freedom, PTST is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

You can find some information here regarding PTSD and some recommended books to explore reading.

I never finished my story from before Christmas and will now. I was just exhausted from before and it dredged up too much. I'd ended up where I caught him on my computer shortly after he moved in with me - and the e-mail to someone else talking about his fiance, his job (which he didn't have here), etc. etc. a bunch of lies. but then I ended up swallowing his rationalizations.
So, I put it behind me and gave him the benefit of the doubt. Things were going along alright and he said he wasn't using the computer. Except once I had to come back to the house - and he didn't expect me and there he was - on the computer. another night i went to take a shower, he thought i was safely behind the door, and i had to pop out for something, and there he was again - surprised look - on the computer. i could see an entire screen of text, went over, and just caught the tail end of a letter "glad you're doing good" with the closing "love (and the woman's name". he quickly deleted it. again, my mind and heart fell to the floor -i asked him who that was. he said "what?". i said the letter on the screen from her?
he proceeded for an entire hour to tell me he didn't know what i was talking about - that there had been nothing there - opened up his e-mail to show me there was nothing there (of course not, he just erased it). i pleaded for an hour for the truth - i told him i wasn't dumb and blind! finally, finally, he said "okay, he had gone out with her, she had been his fiance, but it was over, and that's why he wanted to get away from his state and leave it all behind". i couldn't figure out why he wouldn't have told me that, if he wanted a "real relationship with me".
the next thing i did - was to e-mail a friend he had back home (i was clever enough to look over his shoulder for this person's address, etc. and he had sent for some stuff from her - and told me about her - how they were friends).
wanting to get some answers - i just e-mailed her and told her what he was doing and if she could please give me some straight answers, woman to woman. (turned out this woman was a Godsend for me afterwards - she validated everything )
I wrote to ask if he was just a womanizer, crazy, mixed up or what? she wrote back "you answered your own questions, take care of yourself". that was all. then i saw an e-mail to him from her shortly after that saying "i don't know what you're doing in ___, but leave me the hell out of it". well, i still wasn't convinced exactly what she meant. i told him i'd written to her - i don't lie and wanted him to know. he looked a little green, but quickly recovered. then i rationalized her return note in many ways - maybe she was jealous, maybe she meant he really was serious about me, she just hadn't gone into too much detail - but now i realize that she went into enough for a person not caught up with a P. would have heeded her advice. i didn't, not yet.
i was still trying. one night he came home and confessed he'd done something that day where he worked for this woman who raised dogs. he said he got her to delete all his e-mail accounts except the one i had so i didn't have to worry about that anymore. (i later found out that she did NOTin fact have a computer hooked up, so that was a lie!!). but i believed it at the time.
so things went on. he was selling his puppies from my house. and then talked of us going on vacation after the last one was gone. something i was looking forward to.
that day came, on a thurs. he talked of leaving monday for a vacation -we'd get away. it also happened to be my birthday (monday). he kept asking what i wanted. etc.
then i remembered a couple weeks before there had been a message on my machine from the place where he worked telling him that they'd give him off that day - no problem. at the time i thought he was taking off because it was my birthday. how sweet!
anyway, i came home on a friday afternoon, expecting to go to dinner that night, because he said we would - and he had vanished. i had absolutely not an inkling that he was doing this. it was unbelievable. he just cleaned out - everything. (not anything of mine, thank God - i was lucky). but he disappeared into thin air.
i was devastated. i called where he'd been working and they said they knew 2 wks. ago he was taking a trip to __ and had asked for the time off. the other woman he worked for knew it a couple days before me - and he was telling them he'd be back in a week. he did leave a note - to me - saying he'd return in a couple weeks to take an apt. and continue seeing me - and by the way, sorry, he did it that way - but he did (his words). that was the beginning of the hell of having become involved with a P. and having this person just leave. just vanish. like a criminal. that hurt unbelievably. he just wasn't human. so, then it was the beginning of my education about P's. and this one in particular - and the pieces and lies would start slowly falling into place - but not before i worked through the shock and hurt. i have to go now - but will post how i found out what he was and some of the cruel things he did after leaving. to this day - i've not heard anything from him. but did keep in touch with that friend of his - and derived some crucial answers and back-up and comfort from her.

