My Name is D and i am a 29. I work as a doctor and am a fitness fanatic! I discovered this site last week after 7 months of hell following being abandoned by the person I thought was ‘the one’. I previously thought I was a strong person but this whole experience has left me doubting my own self-worth significantly. My story is below:
I met F on an online dating site - we had a lot in common it seemed when we were chatting. He seemed very charming and knowledgeable and was very relaxed and down to earth. I was looking to change careers and had thought about re-training as an architect at the school he had started his training at in New York. I arranged to meet him one evening to discuss this with him - I had no expectations from the date and was really just going along to pick his mind about his school. We met up one evening at a local pub - I was pleasantly surprised when I met him - he was handsome in a cute Italian sort of way and exuded confidence. He told me how he had left the school that I wanted to go to because it was too abstract thinking and didn’t focus on the architecture he liked. He moved to London to go to a different school but left before he had completely finished his qualification, again claiming that the course was wrong for him and too socialist focused - he was more interested in developing high value real estate. He claimed to run an international property development company - with projects for rich clients in Europe and the middle east, among others. He even showed photos of a project he was involved in (which turned out later to be a house he inherited from his wealthy father). We got on well and seemed to really hit it off. I walked him to the bridge which he had to cross to get to his house and he kissed me. Everything seemed pretty good at this stage. He was a rich, successful and friendly guy - who could ask for more? He also had an intensity in the way he looked at me that I found it very attractive at first. I was away skiing for a week the following day and during that time we texted each other - I was excited to see him again. When I got back he invited me to his flat and cooked me dinner - he made a lovely Italian meal and we slept together for the first time. I must admit I didn't feel particularly attracted to him physically (he wasn't really my type of guy I decided) but he was so keen and charming that I thought I would take a chance on him.
It was valentines day a week or so later and he persisted in trying to get me to come out with him - he booked a very expensive and romantic restaurant for us to go to. He was the perfect gentleman - picked me up on his vespa, took me and paid for everything. Being an Italophile it was the perfect romance. Afterwards we came back to my place and slept together again. Over the following weeks - he showered me with affection and was extremely charming - talking about how he wanted children and telling me about the famous people his wealthy Italian/American family were connected too. He also claimed that he was always monogamous and very careful with sex - and how he would never have casual sex. It all seemed like a bit of a whirlwind. I thought I had finally found someone I could really see a future with.
Gradually - I started to notice that as I spent more time with him he began to jokingly criticise me for little things. ‘Your back is out of proportion to the rest of your body’, ‘you need to sort out that tooth out - it is really awful’ (one of my incisor teeth is slightly projected forwards, despite braces for several years as a teenager’), ‘your technique is awful at the gym’ (in comparison - I lift a lot heavier and run a lot faster than he ever did), ‘You’re probably a really bad doctor’ ‘Your knowledge of the city is really awful - you are so insulated in your little world’. He also became quite boastful about his own background, and talked a lot about what a good education he had and how cultured he was. He persisted in getting us to do things together at weekends and I got caught up in it all. Another thing which really bothered me would be the way he treated waiters in restaurants - like they were the scum from beneath his shoes - he never said please or thank you or looked them in the eye. This was in stark contrast to the way he behaved when someone he knew was wealthy/well connected was around.
Over time the criticism became worse and everything I did or suggested that we do together didn't either didn’t suit him, was something he hated or was a silly suggestion of mine. I generally just took it and thought that although he was a bit grumpy he made out that he was a trustworthy person, and at the end of the day he seemed to have a lot to offer so I was better off just leaving it. I thought that if I started to complain that it would just push him away from me and make me look pathetic.
Occasionally he would become very angry and withdrawn for seemingly no reason - I would try to be supportive and say that if there was anything going on he could tell me in utter confidence and I would try to help him get through it. He refused ever to tell me any specifics about anything - all he would say was that his ‘crazy mother’/‘selfish sister’/‘lazy brother’ was doing something to try to upset things with the family businesses or to get at him. I just let it pass, it was clear that I wasn't going to get anything from him. I just reinforced that if he needed to talk about anything - I would be there for him and not judge. He claimed that he hated the drama that his family created in his life and thats why he didn’t like to spend time with his mother or half-sister. He claimed his half-sister had sued his brother and him for most of their family money after his father had died - yet still he visited his sister and her children socially from time to time.
