The reason I am sharing my story is to hopefully help others learn from my experience. And, also to recognize the signs in your own life, in order to hopefully avoid the heavy price that you will inevitably pay for getting involved with this type of predator/psychopath.

BACK STORY

2010

For simplicity, let’s call him Evil Dark (E.D.). Although I knew him for most of my life (having met in high school), we hadn’t kept in touch much until he reached out to me via Facebook Messenger in 2010. Due to feelings of nostalgia, I was happy to hear from him and also surprised when he quickly started to flirt with me. I flirted back, no harm in having some fun, right?

Initially I chatted with him like any other acquaintance, downplaying the flirting, but he got more and more forward with me until it morphed into outright love bombing and sexting. 

Although I grew up on the east coast, at this time in my life I was living in southern California, so I saw no harm in engaging in a little long distance fun. We kept in touch pretty regularly, texting each other every few weeks/months building the sexual tension between us.

Since I moved to California, I would come back east to visit family and catch my favorite football team play once a year, and hooking up with E.D. became a regular part of my visits too. 

Initially, although I came to suspect that he may have been seeing someone else at the time, he didn’t outright tell me that he was, so I didn’t know for sure. Feeding my uncertainty was the fact that he likes to keep his options open, so he never shares his relationship status or pictures of his girlfriends on social media.

Also, I assumed that since he was messing around with me he wasn’t in a committed relationship. I had no prior experience dealing with a serial cheater, so to my mind, if he was in a serious committed relationship he wouldn’t be carrying on a relationship with me. Ah, I was so naïve. 

2011 – 2013

Throughout the years, I dated other people and when I did, I did not communicate with E.D. It was common for us to sometimes go months without contact so I didn’t think much about it. But we did always enjoy our annual rendezvous whenever I came back east. His girlfriend eventually broke up with him, but soon after, he was on to the next one.

In addition to being a chronic cheater, he is also a serial dater, getting into long-term relationships knowing full well that he won’t be faithful and ultimately that he is incapable of fulfilling their needs.

He strategically chooses girls to date who are empaths (so that they believe him, tolerate, and excuse his bad behavior) and they also have low self esteem. He also makes sure to select them with a built-in loophole for getting out of the relationship (such as a child) since he doesn’t want children.

2014

His latest relationship ended (because she didn’t trust him) and he reached out to me and invited me to stay with him for a week during the summer. We weren’t able to coordinate the dates, and shortly thereafter he told me that he was at a crossroads contemplating getting back with his ex.

Up until that moment, I wasn’t consciously aware that I had developed feelings for him. But when faced with the possibility of ending our situationship, I realized that I felt more for him than just a casual fling. 

I decided to take a leap of faith and be completely vulnerable with him, sharing my feelings with him via email. He responded by telling me that what I said to him was, “the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him.”  Incidentally, it impacted him so much, that he brought that email up to me several times over the next three years.

That fall, I came out for a 2-week visit. We had made plans in advance for me to stay at his place over both weekends that I was in town; we were both looking forward to spending more time together. He picked me up and took me back to his place for the first weekend, we had amazing time together!

The visit started off great! But unfortunately I felt a shift in him the second night; like he was pushing me away without overtly saying anything to me. I wanted to address it with him, but it felt better in the morning. So I figured that since we had planned a second weekend together, I would just wait and see how things went, and talk about it then.

Well, the second weekend didn’t happen. Instead of being honest with me about how he felt, he sent an off-handed text to me (in response to a text I sent to him) to let me know that he had hooked up with someone else so he couldn’t have me stay with him the following weekend – “Sorry.”

I suspect that we got along a little too well, and he was not ready for anything serious, but frankly, neither was I. I just felt that we were just getting to know each other better, and although I liked him, it wasn’t realistic in my mind that we would jump into an exclusive relationship while I was still living across the country. I knew that eventually I would move back east, but in the meantime, I was living my life in California.

Nonetheless, instead of being honest with me about his feelings, he took the coward’s way out and hurt me in a callous way, pushing me away and avoided facing his own feelings, let alone mine.