P-proof
I am happy that you are back and I have not abandon your decision to tell the story.

finished,
I'm finally starting to get better. It was the worst flu I can remember having. Hope you feel better soon.
betterway

dear hopeful - thanks for the welcome back. i just became very depressed over christmas and having dredged all of the stuff back up certainly added to it. but to continue the story - he vanished into thin air. i thought for sure he would call or just show up again that night, or the next. i couldn't believe a person could do that. even a friend of mine said - "well maybe he just got some cold feet - don't panic". but normal people don't just up and vanish. and he was so good at it - i had NO CLUE. i was at work that day and he must have quickly got a u-haul (or most likely he already had it planned of course) - and he methodically went through the house - took all of his stuff which was scattered here and there, loaded up his dogs, and poof. i wish i had surmised. he got up that friday, business as usual, kissed me goodbye to go to work, said he "loved" me - see ya later - it was unreal.
that's when i started calling the places he worked to get some answers. i asked the woman he was working for if we could talk to see if she knew something. that's when i found out that she didn't have a computer hooked up.
a couple days later one of the couples who had taken a puppy - left a message on my answer machine to tell me that THE P HAD CALLED THEM to tell them he got called away on emergency and couldn't watch their pup while they were on vacation, which he had said he'd do that weekend. they called me in desperation. i called back and naturally was upset - but since i only had the man's work # -i called there and he would not talk to me. (later figured out that the P must have told them some fantastic story about how nuts i was). the man never would talk to me - told his secretary to tell me he wasn't in - because one day i called and he pointedly asked the sec. to ask me where i was calling from....etc...!!!
meanwhile - i had the P's e-mail address and had the wherewithall to e-mail him and sound as if everything was fine on my end and expected him back. he wrote back as if all was fine - but said since he'd left some things had happened and they were not good. i wrote back, concerned -
and then in the next e-mail he tells me this fantastic story about how he got a call about his brother having a massive heart attack in and having to drive and fly there - and it was a nightmare - but he was out of danger now etc. etc. and he still had every intention of returning to continue to see me. this was all e-mail stuff. then a couple weeks after that the couple with the puppy leaves a message on my a.m. - and she was so concerned - because the P HAD ONCE AGAIN CALLED THEM - TO TELL THEM THE SAME STORY ABOUT HIS BROTHER- and the wife just wanted to find out how he was doing!! (this is the same woman, who when they came there to get the pup, he was obviously flirting with in front of my face - when they left, the two of them embraced and kissed like long-lost friends - i had thought that was a bit odd - but, hey)
So, he can't call me but he's calling these other people!!!!
And to back up a bit - that next week the one with my birthday (yeah, that was a HAPPY BIRTHDAY) - i was off from work all week. but unknown to me, until after the fact, he had sent an e-mail to my work on my birthday BERATING me for calling the woman he worked for after he vanished, asking me "why would you do such a thing?". and further - he told me that he had got up that morning - went to see her because they were starting to have feelings for each other and he wanted to take some time to think about it!
I mean, a person has to work at being that evil!!! or maybe not!
(later i found out from the woman i had written to that she knew his family and his brother never had a heart attack!! - surprise, surprise, plus some other stuff she hadn't told me in so many words. that she had dated him until she realized she couldn't believe any thing he said. that he was always sponging off some woman - that he was back down there with the one i caught him e-mailing to, etc.and she added more than once - to thank God he was gone out of my life)
meanwhile, my mind was blown to bits, not to mention my heart. in the aftermath, of trying to figure it all out and digest it - i started calling him a psychopath - not knowing at that time what a true P was. then in my need to find answers and explanations - i just typed psychopath into the computer one day and hit search. i got the definition and read "Without Conscience" first - and then started to get some clarification. i was right on by calling him a P. so that was the beginning of my education about P's. and somewhere along the line i found this site - and read and read and read - i have reams of the stories i copied off of here - and i'd go home and read and read - and was just amazed. at the similarities and actions of a true P.
the other thing i had the sense to do after he vanished was to change my credit cards etc., at the urging of a friend.
meanwhile i was trying to hold it together - but finally went to see a counselor, who told me i was very lucky - that he was gone and nothing worse had happened. they seemed to know about P's - but were focusing on just getting past it and moving on - but that was impossible for awhile. this site helped the most. most of my friends were empathetic, but a couple weren't. one woman's attitude was "just get over it". but when i told her the details of it all - she couldn't believe it and said that she thought it was just another "well, you met somebody and it didn't work out - big deal" type thing - but she was more empathetic after that. i ended up losing a couple long time friends over the whole thing - but have come to realize that they weren't really friends anyway.
it's been a hard road to travel - and it's marked a turning pt. in my life, like none other.
in the aftermath too - i was scared - and felt violated. if a person could just up and vanish - what exactly were they capable of? i half expected him to be lurking in the area afterwards. i didn't know whether he had 3 wives across the country, or if he had been running from the law, and most frightening of all - i wondered if he had transmitted some disease to me. it took me some time to get up the nerve to see a doctor and have tests - that was the lowest of the low days in my life. and then the waiting after that.
and i went through the times of wanting him to come back, hoping it would all turn out anyway, that he certainly would come back - all the thoughts that you think about a normal person's reactions. that it was just some big mistake and that he was real.
well, that is my story. i'm recovering enough to where it doesn't occupy every waking thought. and i'm far enough removed that the hurt is subsiding. but it's still the most unbelievable experience i've had (and i seemed to attract the bad ones in the past - alcoholics, etc.) - but this was so different. it's hard to comprehend that they are not human. well, i'll end this for now. other details will pop up and i'll share when i can. my counselor had said "well, you won't have to do that one again - the P experience". in a lot of ways it's made me stronger, made me look at my life and my relationships. and my health. because this whole experience compromised my physical health too. i got so stressed out, and stress does awful things to a body. i'm still not recovered from that. but hopefully, time will heal it all.
thank you for listening. i got my story out and hope i can help other people somehow now. all i can say is that no one should ever give another person the power to destroy their lives, their sanity, their health. NO ONE IN THE WORLD IS WORTH COMPROMISING YOUR OWN LIFE. FOR WHAT? ROMANCE? LOVE? SOCIETY'S EXPECTATIONS OF SUCH? WHAT YOU PERCEIVE AS LOVE? PSYCHOPATHS ARE THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE. IT'S A SHAME - WOMEN, ESP., GET PUT IN THESE POSITIONS AND ARE RIPE FOR A P WHEN THEY ARE VULNERABLE. I WAS VULNERABLE - AND HE KNEW IT AND ZEROED RIGHT IN. BY READING ON THIS SITE - THE ENTIRE PERPETRATION BECAME CLEARER AND CLEARER TO ME.
well, i could tend to run on and on, but i'll close for now. again, thanks for listening and the crucial help i've derived from here over the past few months.

