My daughter lived at home while going to college and met a boy at her school. He appeared to be perfect at first. He treated her like a queen and quickly managed to win over our family. He played board games with her younger sisters and often sat and talked with my husband and I when he visited. He spent as much time with us as he did with her and so we thought she had found the perfect family man who was honest, respectful and kind. The boyfriend felt like a son to us and my other children would often remark that he was the favorite child! As the relationship progressed, he was often upset with my daughter. But by this point in the relationship, she was acting crazy and hysterical most of the time and we wondered what was wrong with her. We actually sided with him most of the time and tried to get her to see things his way. We wanted to send her to a counselor to deal with her hysteria, paranoia and depression. She stopped hanging out with her girlfriends. She was afraid to do anything without him and needed his constant approval. We wondered what happened to our confident and outgoing daughter? We were so grateful that he was there to help her and be with her through this difficult time.
     That is until the day he accidentally left his Facebook account open on our family computer. At first I thought it was my account but I quickly realized otherwise as I sifted through the messages. He was cheating on my daughter with at least 3 other girls! It was all there in the messages – the secret meetings, the plans for when she was out of town, everything. I was in shock! And then I did the unthinkable and unforgivable. I met with him and kept everything a secret from my daughter. I told him what I discovered and showed him the printout of the messages so he couldn’t deny it. Of course, he broke down in big tears and talked about how he was so in love with my daughter that it scared him. He was so afraid of how close they were and the attachment they had that he reached out to other girls so it wouldn’t frighten him so much. He also said that he was so happy that I found out because now for the first time he realized what he truly wanted and he didn’t need to be afraid anymore. Can you believe I bought this bullshit?? He told me that he would spend his life making it up to me and my daughter and we both agreed to keep the secret because it would be too painful for my daughter to bear. WTF was I doing? He was so utterly convincing.
    Shortly thereafter, he made plans to transfer schools to another state and he wanted my daughter to follow him out there and he promised he would eventually marry her but that he couldn’t until he finished school. The thought of her moving made me extremely nervous, especially since she didn’t know what I knew. I decided to check his phone when he came over (I learned in passing that his password was the same as my daughters, the day they met). When I had the chance, I looked at his phone and of course he was still talking to the other girls and cheating with them! I couldn’t believe my eyes after everything he said! After he left that night, I sat my daughter down and told her the whole story. The things she told me back that night shocked me to the core. Eventually, I realized that she was a victim of emotional abuse. He was constantly accusing her of cheating on him, would call her a whore, didn’t like her friends and got upset when she hung out with them. He didn’t like what she wore and would suggest outfits for her. He would criticize her relentlessly and say she wasn’t there for him enough and didn’t love him enough and that she was a bad girlfriend. She felt worthless and like she could never please him because she wasn’t good enough. I just couldn’t believe he could treat her this way in private and then spend time at our house like a member of the family.
    I can’t believe I was taken in so much by this individual. I feel awful that I couldn’t see what was happening and the changes in my daughter for the worse for having been with him. Even with all of this, it was still a very hard breakup for my daughter (and in fact, for me too). He kept trying to win her (and our family) back over just like he did the day I confronted him about the facebook messages. There were times we both wanted to see the good in him, to believe that he had changed.
    After googling “Jeckyl and Hyde personality”, I now know that he had the traits of a narcissist/sociopath/psychopath. These folks are truly master manipulators and cheaters! My daughter has been single for awhile now and struggles with letting anyone new into her life and trusting again. He definitely did damage to her confidence and well being but we are all working together as a family to rebuild what has been taken away.