Not one to shy away from confrontation, I went to his place and we talked it out. He admitted to me that he’s not good in relationships and he was trying to do things differently. He viewed “being different” as telling me he slept with someone else while I was in town. He ignored the fact that he didn’t come out and tell me on his own, he just sent a text in response to me reaching out to him.

Needless to say, I was hurt and disappointed but accepting of what had happened. We ended up hugging goodbye and he told me that although he wasn’t ready for a relationship “you never know what can happen” – more false hope.

2015

After that, we didn’t speak or see each other for a year, until I came back into town for my yearly visit in December. While I was in town, I ran into Evil Dark. and he was absolutely elated to see me! I had never seen him smile so big like he did when he saw me. I had no expectations whatsoever upon seeing him, but as soon as I did, I felt butterflies in my stomach.

Unfortunately, I misinterpreted this feeling, taking it as a positive sign, so when he offered to drive me home, I took him up on it. Naturally going “home,” meant spending the night at his place and driving me back to where I was staying in the morning. Once we were alone, we slid right back into the rhythm of each other’s bodies, picking up right where we had left off over a year ago. 

2016

In April, I had finished a tour in Florida and visit with my dad there. I planned to come to NJ afterwards in order to scope out towns in preparation for moving back east in the fall. Yes, I was following through on my plan (independent of E.D.) to move back east. I knew I would eventually move back, because although I had established a nice life for myself in California, New Jersey would always be my home.

Although I hadn’t been in touch with E.D. for a while, I did mention back in February that I was planning on flying to NJ in April. Apparently he remembered my itinerary, so the night before I was due to come in, he reached out to me. It felt good that he wanted to see me, and then he hit me with, “I’m seeing someone else, but I still want you.”

In light of this news, I wanted nothing to do with him, but he was relentless. Since we are in the same circle of friends, I ended up seeing him at a gig, during which he would not ease up in his pursuit of me until I eventually caved. So I spent the night at his place. After fooling around, we talked about my moving there in the fall, and about dating each other once I did, so that we could get to know each other better in the day-to-day. We both agreed that we wanted the same thing.

In September, I came to town with the goal of finding a place and signing a lease. Naturally, E.D. invited me over and we had our usual fun together. I asked him if he was serious about the girl he was seeing and he told me “I’ve been seeing her a while.” Completely not an answer, so both his words and his actions told me that he wasn’t in a committed relationship. He was dating but he certainly wasn’t exclusive, so it must be a casual relationship and of no consequence. I mean, how could it be if he was sleeping with me? 

When I got to NJ in October he helped me get settled into my new place, which was extremely helpful to me since I had no one else to ask for assistance. Naturally, he instigated sex with me once again. However, a few days later, he came by and opened up and told me that he had a lot of personal issues that he was dealing with. He had been seeing a therapist on and off for years and he recently started going to therapy again. He told me he needed time and space to sort everything out.

I readily agreed and supported his effort to better himself. I thanked him for helping me set up my new place and let him know that I would always be his friend and if he ever needed to talk, I was here for him. I let him know that I respected his need for time and space and that I only wanted what was best for him, and for me; I was here to move my life forward and that’s what I was going to focus on. I told him that I valued our friendship. It felt so good to know that we could be open with each other and be honest with one another, and I trusted him to figure out what was best for him.

I also told him that, in my opinion, while he sorted things out, he had no business being in a relationship with anyone but himself. I was grateful that he confided in me, and I was content to step back and be his supportive friend, and continue to get to know each other better outside of the bedroom.

Yeah, this lasted a week and he was back in hot pursuit to get into my pants. 

WHERE WAS I COMING FROM?

I knew Evil Dark the majority of my life, and I trusted him. He coaxed me into opening myself up to him sexually to a deeper level than I had experienced with anyone else. By way of our intimacy, I was getting in touch with a deeper layer of myself and it felt liberating!

I trusted him because he was no stranger to me (although, ironically, in truth, he was). Based upon this trust, I shared my body with him. And as I was growing the connection with myself via our intimate relationship, I was opening my heart, and in turn, I trusted him with that too. So based upon these various levels of trust and friendship, I trusted him to know what he was doing. We were so open with each other, he knew how I felt, I knew he was working on himself, and since I trusted that I was safe with him, I followed his lead and I trusted his judgment.

