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Conversation superseded our interest in our salads as we prattled on about various topics, including the characteristics we valued and disliked in potential mates.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.
Matt: No need to cringe. You’re a bighearted person, willing to share. Now you know how big you are and how much you care. You deserve someone who will know that the biggest gift you bring is your heart.
I paid for multilevel marketing up-front fees and an ill-conceived internet-based business — all in the hope that he would make something of it and stop picking MY pocket for each and every daily expense. Aaaack!
Rune:
Isn’t it amazing how WE all poured all OUR energies into trying to make THEIR lives work? And yet, THEY all seem strangely unconcerned about THEIR futures.
Oh, S talked a good game about wanting to save money for retirement, and not having a pot to piss in and wanting a better life for himself — and for us.
And yet, I remember on those trips I paid for, how he somehow came up with the money to go wild at the outlet malls. And had an apartment jammed to the rafters with stuff. And two large storage bins packed with stuff. (his ex was paying for those).
When I was totally besotted I wanted us to build a future together. I wanted us to do something together. I offered him endless opportunities. I wanted to see him succeed. But, end of the day, his only interests were his limited ends.
Every once in awhile, I wonder what is going to happen to S. His days as a boy-toy are gone. I don’t see “a big score” in his future.
My shrink says that statistically sociopaths live 15 years less than the rest of us because of their high-risk behavior. Maybe that’s his plan — die before he needs to worry about retirement. Some plan.
I’d like to thank Donna for this site and for you folks and your stories. Not that I’m taking great happiness in your stories because I’m not at all, but because of how we’ve all been so sensitive enough to try and be there for someone, only to have it blow up in our faces.
My last girlfriend, by all the descriptions and characteristics I’ve read, is a sociopath. A compulsive liar since she was a child, an abusive father and a very clingy personality, not to mention a thief and has no kind of compassion whatsoever and feels like she should have everybody bow down to her and is entitled to everything. She got out of relationship not long before she met me which was in 1998. She told me she was a model and her previous boyfriend would smack her around and mess her face up the night before a photo shoot. It gets better.
*She told me a member of the gym she worked at raped her (we spent several weeks in rape counseling only to find out it didn’t happen as she described it – it was rough sex with a married man and drama).
*She was arrested in 2004 for stealing over $16,000 during a 3 year period but never took responsibility for it (she claimed it was due to her parents financial issues) and was ordered to pay it back, first at $250 a month, then $500 when the judge saw she wasnt taking it serious.
*We were engaged briefly and moved in together for a year which was the ultimate wake-up call: I was working 7 days a week to make the rent and water bill and she would buy groceries but preferred lunch with her friends and shopping afterward, this while I’m taking out payday loans to help her with her restitution.
*We talked briefly after we moved out and decided to be civil and get our lives in order before we got back together. I paid the bulk of the rent at the storage garage that had 95% of her items and I continued paying for furniture that we had when we moved in together under the impression we would move in again. I also co-signed for her to get a new car, which was ultimately repossessed.
*She worked for an escort service after convincing me it was purely ‘social’ and no sex involved and it would help her pay off her restitution and then dated a guy (we’ll call him Frank)she met through this service and who gave her $1500 at their first meeting (which she promplty threw in my face to make it sound as if I wasn’t capable of helping her). She said nothing to me about this guy until her sister told me about it several months later. She said they were just ‘friends’ and he was married, two kids and a bisexual wife. When they would go out, they talked about his wife and I.
*We reconciled AFTER she found out I was talking to another woman and used a mutual friends wedding and ‘being around them showed her how special love is’ BS as the means to get back into my life.
*She admitted she slept with another guy behind my back and when I changed my cell #, she was frantically calling her sisters, friends and my work to talk to me and tell me how much she screwed up and she missed me and that she would have to earn my trust again and loved me. We talked a bit and went out to do things as cpuples do, shared intimacy, and she was still asking me to borrow money from me to go out with her friends.
*That same week, the judge was prepared to put her in jail if she did not come up with $8000 for the balance of the restitution. her mother called her ‘boyfriend’ (Frank) she met through the escort service. This poor guy shelled out close to $10000 but they were just ‘friends’. A married man meets a desperate and opportunitstic woman through an escort service, gives her that kind of money and they’re just friends?!?!?!? Not hardly – there was MAJOR sexual involvement going on between those two. Of course, she used his act iof kindness, again, to belittle me and make me feel worhtless.
*This past July, I knew something was going on and she knew she couldn’t lie about it anymore. I talked to her parents one day and by chance, the same day, I ran into her and she admitted she was seeing someone else (we’ll call him Todd) and they began dating ‘2 months ago’ (May) and didn’t hesitate to tell me they slept together, too. Later that night, I found out she was marrying this guy. I was completely and utterly pulverized. I talked to her sister that same night and she’d been dating Todd behind my back since April. She kept it from her parents until 3 days before I found out but the parents said not a word to me when I saw them.
