Melissa K. Dean was a new lawyer in a new job. All she needed was a new romantic interest. So she posted her profile in Match.com, and received more than 30 responses in the first two days. One of the men started began his message boldly, writing, “Hi Gorgeous!”
For a woman who had long doubted her feminine appeal, the words were irresistible. More words followed—words that seemed to indicate mutual interests and goals, words that appealed to the woman’s sympathies.
Melissa K. Dean tells the story of being seduced by, married to, and then abused by, Jack Cass, a man who claimed to be a former Navy SEAL. It’s a classic story of sociopathic victimization.
Exotic dancer
Dean tells her story in a new book available in the Lovefraud Store, Hi Gorgeous! Starry Eyes and Toxic Lies.
They communicated online and by phone for a short time. Then they met for lunch, which Dean describes early in the book:
Conversation superseded our interest in our salads as we prattled on about various topics, including the characteristics we valued and disliked in potential mates. He spurned spoiled princesses and victim-oriented women, a group that included his mom—a counselor “ahead of her time,” yet victimized by by his Baptist father’s verbal abuse and infidelity with Jack’s piano teacher. He hated civilians, abhorred dishonesty and disloyalty—especially infidelity.
My bleeding heart was moved by his tale of woe, which he fully anticipated. Here was a man who’d been wounded on the battlefields of war and romance. “I let women walk all over me,” he proclaimed. The three purple hearts to which he laid claim paled in comparison to the heart he said was repeatedly broken by women who’d either cheated or bilked him out of money. “Learning to trust is a difficult task for me,” he said.
Can anyone say manipulation?
At one point before meeting Cass, Dean worked as an exotic dancer—that’s how she earned the money to take a prep course for her bar exam. Cass was fascinated by her former stint as a stripper, and after he manipulated Dean into marriage, saw his future in marketing his wife as a sexy model and dancer at biker clubs.
He, of course, had financial problems, child support payments and no steady income. But he had big ideas, which he convinced his wife to participate in. Gradually, he became more and more impatient with Dean’s contributions, and displayed his displeasure through emotional, psychological and sexual abuse.
Message of hope
In their letters to Lovefraud, many people have said their experiences with a sociopath were so outrageous that they should write a book about what happened to them. Melissa Dean has done it.
Many of you, who thought you were the only person on the planet experiencing the abuse and crazy-making of a sociopath, will take comfort in her story. You are not alone. In fact, many of you will recognize yourself, and the person who victimized you, in the tale.
Dean’s book has a happy ending—she escapes and begins to rebuild her life, her way. Her story is proof that you can recover from the abuse. It’s the message of hope and healing we all need.
Goodnight HH, I have really appreciated talking with you. It means the world.
HH
…don’t get me started on sluts! LOL! If a fellow can be a “stud”, then….It’s all about ethics.
I digress.
My N also behaved inappropriately on our first date. Aside from showing up a bit drunk, he kept burying his face in my neck at the restaurant.
He said he hadn’t asked a woman out in over 20 years and was nervous, and that he hadn’t had sex in over a year – so I excused his behavior. His ex-wife was a “psycho” and she “used” him. She had a herd of b/f’s…balhblahblah.
I went through the hell, that most of you seem to be experiencing after the realization, without knowing what I was dealing with. The worst was not knowing who I was anymore. By the time I realized exactly what he was (the middle of December), I was so done. Altogether, it was 2 1/2 years out of my life.
I had already gone back non-exclusively, and he still had to lie. His mistake was telling me not to tell anyone we were seeing each other again. Of course, I wanted to know what he was saying that would necessitate secrecy; stuff had already been filtering back to me anyways.
It was ridiculous, but because of our status, he had relaxed his guard. I got to see him in action, catch him in stupid lies, and then I found LF…The gig was up. He actually stopped pretending a couple of times.
I lived in fear because HE was the nutcase? I was yelled at, spied on, and accused because HE was guilty? He “did everything” for me, yet I had nothing I wanted? When I did have something I enjoyed, he’d try to sabotage it, control it, or tell me I was being selfish?
Thankfully, he never withheld sex, but it did become a sad reality that he used it to make everything okay
Arrrgh!
Yes, my P says very inappropriate things and talks about sex in a way that can make me blush. He hasn’t called since Tuesday when I refused to loan him money to buy lunch! Jeez, the guy is 50 years old, if he’s that hungry he can go use his credit card like the rest of us. I must be crazy. Anyway, I’m just trying to let the “relationship” wither away, I’m afraid to make him mad. I’m just not going to call him.
Blew Me Away: yes, the same thing you wrote about happened to me. I was 4 months out of a long relationship with a N, and this guy I’m seeing now came after me and I guess it was just what I needed at the time. I told myself I was “helping” him, even though I was journaling to myself about everything, and could see what was going on, I just hung in there hoping it would change.
Blew me away wrote:
“God, what is with these guys, do they all say stuff that is abusive and trashy, colored in a joke – “Hey, look at those hooters” How I could possibly ignore some of the crap that came out of that mouth is beyond me.”