Never in a million years did I ever think that I would “be the other woman,” it’s just not who I am. But I rationalized it because I trusted him. He never talked about his relationship status, and I still wanted to get to know him better in the day-to-day (my main objective). And based upon his pattern, his relationship was temporary, so what did it matter? Also she had a kid, the built-in loophole for escape for him.

Plus, he had been sleeping around since day one of their relationship, he certainly didn’t have any respect for her, so why should I? I wasn’t the one cheating, he was.

And I was there first. So why not have fun while supporting him in his growth and accomplishing my goal to get to know each other better in the day-to-day in order to determine if there was anything worth pursuing further in the future? In my mind, his relationship was completely inconsequential, it was built on lies. He couldn’t be his true self with her like he could be with me, because then he would be exposed for the liar and cheater that he is. 

Conversely, our foundation was strong, it was built on friendship. We knew each other over three decades, we had the same friends, our chemistry was off the charts and to quote him, we were “compatible on a lot of levels.” It was a no brainer! There was no built-in loophole with me, so when it was our turn, there was no clear exit for him, which just made it more real, more true.

I knew that in his current state, he had no business being in a relationship with anyone (I told him this several times). That he first needed to focus solely on himself and heal his issues himself. He admitted to me that he couldn’t give “more” in a relationship to anyone. 

In light of everything, I told him several times that I did not want to be his girlfriend at this time, hell no! I did not want to be the next girl he cheated on. I told him that as his friend, I would support him in any way that he needed me to, and that once he emerged healthy on the other side, that was when we would explore our relationship.

I viewed his girlfriend as an unhealthy distraction from him working on himself, a source of shame that was just keeping him stuck in his unhealthy patterns. The sole purpose she served was as an outlet for him to work out all his unhealthy behavior on, and for that I was grateful to her, but I also resented her for contributing to keeping him stuck in his pattern.

Following his lead and my assessment of things is what led me to go along with what he wanted.

2017

This was the worst year of my life. It started with a car accident, and then later in the year I broke my ankle, had a cancer scare, perimenopause took hold, but the biggest impact on me this year was my dad passing away. Losing my dad devastated me and hit me incredibly hard.

When my dad’s health started to decline, I would talk about it with E.D. He was a shoulder to lean on and he was also in a unique position to help me more than most due to his profession working with seniors. He offered to be there for me so that “I didn’t have to go through this alone” and I was grateful for his offer. I had been shouldering the burden by myself and it was A LOT.

And he was there for me! He offered sound advice, a sympathetic ear, even numerous rides to and from the airport so that I could fly to Florida to see my dad.

E.D. was my rock and we emotionally bonded. My love for him grew and I thought of him as family. Having no family nearby, this meant a great deal to me. Due to our situationship, I was never in love with him – I would not let myself go there, but I did love him as I love all of my close friends, however, he was special due to our connection and our intimacy. 

CONNECTION WAS JUST MANIPULATION

We talked about our connection, one that had deepened since I moved back east. A connection that we both felt on several levels, and acknowledged to each other several times. But despite our bond, our situationship never sat well with me. In fact, I tried to end it with him TEN times! Yes, literally ten times over the course of 2.5 years I ended things, but Evil Dark always managed to talk me back into “just one more time.”

There was always an excuse he’d use, like a personal item left at my place, or because I needed his help, he kept coming over. He would drag it out and pair every time he came over to help me with whatever I needed with a romp in the bedroom. I went to his place, he came to mine, it didn’t matter.

And several times, always at his instigation, we would spend the night together. He mostly slept over at my place, but it would happen quite often. We would see each other 2 – 4 times a week sometimes, much more often than he saw his girlfriend which was primarily just on the weekends, and not every weekend either.

Yet another reason their relationship was inconsequential, he barely saw her! Holidays, mornings, weekdays, weekends, evenings, etc. whenever he could, he came over. Literally whenever it suited him, he made the time to come over (or have me over) as often as he could.

But as time went on and nothing changed – neither in his behavior nor in his relationship – I felt myself getting more and more attached to him. Actually, it was more like an addiction that was comprised of emotional and physical bonding. A soul tie so strong between us there was no resisting him for long.

