He asked me for a favor, actually a bit more than a favor. It amounted to me paying for everything…something about his mother and her medical bills…frankly, I didn’t pay much attention to the details. He said he had to loan her a lot of money but she’d pay him back and then he’ll square off with me. After three months of this “paying for everything” thing, we were out at a restaurant. I said “How about you pick up the tab tonight?” It was very awkward. He said something vague about doing it “soon”, but he got distant, not apologetic…so I dropped it.

But I was getting…it’s painful to admit this… suspicious.

Then I had to call him at the office, which I never do, and guess what…he didn’t work there anymore. I completely freaked out. I confronted him and he said he was planning on telling me about his job but he didn’t want to upset me. He said had a job interview coming up the following week, and on and on. He said he trusted his mother to reimburse him soon and I shouldn’t worry. He talked and talked. I was listening but not hearing at the same time.

I felt like I was in a trance. I believed him even though this was implausible. When I am away from him I know he must be lying to me but when we are together he seems persuasive and sincere. He is the center of my world and I don’t want to lose him. I love him. Maybe there is some alternative explanation. Please help me figure this out.

Dr. J replies:

The sad thing is that the person at the center of your world, the one you love, may not exist. You fear losing him, but you never had him…and you do not have him now. You are infatuated with a fantasy. Rather that face this, you are denying the obvious.

The person you are describing is a classic portrait of a psychopath. Psychopaths are socially facile, charming, and persuasive, often ruthlessly manipulative. They blackmail people, leveraging benign wishes to love and be loved, sucking out their care and energy for some type of gain, in this case financial.Regardless of the situation with your partner’s mother, and even this part of the story doesn’t make a lot of sense, the outright falsification about his job is already a serious betrayal. Consider how much strategy was involved in concealing this for months. He had a job…then lost the job…and never told you. You were paying for everything while this essential reality was obscured. Your terror of losing the relationship, and perhaps your terror of your own rage, then resulted in a period of collusion.

Real psychopaths are remarkably good at deception. I believe that you have been victimized, and feel unsafe because your sense that you could trust someone close to you has been violated. Your sense that you know who is trustworthy and who is not has faltered. Often “signs” that seem obvious in retrospect are easy to miss, especially if this person is, as you say, the center of your world. This is a heartbreaking outcome to a relationship that began with romance and hope. I think you need to examine the temptation to deny what you “know” to keep something or someone that you need and want.

The vulnerability to betrayal usually has roots in childhood; needs to rescue someone central to your well-being. It is sometimes linked to fears of abandonment and narcissistic insecurities. It is, above all, the need to deny the presence of evil in the world. Hopefully, you are resilient and will use your resources to heal. Give yourself time and do not jump into a new relationship before mourning this one.

Dr. J replies:

I would encourage you to trust your feelings…that something powerful happened between you. On the other hand, you don’t know this person, and you don’t know if “falling in love” is something that he wants, at least at this moment in his life. Never underestimate timing. The fact that you got so attached so quickly does suggest that you are needy. I don’t know if he registered that and felt overwhelmed. Sometimes people can pick up implicit demands that are never put into words.

On the other hand, there are people who seduce others as a way to entertain themselves and feel empowered. If this is the case, the sooner you know it the better. Many factors make someone unavailable emotionally, at least at a particular time. People who have not fully mourned a prior relationship may “bolt” when meeting someone with romantic potential. You letter suggests that part of why you are feeling terrible is because you have no clarity. You don’t know why what happened happened. You can call him and attempt to get more clarity, but his precipitous departure does not bode well for a constructive conversation. Life is full of mysteries both wonderous and perplexing.