Freedsom
I'm sorry I didn't get back to you on the PDST. . .I have had much trouble with my computer and then got the flu. I see that Dianne answered your question for you. I've been reading your posts freedom. . .I know you are trying. . .It's hard. . .I know.
Blessings
finished

Betterway. . .
Same here. today i feel slightly better. . .I really get depressed when I'm sick. (to much time to think). Hopefully will post later. . .
finished

again all those similarities
those guys are like a race
of men acting exactly alike
sounds so much like my x-p
whom i gave in again monday night

he is with another women
i told him
i would not have nothing to do with him
i do not want to hurt his new lady

but i gave in to his demand
i was missing him a lot

i know he is just using her
he is driving her sport car
he has the use of her cell phone
he already got a ticket for speeding 60 in a 35
he tells me she is bipolar and she just lost her husband
which could be a total lie
because he lies a lot

i was thinking about those guys in other countries
where the women gets some part of their body cut off
and can have many wives and even so very young
i might sound out of range here
but i was really thinking about all those women
in other countries how hard it must be for them to put up with those men

and here i am putting up with p
in a free country

freeddumbb

i forgot to mention
that he is still asking me to marry him
and i say no thank you
i know you would marry me just to use my car
and my telephone

freedumb

P-Proof

You started posting about the time I went on vacation and then my computer crashed. I have been following your story and appreciate your candor and willingess to share. The P experience is devestating (understatment). I know that mine has changed me forever. I strive to make it change me into a better and more aware person. It has given me great empathy for other women who have suffered at the hands of a P. Something I only could give lip service to before. My goal is to learn how not to be a victim ever again.
I am glad you are with us as well as some other new names I see here.
This forum saved my life. Truly! It was the validation and support plus kind words to encourage me to seek help and take baby steps AND NO CONTACT. We are fortunate to have each other here. Even though I don't see faces, I feel the connection and bond of the heart.

Finished