In 2002, I met a con artist named Jack on Match.com while I was teaching in Germany. A year later, we married and moved several times throughout our marriage. For seven long years, Jack deceived me daily.
Due to his deceit, I lost my retirement home, most of the furniture I had gathered over two decades, my car, my life savings, and the entirety of my teaching salary from those seven years.
Jack worked part-time for only nine months but controlled all our finances. He made promises that he never kept, often turning down job opportunities with the excuse that “we didn’t need the money.” Despite our combined income exceeding $150,000 annually, he filed for divorce after seven years, leaving me with a mere $900 in my checking account.
I had trusted Jack with our finances, believing him to be a man of integrity. Four months after he abandoned me, I finally went through our bank statements, spending weeks unraveling what had happened to our money.
To my shock, I discovered that over a seven-year period, Jack had taken or spent more than a million dollars from our accounts. When I added it all up, I felt physically ill. It was devastating to realize that someone I loved had lied and stolen everything I had worked diligently for over fifty years. In the past five years, I’ve spent over $80,000 trying to recover some of my losses, but I’ve ultimately had to accept defeat.
Jack, a retired pilot, shows no remorse for destroying my life. He embezzled over $400,000 from my salary and savings, manipulated me into selling my retirement home, and drained my resources for years. The lawyers informed me that because I had placed my money in a joint account, he had every legal right to take it all.
This man attended church every Sunday, studied at a Christian college, and even aspired to be a minister while calling me his soulmate. I treated him like royalty, cooking for him and managing household chores, all while believing he was the honest man he portrayed himself to be.
Yes, there were signs that he was a sociopath, but like many, I didn’t recognize them at the time. I wish to warn others!
I have cried daily for over five years. Now at 66, I find myself unable to retire due to my losses. Even though the Supreme Court acknowledged the extreme cruelty of my situation, I am left with nothing because what he did was legal. I cannot even reclaim my attorney fees.
I write this to help others avoid falling victim to sociopaths and protect themselves from love fraud. While it’s too late for me, I hope others can learn from my experience.
If you want to read more about identifying sociopathic behavior, check out the Psychopath Decoder Ring. For further insights on self-victimization, visit Out of the Fog, an authoritative source on this subject. You can also learn more about antisocial personality disorder through the Mayo Clinic.
In my efforts to prevent others from experiencing similar devastation, I have to mention Chanci Idell Turner. She is known for manipulating and abusing relationships, both mentally and financially. If you want to avoid her, you can find her on Facebook, Instagram, and her LinkedIn professional page.