After all the money I shelled out, after all the good deeds I tried to do, after the cheating, deceiving, manipulating and lying, she then doesn’t even have the decency to tell me she was breaking up with me. I called her and left her voice messages asking how and why she would do this to me and if Todd knew about her past: the arrests, the felony record, the escort service, Frank paying for her to get out of jail and that she was seeing Frank, myself and Todd simultaneously. Her response was simple text message reading HE ALREADY KNOWS. PLZ DONT CALL ME NEMORE. 10 years of being lied to, cheated on, used and manipulated and that’s the best I get is being broken up with via text message. She did tell a mutal freind she was concerned about me but that was so she could save face and not look to mean and heartless. Since then, no e-mails, cards, text messages or phone calls saying she was sorry for how this whole thing shook out. Our mutual friend did say she talked to her and told her she was disappointed with what she did and I deserved an explanation. I told her that was waste of time because my ex doesn’t care about anybody or anything. She just wants to get married and get out of her parents house and it became very and painfully obvious she’ll do what she has to do make herself happy. The problem is, she’s not happy unless she’s with somebody. Even when we separted not long after we started dating, there was another guy in the picture for her to be with, go out with – and whatever else they did. Clearly, this girl cannot function as a single person.
As the months rolled on, it became obvious that after we moved out, she wanted her space to find someone else to pay her way through life. She apparently broke it off with Frank, who I later found out was seperated, after she didn’t want to be #2 anymore. Guess his $10000 is up in smoke now, and knowing her, she probably told him she’d blackmail him if he pressed the issue.
She’s a whore, a slut, a compulsive liar, a thief, a felon, and for whatever reason, I feel like I put my time in and this guy guy got away with my trophy after knowing her for 6 months. What I’m more pissed off about is that people knew and didn’t tell me because felt it should be her place to tell me. My 10 years with her and this family should’ve superceded that and someone should’ve said something. As a result, there’s been no contact with her or her parents. As far as I’m concerned, I hope she pulls the same thing with her husband or he does the same thing to her. I have no sympathy for anybody that plans and schemes like this and people who watch it all happen and don;t have the decency to say something to an innocent victim.
I’m counting on Karma now to take care of her because I won’t. Karma is that continuous wheel that keeps on spinning and I’m certain she’ll get hers. I hope she does. I hope ANYBODY that does this sort of thing to someone who means well gets theirs. I refuse to retaliate because that would put my at the bottom of the barrel with her.
As a result of this whole thing, my self confidence has been shattered, my trust isn’t what it used to be and quite honestly I don’t care if I ever fall in love again. I’ll never go through this sort of this again. Count on it.
Hey Plowman: Welcome. You might notice that these Ss like to pick on decent people. So you’ll find a bunch of decent, compassionate people here who, like you, have a hard time believing that anyone could behave as badly as these creeps.
Like you said, “after the cheating, deceiving, manipulating and lying, she then doesn’t even have the decency to tell me she was breaking up with me.” No, and that’s because she can’t understand the concept of decency. Believe it or not, she did you a great favor by walking away and not contacting you. She might have been one of the stalker types.
Keep reading here, and you’ll get support to get through. You’re in good company here — among decent people.
Mine, too, was always scheming about that next big opportunity- his own bussiness, etc. And of course it was all based on me working 60 hours a week to get the ball rolling. He had 15 different jobs in the 10 years we were married, quitting or getting fired from every one of them. That is what keeps my fire fueled- the fact that we put not only our love & trust in them, we all have gone into financial ruins for all our efforts. Try to find someone to help recoup your losses?- that’s like spitting into the wind.
Plowman- welcome to LF, & I am truly sorry you have suffered at the hand of one of the many evil ones that inhabit our world. You are safe here. We all GET IT, & understand your pain & grief. Keep coming back to us!
Plowman:
Welcome. Gay, straigh, male, female — doesn’t matter, we’ve all been through the same drill and understand.
I’m sorry for what you’re going through. I finally drove my S off in November. There was the 3 month “honeymoon period” up front and 12 months of pure hell thereafter.
Mine was an ex-con, a financial trainwreck, abused alcohol and cocaine, had his salary garnished for back taxes and student loans, and spent the better part of our relationship trying to stave off eviction (I bailed him out twice). Money ran through his fingers like water. And I became his financial waterfall.
Sociopaths are parasites, plain and simple. They will bleed you dry emotionally, financially, physically. The list is endless.
I’m not surprised her parents didn’t say anything to you. I really liked my ex-S’s family. They were wonderful people. But, I can’t help but believe that when I came along they were greatful that I was taking their problem off their hands — if at least for awhile.
Read the archives and articles and postings. You’ll get through this.
Plowman,
I learned months ago with my X-S that I would never see him get what he deserved or get any real closure (except No Contact)…So I just had to “let it go” to either Karma or Jesus on Judgement Day ( I can easily imagine the twisted demonic sicko standing there trying to spew his venom and pathological lies before Jesus)
Sorry for your experience with the S…
God Bless….
Oxy couldn’t agree with you more. Internet dating sites is the gift that keeps on giving for S/P’s. These sites are an inexhaustible source of people for them to meet use and finally “seal the deal“. Many of them they won’t even meet but no worry mate, for they still get attention and their Narcissistic supply. They set up profile after profile (it’s all about numbers on the net and this is also a major red flag) waiting for that next fish to be hooked. What’s so great for them in these sites? Well it easy to lie on these sites. One can be anything one wants to be. It’s a easy access in and out if things don’t work out on these sites as planned. If anyone asked me I would tell them that “dating sites” is tailor made for Sociopathic people. But again to be fair to these sites. Yes there are so good people who really want to meet others. So we take our chances when we look there. All I can say is look for the many “red flags” and yes dear readers they will be there. For I myself have seen them.
Oh one another thing I forgot to add concerning setting up a profile…
Each site ask anyone this same question…
“Tell us about yourself”…
Oh how they love to tell us about themselves….
🙂