. Violence turns him on, not cheating. He hasn't actually murdered anyone, but that is because being imprisoned would be inconvenient for him or his attempts have been thwarted. He also tells me that he knows there is something wrong with him and he just wants to be loved and love me and have a good life. He tells me he wants to be a good person and that he can't control what he imagines or take back his past behaviors. All he can do is be a good person everyday from now on. He tells me that he is an even better person than someone like me for whom being a good person is easy.
Wow. Writing parts of my story like this makes me realize that if anyone I knew told me this story or if I saw my life in a movie I would be incredulous that my friend or the character didn’t just flee. If this story is true (and it is, just not complete) then why am I choosing to subject myself to this now that I have named and know it? Why am I choosing to accept this life and this future when I can’t imagine anything ever changing or getting better?
I don’t even attempt to hide my contempt for him when he shares his violent fantasies or expresses his bizarre ethic about how he treats strangers. If he can forgive my terrible hurtful behaviors, why shouldn’t I be able to forgive him? I vowed to love him and be by his side in sickness and in health. Isn't his sociopathy just an illness? Doesn’t he treat me well most of the time? Isn't he completely supporting me because I can't get myself together enought to find decent employment? If I leave him, what does that say about me? What kind of failure does it represent on my part? If I break my commitment to him, and I have treated him poorly and violently, then aren’t I just as bad and sick a person as he is? Aren't I just as responsible for this situation as him? All the signs were always there I just didn’t know how to read them. I just totally misread them. How do I face this colossal failure on my part and rebuild a good life for myself?
All the websites Ive looked at say dont spend time contemplating like that, just run. Just get away. Wow.
Sorry my story was so long. Thanks for sticking with it.
by duronimo » Wed Aug 04, 2010
I had written a brief profile of my story on here. i was living with a psychopath guy for 12 years. He is a man who I really loved unconditionally. He always said that he loved me and that he would stay with me until the day I died.
He left me last year leaving me in confusion. Things just didnt add up. I was seeing a psychologist who helped me to realize that I had been living with and loving a psychopath. He had found someone on the internet who I know now he had assessed and manipulated. He is good looking, charming and seemingly very intellegent. However he has a huge flaw. LIES. What I found out after he had gone would make your hair stand on end. What he had told former employers and work aquaintances. Most of the stories involved death. eg. His wife had died of cancer so he was suffering from depression. His girlfriend had just had a miscarriage. No one wants to question those stories. Then I had to realize that probably 95% of what he had told me was also lies. I had often questioned him but didnt have a clue who i was dealing with. Lie to me now and I will have you. He was able everytime to worm his way out.
Yes I have written a book too. I am getting stronger but he still has stronghold on my life. I want to cut that tie and will have the strength to do so soon. I have no contact with him all but feel bad about that. He will turn up. He is a manipulator. I have read all the books and the conclusion is. Education is our best defence. Know what you are dealing with and that there is nothing wrong with you.....its them. They have no conscience.
I am a musician so one day in despair i wrote these words. I hope they will be a help yo you too. Its a difficult place to be but it does and will get better. Hang in there.
by foradlijamal » Thu Feb 18, 2010
I had written a brief profile of my story on here. i was living with a psychopath guy for 12 years. He is a man who I really loved unconditionally. He always said that he loved me and that he would stay with me until the day I died.
He left me last year leaving me in confusion. Things just didnt add up. I was seeing a psychologist who helped me to realize that I had been living with and loving a psychopath. He had found someone on the internet who I know now he had assessed and manipulated. He is good looking, charming and seemingly very intellegent. However he has a huge flaw. LIES. What I found out after he had gone would make your hair stand on end. What he had told former employers and work aquaintances. Most of the stories involved death. eg. His wife had died of cancer so he was suffering from depression. His girlfriend had just had a miscarriage. No one wants to question those stories. Then I had to realize that probably 95% of what he had told me was also lies. I had often questioned him but didnt have a clue who i was dealing with. Lie to me now and I will have you. He was able everytime to worm his way out.
Yes I have written a book too. I am getting stronger but he still has stronghold on my life. I want to cut that tie and will have the strength to do so soon. I have no contact with him all but feel bad about that. He will turn up. He is a manipulator. I have read all the books and the conclusion is. Education is our best defence. Know what you are dealing with and that there is nothing wrong with you.....its them. They have no conscience.
I am a musician so one day in despair i wrote these words. I hope they will be a help yo you too. Its a difficult place to be but it does and will get better. Hang in there.
by foradlijamal » Thu Feb 18, 2010
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