We spent a fair bit of time together, interspersed by times that he was away in Italy sorting out ‘family business’. He texted me a lot during this time saying how he missed me whenever he was away and how he couldn’t wait to see me. When he was in London and we were together he would plan things that we would do together in the Summer, always things he wanted to do - anything I suggested was silly.
I knew something just wasn’t right - I remember on one occasion I was going to his flat for dinner I stopped before I rang his doorbell and thought ‘what am I doing here - I know when I go in he is just going to have something negative to say about me’. Nevertheless I ended up going in - I didn’t want to offend him or seem silly. Sometimes he would surprise me and not say anything too bad but there was always a feeling that he was judging me. That evening he made little remarks about how one of his exe’s was a ‘model’ and had a huge property in South Africa that evening (so much more glamorous than me) and commented again how my body was disproportionate.
I remember one evening when we were sitting on his sofa together and a phone call came in from another one of his ex’s - he took the call and talked for a good 10 minutes while I was sitting there. They said that they should meet up the next time that he is in Milan. I felt pretty strange about that. After he came off the phone he told me how he felt sorry for the ‘poor guy’ - he apparently was still into F but didn’t have any real direction in his life so really wasn't for F (despite the guy having moved to geneva for a job with a large international charity organisation). As I learned soon after getting together - F had only ever worked for a few months during an internship at university - his property development ‘empire’ was significantly less significant than he claimed it to be - basically just property he had inherited after his father died. It was ironic that this ex ‘doesnt have any direction in his life’.
A change in him came 5 months after we had been dating. It had been my flatmates birthday one evening in June. My flatmate had arranged a party in our garden and a meal in a restaurant nearby - I had invited F and told him how much effort my flatmate had put into organising it. He never really liked my flatmate - partly because he found Chinese people ‘physically repulsive’ but also because my flatmate isn’t wealthy (it is very clear now that he only really sees value in people from wealthy backgrounds). After an hour of waiting for him to turn up, he finally arrived - I had got a cake for my flatmate and wanted to play happy birthday for him to mark the occasion. He made it very clear that I was being really stupid and classless for wanting to do this and when I ignored his remarks he stormed off and left. I ran after him apologising but he said he had other things to do and walked off and calmly said he would contact me later. This was the first time that I even slightly stood up to him - I didn't say anything offensive or derogatory.
The next day I sent him a text apologising for the way I reacted to HIM! - he replied asking me to go over to meet him with his friends. He knew I was angry about the way he behaved but I ended up saying that it was OK but just not to do it again. From that time he was more distant towards me. He did however continue to pursue me, asking when was I going to see him next and trying to visit me at work. He arranged 2 trips for us to Italy - one to Portofino and a month or so later to his house in Milan. During our times there he refused to sleep with me and the criticisms came harder and harder and he was more and more distant. I kept asking him what was wrong but he refused to tell me specifics - saying he was stressed with things his mother was doing to him and that he was ‘depressed’ - every time he said it wasn't me that was the problem. At that stage I felt so confused about where I went wrong and felt I really couldn't take much more criticism from him. Everything I did was commented on - what I ate, how difficult it is that I don’t eat fish, how unsophisticated my taste is. Also during these months - whenever he said he would pay for things, his card would never work and I would have to pay for pretty much everything - he claimed that he hadn't transferred money into his account this month, while at the same time boasting about the fact that he had just sold a painting at an auction for £1.6m and how much money his swiss bank was making him in interest from his money. From August till September he spent 7 weeks at his house in Italy - with his many friends who come every summer to take over the house. He contacted me very rarely over this time - often leaving me waiting for days waiting for a reply to my texts, although still saying that he wanted me to come over and that he missed seeing me. I actually started to miss him as a result - I couldn’t work out what I’d done wrong to cause such a change in him.
