This is very true. Never did I ever think I would fall for a charlatan of any kind - you can’t comprehend it until you meet one of these insidious individuals.
I didn’t fall for one of these scammers who do it for the money but I can understand how it happens from my own experience.
This is what happened to me:
Will start by saying I’m unhappily married but stuck (long story) in an abusive marriage.
Met and had an intense attraction with a (married) man on a night out. He then persued me but not in an ott way - was just very complimentary (“it was so great to meet you last night - can you do lunch this week?”). Told me this about his marriage “it’s complicated - we’re just friends, haven’t had sex for over two years, she’s had MH issues and was a recluse for years so I have to tread carefully” also claimed he would struggle to separate properly as they have a dog and he was scared she’d try and take her (!!)
I told him of my unhappiness in my marriage - I believe he quickly latched into this and started his manipulation.
From the first meeting told me how beautiful I am, would stare into my eyes and act like he couldn’t believe his luck in meeting me. Acted like he was the kindest, sweetest, most altruistic guy you’d ever meet. Gave the impression he would do anything for anyone, offering me help with things such as sending a plumber round to fix things in my house, getting the brakes sorted on my car, offered me a job in his office when I told him I couldn’t leave my dh due to finances etc. Told me things like “you’re the only person I can talk to/who understands me”, was very loving and caring in bed, future faked: made plans, told me he’d booked tickets for festivals in the summer that we discussed etc etc.
I could go on and on but long story short, I fell very much in love with him and thought he was in love with me. I admitted early on to my dh as I couldn’t keep up the lies and he (scammer)told me he wanted us to be together, would constantly say things like “I want to be out there in public with you”. He spent a lot of time with me when he should’ve been working and had me round to his house when his wife was working away, pushing aside my concerns by saying they really were just friends and it was over.
When my dh found out who he was and threatened to contact his wife I told him I thought we should stop seeing one another. He then said he was going to tell her that he was moving out and seeing someone else - ok fine. Next day she “took an overdose”. This was when I started getting red flags. It all seemed too convenient. It was also extremely intense and when I told him I thought we should take a break he would manipulate me by getting upset and saying we were in this together/he only has me to talk to.
Long story short his wife knew nothing about me until she found out by herself by snooping on his phone! Then the shit hit the fan.
Turned out he had no intention of leaving her. I actually think he is unhappy and doesn’t love her but needs her for her money - he wouldn’t have the lifestyle he does without her and he mentioned several times that she earns more than him.
I can’t believe someone would do that to another person and the level of lying and duplicitousness it must’ve taken to be spinning his story, as well as lying to his wife is just mind-blowing. I realise now I probably wasn’t the first.
He has already had one business go into liquidation and the one he’s running now looks like it’s going the same way and I wonder if part of the appeal with me was that he knew (or thought) I had money. We live in a big house/nice car etc and if you looked up my dh online you would see he is a wealthy guy - he told me early on in our relationship he had googled my dh and knew who he was. The thing with these people is also that they often tell the truth about some things so for instance he didn’t lie about being married, he told me about his first business going into liquidation- probably because these were things I could’ve easily found out by googling him. So it’s not like they are just necessarily lying about everything.
So there were red flags but I guess I ignored them because the good stuff and love-bombing was doing dopamine type stuff in my brain! There’s SO much more I could put here about the things he did/said to completely convince me that we were going to be together.
Hid wife bailed him out with his first business ploughing a lot of money of her own to pay off some of his debts - I wonder if he was lining me up to give him money too, I don’t know but it’s crossed my mind.
Im intelligent and don’t suffer fools gladly - I’d describe myself as a cynical person. But he still managed to “scam” me. Not out of money but he scammed me nonetheless.
Some would probably say I deserve it but I feel like I was groomed in some way.
Ive said this on another thread bc I want to actually warn other women about him: his initials are DW and he lives in Cheshire and has a dog with the initial W!! I really feel like he’ll be on the lookout for his next victim and it actually really worries me, he was such a convincing liar.