>yup most of them do this i am pretty sure…it is usually one of the first of main major boundary violations- the ‘shock and awe’ tactic. it is done to flip you in to cognitive dissonance thus creating confusion/throw you off balance and to gauge your reaction. if you don’t react, react with shock, laugh it off or express your offendedness…they have just gotten a handle on how better to deal with you…
the shock of it, is why we ‘ignore’ or blow it off…it is perverted behavior, usually perpetrated in the context of situation that calls for the opposite (like on a first date when he should be trying to make a good impression) just so outside the norm of the expected.
stunned,
I told my S what I thought he was about 2 months ago, but still saw him again. He made one of his crazy “shock and awe” statements, looked me right in the face and said, “I’m glad to see I still have the power to confuse you.” This tactic was very effective on me, and he used it ALL the time. I feel like it took days to make sense of each wild statement, I could not even retaliate, and I am ordinarily rather quick witted. What is especially amazing to me is how naturally they employ this method.
stunned
maybe that’s one of the warning signs, when someone makes a comment that takes you days to process, and you are having conversations with yourself about “why didn’t I say this, or I wish I had said that”… I think I’ll start running in the opposite direction. It’s a huge disconnect in appropriate behavior, being genuine and considerate of someone else’s feelings. I should really have questioned more, and excused less. I think on some level I knew that, I just was having such a hard time putting it all together. My friends could see it, I would tell them some of the outrageous stuff he would lie about and they would very gently question if he was legit. But he was presenting a fairy tale and on some level that’s what I wanted. After everything I had been through, I thought I deserved that. Now I know it simply doesn’t work that way. I do deserve that, but certainly not with him, he’s incapable, for one thing.
A good friend once said to me, “This isn’t like when we were younger, you’ve been out of circulation for 30 years, it’s a whole different ball game”. When I told my S that, and asked him what he thought she meant by that (because he wholeheartedly agreed), he said “Baby, you’ll figure it out”. I guess that was it. At my age the S’s of the world have had years to mature into very highly functional personalities and are even more dangerous and good at what they do, especially if they decide to turn it into a profession like mine obviously did. This is what he does for a living. He has put years into learning how to do it well, study the law and read people. That helps me on some small level. He was a professional, I didn’t have a chance. I’m lucky I figured it out after 8 months and didn’t end up marrying the guy. Then he would have had access to all my assets, not just the 70K he stole from me.
Here’s one of the toughest pieces I’m trying to wrap my head around.
I think on some level, what was happening was familiar to me. I think my mother is a sociopath. Don’t get me wrong, she loves me, but a lot of the behavior (not a sophisticated and crazier) was similar. I could never do anything good enough in her eyes, she always wanted more. Would make promises that she never followed through with. Always wanted me to do something that felt more like it completed her and not me. It didn’t matter what I did it was never enough, never good enough. There is a similarity between the two of them that I think was part of the hook for me. My mother-in-law was the same way. I can remember spending days trying to process some of the stuff she would say to me. Her agenda was just different. She couldn’t stand the fact that her son adored me and we had the loving relationship she could never have with her husband and saw me as a threat to her relationship with her son.
to everyone: why is it that they only last a few months doing the right thing does anyone have the facts on this id love to know. my ex s path started to talk about sex in the first phone cnversation, he asked me do you like sex i didnt even really know himat this stage i only worked with him how bizarre to ask me this. and ifelt like s silly school girl laughing and answered him. what a red flag. and there were other things he said in that first ph conversation that were very odd that i should of taken note. he was a lot younger than me and ithink i came right down to his level of maturity in the begining, now iask myself why.i had been married and experienced a lot more of life thn he had and has to this day. at the time of meeting himhe gave me a lot of attention and iwas very lonely and craving someones attention, he just showed up and gave me just what i thought i needed. then when we were first dating he acted like h was really falling in love he cried and told me deep secrets about himself he acted very innocent in regards to beng with woman and sex i thought this was very sweet but it was a act. i told him in begining i didnt want to have sex right away cause i think sex is for people in love and he said that made him want me even more, he knew all the lines. i think its a shame that any of u s feel lonely and think we need to be with someone to have a normal life i think this makes us a good target for s paths.evenn now i am not in touch with him often but when a m he still lies about trivial crap and makes up stuff.he says things that are confusingit. really annoys me that i loved this person and cause of that i still have a memory of that love for him as i would any person i share my self with, but i dont think he feels anything for me even though he said he loved me. i think it ony normal for all people to feel like that bout someone they hve loved, but this proves to me he is either lying about his feelings or he just isnt normal and doesnt feel it. feel very similar to many ladies here but each person has a different life and the men are different, but the same .
Dear Blew me away,
If your mother was a socio/psychopath she didn’t love you, they are NOT able to bond and love. She may have been Narcissistic, or she may have been an enabler, but if she loved you she was definitely not an S or P. However, that said, she sounds TOXIC and in my humble opiinion, people who do MEAN THINGS TO YOU FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT are TOXIC and need to be out of your life no matter what “label” you tack on them. I don’t think my mother is a P, but she has done some really MEAN THINGS, knowing they are mean, SO I AM NC with her. So that said, you might want to reassess your relationship with your mother. If your mother treated you like that, then you were “set up” to expect that kind of treatment from an S or P as a mate as well.