Hi Everyone,

Well, I’ve probably got the biggest one of all!

I met my emotional predator during my 3rd divorce. (yeah…I never learn)..he was my DIVORCE ATTORNEY.

Talk about taking an emotionally vulnerable woman to new heights. He did it all!! He knew ALL my dirty secrets, including the fact that I hadn’t had sex in almost two years. Yes, I fell hard..oh boy, did I fall!

Not only was I going through a divorce, I had just lost my father a few months before, my husband had tried to molest my daughter, and I was homeless for a few weeks when I fled my home. I had EVERY rug ripped out underneath me. He knew it all….and sucked it right up.

During our first meeting, he informed me he ‘fucked’ a client on his desk, the very one he had his feet propped up on! I was flabbergasted. I was also very confused, scared, hurt, vulnerable…and trusting. He was a lawyer, surely a professional of his magnitude could be trusted. I had been referred to him by my chiropractor, whom was a trusted friend. I had only lived in town for five years and I hadnt a need for a lawyer up until that time.

So, I left his office feeling more confused.

During my year long divorce, he trusted ‘private’ personal information to me…such that he was divorced, his ex was a horrible alcoholic and dating his ex best friend. He ‘confided’ in me, making me feel special. I admitted that I missed sex, as I was not the kind of person to cheat on my spouse, nor was I the kind to have a sex friend without having emotional intimacy. I was VERY sexually vulnerable.

At the end of my divorce, he let me know he wanted to see me, calling my cell phone and leaving provocative messages. Then he told me he had noticed during my divorce I had wonderful writing skills and he had a ’story’ that he had always wanted written! It was about him having an inappropriate relationship with a client. He claimed he ‘wrote the book’ on when you could have sex with a client.

I was stupid….niave, at best. I can’t tell you what I was because I was in a different place. It’s been five years since that day happened. I was a ‘good girl’, never exposed to anyone like him before. Yes, I had been married three times, and the last marriage, the one he handled, had been the worst. I was raw. I was in agony. I had been rejected physically, emotionally, and in every other way. I was damaged…and he saw that. He took that, as he had taken so much from so many others, and used it against me.

I read this article and ticked off the aspects of his personality that fit this description. I was amazed. There’s a term for what he is…an emotional predator. I thought I was crazy. I thought in my last marriage I was crazy, but he made me feel even MORE crazy.

I sacrificed my morals, which I won’t go into. I sacrificed my good judgement. I changed who I was and what I thought, how I felt, what I believed in because I was so afraid of being abandoned…again.

Thankfully, I have intelligence and that was my saving grace. That, and my faith in God.

My divorce lingered, even while we we became sexually involved. He told me ‘not to tell’. I didnt.

I wrote his story and he self published it. I’m not going to reveal it because this letter is anonoymous. But, I gave him what he wanted. I gave him his story! And it was all about him, everything!

I have put up with lies, cheating, verbal abuse, mental abuse, and have busted him several times with women. The last time came a month ago.

He’s targeted a woman that is 33yr old. She’s had breast cancer three times, has undergone radiation, lost her hair, weight…and is struggling.

He is 63. I am 48, just so you know.

I happened upon him at a bar with her, as we live in a rather small town. I was on my way to his daughter’s house and happened to see his car at this bar. He doesnt drink, so I strode in.

All you ladies can take heart. I can’t make a choice for anyone else, but I let her know his history. I belted down a glass of red wine, but I spilled the beans in front of him and he ran like a sissy! I told her pretty much ALL the above symptoms that he displayed, including…”He’ll learn your worst fears and use them against you!”.

She claimed to NOT be emotinally vulnerable, but how can you NOT be, fighting breast cancer for the third time with three kids?

My point here is to spread the word, share my experience….creeps like these people are NOT just online or at the workplace..they are actual professionals, too.

yeah…I’m hurt…but I’m strong, and I’ll continue to be…

thanks for the article Lori…thanks for a name for what I went through…I’m no professional either, but reading your article and the response made realize I’m not alone..

thank you….

“Color me educated.” Nice way to put it! Now you know the red-flag signs, and I hope many other readers will learn them as well!

I just ended a “relationship” (if you can call it that) with a cyber narcissistic. He fit about 23 of the 25 archetypes you mentioned. He would troll blogs looking for victims and he always picked the same kind of woman. Successful, rather well known in her field, one who had made it publically known that she had had horrific experiences in previous relationships AND she always had to live far away. Distance prevented the possibility of any kind of closeness or empathy. And he was a workaholic. His ridiculous schedule (and the exhaustion that always followed) did their share to thwart those things as well. He kept promising we’d meet, but it never happened. He took–he never gave. He lied about sedning me things (cards, gifts…flowers) and then when they never arrived, always claimed they got lost in the delivery process. The odds of this happeing to everything he ever sent were a billion to one). He lied about other thigns as well, prefacing every lie with a belabored, “Uh…..”

I was suspecious the entire time, but my neediness and hope that he’d change (silly on my part) kept me there. But I initiated the last break up because I’d had enough and found out that in the last few months, he got bored with me and found another gullible, needy blogger to manipulate. I’ve since found out he’s done and is doing the exact same thing to her and like I was, she’s completely head over heals in love with the same facade I beleived in. She lives about across the country and keeps intimacy away by conveniently claiming that he hates flying and can only travel by train, something his hectic work schedule simply won’t allow him to do.

These guys indulge in love bombing in the beginning to “seal the deal”. My cyber narcissist was flowery and overtly sweet–he appeared to be everything I thought I ever wanted in a man and in a relationship. He was talking about marriage and sent me house plans within the first week of our Internet introduction. Just as you said, he made me delightfully, sophomorically happy. I felt giddy and could’ve sworn, cartoon Bluebirds and Cupids were flying around my head. Then suddenly when he knew I was caught, the romance died. His true colors shone through. We broke up and got back together several times, though in retrospect, I can’t for the life of me understand why he never left when he had the chance. Guess he wasn’t through using me.

These men ( and women, too) are patholigical liars. They often use aliases and have completely fabricated existences. They often have incredible sounding jobs of relevance and importance that just can’t be checked out. They’re CIA agents or political behaviorists or have covert appointments with even more covert agencies or institutions. Mine claimed to be one of the above and then compounded it with claiming to be born and raised in England. He would even use the accent and spelling variations when both were foremost on his mind. He’s sometimes forget though.

He’s a blogger as well (guess that helped him in his hunting prey) and his blog was recently suspended by its carrier for violation of terms and charges of plagiarism. Mine knew just enough about his imaginary field to fool a few people with his feigned expertise. But if you listened to him carefully, you could hear the doublespeak and ignorance.

He’s a loser, a liar and a man who I wasted two years on, but in the end, he taught me a tremendous lesson. I was vulnerable and he knew it and played upon it, but that will NEVER happen again.

Color me educated.

Thank you for letting me rant, Lori.

Best,
LK