In 'Love Honor Betray' Season Finale, Lovefraud.com Author Exposes Con Artist Ex-Husband

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J., Dec. 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- In the season finale of Investigation Discovery's new series chronicling profoundly deceptive marriages, "Love, Honor, Betray," Donna Andersen, author of Lovefraud.com, exposes her ex-husband as a fake war hero, fake Hollywood screenwriter and fake entrepreneur who only wanted her money. The episode airs Thursday, December 16 at 10 pm ET.

Andersen was 40 years old when she met her ex-husband online in 1996. He seemed brilliant, charismatic and destined for greatness. The man proclaimed that at age 49, he'd finally found the woman he'd been waiting for. He quickly proposed marriage, and Andersen accepted, believing she was about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

She was right, although not in the way she anticipated.

It turned out that everything he told Andersen was a lie, starting with his age. He wasn't 49. He wasn't 51, as he later admitted. He was actually 55.

The man's business success was also a lie. In reality, he financed his lifestyle by swindling women. He took $227,000 from Andersen, and hundreds of thousands more from others. He was a con artist, later diagnosed as a sociopath.

Because of her experience, Andersen founded Lovefraud.com, a website that teaches people to recognize and recover from sociopaths. In her research, she learned that the prevailing view in the mental health field was that sociopaths "burned out" in their 40s and engaged in less antisocial behavior. This made no sense — her ex-husband was in his 50s when he stole from her and multiple other women, and continued his con games after she left him. Hundreds of Lovefraud readers reported that they, too, were exploited by people over age 40 whom they believed were sociopaths.

Andersen's new book, "Senior Sociopaths — How to Recognize and Escape Lifelong Abusers," challenges the burnout myth. The book is the first to identify the 14 million Americans over age 50 who could be diagnosed as having antisocial, narcissistic, borderline, histrionic or psychopathic personality disorders. It goes on sale April 4, 2022.

"Senior Sociopaths" is based on surveys of nearly 2,400 Lovefraud readers about their experiences with exploitative romantic partners, spouses, parents, family members, work colleagues, neighbors and friends over age 50. Survey respondents told horror stories of deception, manipulation, abuse, exploitation, violence and crime perpetrated by the senior sociopaths in their lives. "They never change," one respondent commented.

More than 800 survey respondents knew the individual they were describing both before and after age 50. Asked if the individual burned out, the answer was a resounding "no!" A total of 91% of respondents said that individual engaged in the same amount of deceit, manipulation or antisocial behavior after age 50 as before. Or their behavior grew worse.

"'Senior Sociopaths' is written for the millions of survivors who are desperately trying to comprehend a partner, family member or colleague who never grows up and never calms down," Andersen says. "It reveals the patterns of abusive behavior perpetrated by these disordered individuals and offers strategies on how to escape and recover.

"Senior sociopaths exist," she continues. "They blend right into our society. And they continue their abusive behavior until the day they die."

"Senior Sociopaths — How to Recognize and Escape Lifelong Abusers" is published by Anderly Publishing, Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. For more information, contact Terry Kelly at [email protected] or 609-945-1384.

SOURCE Lovefraud.com