When he came back we met up again - I can’t remember if it was me or him who arranged it. He acted very distantly and was like a stranger to me. He ignored me after that and stood me up a few times - I ended up texting him to ask what was wrong with him. Initially I got a few replies to say that he was busy or had friends from Italy he needed to see but then I got a reply to say that the spark had gone and his feelings towards me were more of friendship than anything else. He said that he didn't want me to disappear from his life so wanted to still be friends. I felt really devastated - far more than I’d expected. I had put up with so much from him and now to be told this. I asked him to meet up to discuss things. When we met up we went to a restaurant that he liked I was very open and relaxed when I spoke to him - I told him how I understand that sometimes relationships don't work out and that I was understanding of the fact that he didn't want to be with me any more. He told me that in his life he had ‘never loved anyone and that the only person he has ever loved is himself’. I decided at that stage to cut contact for my own good. I caved after about a month and met up with him again - on this occasion he was very derogatory towards me telling me that he was ‘bored’ after spending some time with me. I pretended that I found someone hot in a shop we had gone into and he said ‘I wouldn't have cared if you had done things with other people when we were together’, completely negating his part our relationship.
Later that day I found out that he was back on the dating site that we had met on. Stupidly out of despair I made a fake profile and started chatting to him. I asked him how could someone so great be single - and he replied that he was just out of an ‘LTR’ but was dating someone with whom the ‘sex is great, thank god’ and joked that the person who he was in a LTR (me) - ‘poor chap is still in love with me’. He then went on to joke that he was bored with me and that for the entirety of our relationship the ‘sex was bad - everything about it’ and he also claimed that I ‘didn’t like it when he was aggressive in bed’ (an absolute lie) and that he had to turn to porn as he couldn't cum when he had sex with me because he found me physically repulsive. He told the profile that he kept up the ‘charade’ of our relationship for 4 months. After he had said these things he said that he was still keen to meet up for sex with the fake profile, despite the fact that he was dating someone new at the time and that he wanted to get together and ‘knock one out’ at his flat that day or meet up at a sex club (quite a contrast from the monogamy and dislike of casual sex he claimed when I first met him). I then let on that the profile was that of one of my own ex’s and that he really shouldn't be talking like that about me. I don't know if he actually realised that it was me that he was speaking to.
I confronted him by text about what he said. I told him how devastated and hurt I was that he could say these horrible things to people behind my back and I was confronted with a very sanctimonious text to say that he keeps his ‘feelings on a superficial spectrum’ and really doesn't care. He said that he has hurt many people in the past and destroyed every one of his relationships and ‘somehow has managed to live with it’. He then told me to stay away from him. No apology was offered whatsoever. In retrospect I realise how stupid I was to have done this and added to my pain but in a way it helped me realise how little I did mean to him.
Over the next few months I really struggled - with the no contact and also dealing with the things that he said about me. I couldn't comprehend how someone who had been intimate with me could have said all of those things about me to a stranger and have absolutely no feelings of shame or remorse when he knew how I felt about him.
About 4 months later I couldn't take it any more and turned up at his door - he was a bit startled to see me. I was nervous and ended up just being nice to him, saying that I missed him and that we needed to talk. He told me about his new flat and new property project he had been working on so I told him about my new business I was starting - which he was very quick to belittle. I emailed him later to say that I felt like a fool for turning up uninvited. He replied to say that ‘with time’ he realises how horrible the things he said were and that he was sorry - and that he was around for another 10 days before he goes back to Italy if I wanted to talk. I replied and said that I could meet either on the Monday or Tuesday a week later. A week passed with no reply and on the Monday mid morning I got a 1 line email to say that he was ‘running a bit late on schedule so could we postpone?’. I replied the following day saying that as expected he has cancelled again on me so lets not bother. He replied saying that he again had friends staying from Italy (an excuse that he has used on me before - despite having a tiny flat and claiming that he hated all of his friends from Italy, and the fact that I still have his airbed at my flat) and that he had been so busy for the past week and turned it round on me saying that he had wanted to give me plenty of time to talk so didn't want to rush when he had so little time but I had ‘made my decision already’
A week later I discovered this website. I have gone through so many emotions lately and my self esteem has been quite battered by this whole experience. I fully experience the cognitive dissonance that has been mentioned in many of the posts and can identify so many traits of my ex in the criteria for sociopathic/psychopathic behaviour. Still I have my doubts though - I keep thinking maybe it is me that is over sensitive, maybe I am trying to make him into something he is not to validate the fact that he just wasn't into me. What do others think? Sometimes I am convinced that he is indeed a barn door sociopath but other times I just think it is me who is trying to find an excuse for the fact that I was dumped. Help!!