Love ... or Con Part III: It was your money, honey

This is you: (Hi, you!)

You take people at their word. People trust you, too. You're smart, but not streetwise. You're nurturing and generous ... compassionate. When it comes to a career, you're reasonably successful, with aspirations to go further. You're responsible with money and have some saved for a rainy day. In relationships, you're a trier -- you don't walk when things get tough. But while you have these wonderful traits, you don't see it. Sometimes you're lonely. You're ready and willing to share your life with someone ... forever.

Guess what, you? You're the weakest caribou in the herd. The "Love Con's" perfect prey.

Because male sociopaths outnumber females by about 3:1, and the majority of real life stories I read were told by female victims (and they were the ones who responded to my questions), this blog is largely written from a woman's perspective. But there were male victims -- gay and lesbian victims, too. No one is excluded from this particular brand of hell.

I tried, through readings of various texts and forums, to connect the dots and piece together story similarities. One thing is for sure -- whenever someone in a relationship takes a financial hit, you're not talking about friends with benefits. Victims of Love Cons often wrote they thought they'd met The One. One woman stated that ever since she was a girl, she had an image of the "perfect man," and when the Love Con entered her life, she recognized him immediately. While most relationships take time, the Love Con relationship is forged quickly -- pure "Nights in Rodanthe" stuff.

These relationships don't seem different than genuine relationships. Families and friends are introduced, there's wonderful sex and "I love you's" exchanged. The couple does normal things -- they hold hands, spend holidays together, vacation together, talk. Eventually, the con's sociopathy emerges -- little lies, sense of entitlement, all the wacky things sociopaths do, written off by victims as personality quirks or selfishness at first. But soon into the relationship, the con subtly panders for what they wanted from the get-go.

Money -- or something money can buy.

The con can be quick and dirty. On a personal note, I knew a con on a certain social networking site, didn't have a pot to piss in. Because the women he wooed wanted to "talk" to him, they mailed him cell phones -- which he used to talk to other women. Sometimes he got a plane ticket out of it, a little money. When the phone bill arrived and the women discovered they'd been snookered, they cancelled the cell service with dispatch. I'm telling ya, this guy's number changed with each lunar cycle. It was like something out of a dark comedy.

Other simple cons might include theft of services. A con might convince a victim to paint them a wall mural or design a website and end up paying only in ... (clearing throat). A Love Con who needed ongoing medical treatment left his wife for someone else who'd put him on her health insurance plan -- it can get that lame.

In the scams and schemes I read about, the victims gave a lot more than cell phones. There's the woman who gave her con a down-payment for a car and co-signed the loan; when he defaulted, she was forced into making payments. (Oh -- he took off with the car.) The woman who bought multiple plane tickets for her con so he could go on "business trips;" these were actually mini-vacations for him to romp with another woman. Then there's the tragic tale of the woman who loaned the Love Con a lot of money to buy a private airplane, convinced that it was a profitable investment for the couple. The con managed to convert title and promptly took flight -- literally. Women even signed a deed to their real property over to their con artist. In the stories I read, the smallest debt was $500; the biggest was $300,000 -- the latter went to court, and the victim got a judgment.

The logical question might be, why would a rational person would loan money, invest in a business deal, or sign away property rights? It's simple when you think about it. No one would do these things for someone who they didn't think was a permanent fixture. But say you knew that both of you were in it for the long haul - you'd probably make sacrifices and contributions for the betterment of "the team." That's what couples do. To the victim, a Love Con relationship or marriage doesn't feel any different than one that is truly based in love and trust.

Until the victim runs out of assets. Oops. Poof! Gone.

That's what's strikingly different about these relationships and marriages. The victim didn't know what game was being played until the eleventh hour. That hour is when the victim admits to being out of money. Or after they've signed off that personal loan, or even when they say, "Sorry, can't give you any more." After they gently remove the Love Con's paws from the metaphorical cookie jar, a lot of victims reported immediate responses of: "Okay, we're done" or "I thought you had more money." Incredible, isn't it? Others were less blatant. They waited a few days, then said, "It's just not working out." One victim wrote her break-up was "like being handed a pink slip."

How do you keep the Love Con around? Try winning the lottery ...

"It wasn't a normal break-up," is the mantra of Love Con victims. I read this line over and over, folks. They felt "stunned" or "suckerpunched," (I suspect that it wasn't a normal break-up because there was never a relationship and nothing to break.) Here's something greebly: In just about every story, the Love Con already had at least one new "target" in place. One woman wrote me about how her husband had coffee with a woman he dated in high school twenty years prior; after that one meeting, he came home, told her he wanted a divorce, and moved in with the old flame almost immediately. What did high school sweetie have that the married couple did not? More money.

Victims may go through shock -- "Okay, that didn't really just happen ... did it?" -- and look for answers. If the person you'd pledged your life to just disappeared with some lame excuse, you'd probably think they were having a mental breakdown. But victims often discovered that the Love Con had other wives, illegitimate children ... bench warrants. If they married, they were often in voidable putative marriages (the con is already married). Other lovers poured out of the woodwork, begging the question: Who held the primary relationship? "Some girl I went out with" was actually the con's fiancee, and "a woman I do business with" is the woman the Love Con is living with now. One woman stated it was like the con was "leading a second life" all along.

Once the dust settles, there's a lot of recovery to do. In fact, there are special programs and retreats designed just for victims of sweetheart swindles. Victims hold onto shame and self-recrimination for a longer period of time than usual. They're often left in debt or even bankruptcy as a reminder of their gullibility. The tragedy is that these were good-hearted men and women whose best traits were compromised -- some victims state they fear becoming "sociopathic" themselves. They're suspicious and mistrustful (and broke). They withhold affection and generosity (and are still broke). They aren't motivated to put effort into new relationships. When they date again, they're on the defensive.

After all, if there's one out there, there must be others.


Did you guess which one of this movie couple was the "bad guy?"