All along the way, I expressed my feelings to him. In person, via text and email, on the phone, just short of smoke signals, he knew exactly how I felt. And he led me to believe that he felt the same, telling me several times that, “we’d be together when he got his head together.” Cue the false hope and manipulation.

2018

In the summer, I decided to send an email to him that I had been tossing around for a long time. It was my mic drop moment; I was going to lay it all out there (again), as I had done four years previously, but this time to a greater extent since we had bonded that much more there was more to say.

So, once again, I opened my heart, put myself out on a limb and told him exactly how I felt, how I viewed him and us, and what I wanted. My intention wasn’t to pressure him, but simply to inform him where I was at and what I was heading towards, trusting him to decide what he wanted when he was ready/healthy.

This was it! I was dropping the mic and walking away with no regrets, there was nothing more to say, I was moving on with my life. I was walking away because I had such a strong faith in him and in us that we would find our way back to each other when we were both ready for the real deal.

How he responded to this declaration would tell me everything I needed to know and guide me to my next chapter. But either way, I was resolved to end things for good because our current circumstances were not serving either one of us.

HIS RESPONSE

A few days after I sent the email to him, he told me (via text) that he had read it several times, and that it was “awakening and he was internalizing it.” Naturally, I was elated! His reaction was exactly what I was going for! He had heard me and he was taking everything I said to heart. We could go our separate ways knowing that when he was truly ready, truly healed, we would come back together.

This was what I wanted to hear, I could move on with the knowledge that our connection could never be severed and we were meant to be. We were our true selves with each other, vulnerable and honest, what we had was solid. We could take the time apart to grow and come back together as two healthy people in it for the long haul. 

It was a Saturday night, and he was in the car when he sent the text (reacting to my vulnerable truth via my email), driving up from the Jersey shore. After he declared his insight about my email, he then asked if he could come over. I felt torn, I thought we had an understanding, I was letting him go. He told me he was torn too but that he really wanted to see me, and spend the whole night together.

Forever trusting him, and thinking that we had ascended to a new level in our relationship, I agreed. After all, I bared my soul to him, it was deep, and at his insistence to come over, I rationalized that we needed to see each other to cement our new understanding.

When he got to my place, he was especially warm, sweet, affectionate, and he told me he was happy to see me. Spending the night together looking into each other’s eyes, falling asleep in each other’s arms, it was so loving. It felt relaxed with an unspoken mutual understanding that we needed each other; just one more intimate night together and we could go our separate ways to grow knowing that we’d be together again.

We both understood each other and fell into the comfort and security of our connection. It felt like we were reaching out to one another out of genuine love and care for one another, safe in each other’s arms because everything was so clear, we were on the same page. 

DEFINITELY NOT THE SAME PAGE, NOT EVEN THE SAME BOOK

Up until this moment, an argument could be made that all of the breadcrumbing, love bombing, placating, and unchanging circumstances could be interpreted as simple f*ckboy behavior, but this was the turning point.

If Evil Dark truly had a conscious as my “friend,” then this was the moment (after reading my mic drop email) when he should have let me go. If for no other reason, than that he cared about me as a close friend. If he had somehow been oblivious to all the other times I told him how I felt, this time there was no way to miss it, it was abundantly clear. Spelled out in written words in exhaustive detail, there was no room for misinterpretation.

But, instead of letting me go, he once again chose his selfish needs over my feelings. So he validated me via his “sincerity” to me in how he expressed how he received my email. And then he took things even further via his actions – driving two hours to sleep over, spending the night with me – all at his instigation. 

2019

E.D. slipped right back into his usual pattern of having me at his convenience, despite my repeated objections. He would agree that stopping sleeping together was the right thing to do, but then he would continue to reach out to me and beg relentlessly for “one last time.”

I continued to refuse him, but he would persist, rationalizing that one more time wouldn’t do any harm, he really needed me, playing on my empathy for him and for his struggles with his issues, as well as on our friendship. I would keep offering to help support him in his growth and healing by lending an ear, offering to do energy healings, I bought books for him to read, etc.

Whatever I could do to help him find the tools he needed to heal and grow, and although he thanked me for my offers, he never followed up on taking me up on them. I later realized that him working on “getting better” was just for show, it was all just more bullshit he told me to string me along.

MORE MANIPULATION

Evil Dark instigated us being together all the way along. When someone you trust and deeply care for focuses his energy on you with such intense desire and passion, it is intoxicating and nearly impossible to resist. And it was all purposeful. He got me addicted to him.

Despite him telling me that he cared about me, how much he cherished our friendship, his repeated dismissal of my feelings and boundaries, plus his cruel treatment of leading me on and using me for sex pushed me to a point so low that I felt utterly worthless as a human being and I wanted to kill myself.

I withdrew and worked through my deep depression and thoughts of suicide for several months until I finally got to a better place, and that’s when E.D. reached out to me again. It was as if he somehow sensed that it was time to swoop back in and reassure me that he cared about me so that he could once again try to work his way back into my bed. Only this time he didn’t know how far I had fallen.

THE “APOLOGY“

I let him know how deeply he had hurt me and he responded by dropping everything to apologize to me. He called me from work, took his lunch early and spent 40 minutes on the phone “sincerely” apologizing to me.

After repeatedly disrespecting my feelings and my boundaries, now he was pulling out all the stops. Although he did gaslight me by tossing in a history rewrite to get me to question myself, overall he (seemingly) accepted responsibility for his actions and I believed him. I thought he finally had heard me! That now he was going to respect my feelings and my boundaries.

But, instead, just a few minutes after we hung up, he once again sent texts to me pushing to come over for sex. I was disappointed that he took it there once again especially after everything we had just talked about for almost an hour, but, yet again, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, I trusted him. I blamed his proposition for sex on our off the charts attraction for one another and I gave him a pass for bringing it up.

He promised to be better and to follow through with me so that we could talk again “soon” – one of his favorite crumbs to toss. Spoiler alert:  “soon” is code for “never.”  

As his friend, after everything I had been through, I still cared about him so much that I still wanted to help him find the tools to heal himself since traditional therapy obviously wasn’t working. I again offered to do energy healings on him (from a distance so that we wouldn’t be tempted to sleep together) and share my own healing journey with him in hopes that it would help guide him on his own journey.

In light of everything we talked about, it was more important than ever that he follow through with me now that sex was off the table, and he swore that he would. Did he? Nope!

A month later Evil Dark sent this text to me apologizing for missing the second anniversary of my dad’s passing (he saw my post on Facebook), along with encouraging words that my dad was “so proud of me,” followed by he’s been “busy double time.”

I was so hurt that he had failed to follow up with me now that sex was not an option. That he chose instead to toss an enticing crumb (apology and compliment) wrapped inside an old familiar excuse to me, so I didn’t respond to his message. And he didn’t try to reach out again, reinforcing to me that I really didn’t matter to him.

Three months later, lo and behold, he reached out again (accidentally on purpose), using one of his go-to techniques for testing the waters before diving right back into pressing for sex. This time I responded with, “Who is this?” He actually wrote back and told me it was him. I didn’t respond. 

I SHUT THE DOOR

For my own sake, I decided to send a final email to him so that I could release him for good. In it, I let him know that I finally see him for who he is.

I now understood and accepted that it was all bullshit to him – our connection, our friendship, all of it, it meant nothing to him; I was nothing more than a sex toy to him. I do believe that he convinced himself that we were “great friends” in an effort to sell the notion to himself as well as to me, so that he could continue to use me to satisfy his sexual needs.

He is a pro at mimicking the feelings and appearance of friendship, which serves as a cover to hide the truth that he lacks the capacity to truly care about others.  

2020

It’s coming up on a year since I sent that final email to him, and during that time, we haven’t communicated nor seen each other. I dropped out of our social circle and cut all contact with him. I unfriended him on social media, returned his belongings to his place when he wasn’t home, and cut our soul tie, breaking the connection as well as the addiction.

I went from thinking of him as family, someone I would always hold in my heart, want the best for, root for and support, and lean on, to never wanting to see him again for the rest of my life. I finally realized that what he had convinced me was friendship, attraction, and deep caring, was in fact, abuse.

I then set about getting answers as to why this happened. I own my part in this, but why was I susceptible to him? And what was he all about that he was able to fool me and everyone else in his life too?