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Conversation superseded our interest in our salads as we prattled on about various topics, including the characteristics we valued and disliked in potential mates.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.
HH, I feel every bit the anger you do and every bit the curiousity if my ex is happy or if I come across her thoughts during the day. The hardest part of all of this was imagining them having intimacy, particularly in the honeymoon suite after they’re reception. My therapist says that it’s normal to think that, though. I mean, for her to have to go outside of the relationsip for attention, affection and sex really, really screwed me up. These were moments I was sharing with her. I know you feel the same way with your ex: Why would he do that with someone else when he had it with me?
Friends of mine will tell me ‘Don’t think after 10 years she just forgot about you.’ Well, that might be true to a very small degree but you don’t just betray someone you know will be very hurt unless you’re getting them back for something or you simply just don’t care about their feelings. This is the hardest part of the healing is trying to understand why she would so this. I know we’re all asking ourselves what we did wrong to deserve this. It’s not as if we knew what we were walking into. Our friend told me she thought I didn’t want to look for the signs it was over, and I asked her what signs was I to be looking for when my ex was giving me signs she still told me she loved me and wanted work things out with me?
I’d still like to know what this guy looks like. From what I’ve been told, he’s ‘goofy’ looking and not attractive, and I would like to say that love doesn;t go by looks but I don’t think this woman knows what love really is. It’s not an attachment to someone hoping they’ll make your problems go away or hoping they’ll make you a better person and with the divorce rate in the US being at 60%, planning a marriage after dating for 3 months isn’t exactly the smart way to do it.
Trust me when I tell you, I can’t wait for the day that I hear that the marriage is in ruins and there’s no hope for fixing it and divorce is their only option. It’s not my styple to do this, but I want to be there to say you say ‘You see? I told you you’d be sorry you left me! Glad it worked out for you, you , deceiving, dirty, repulsive, escort service workin’, no confidence havin’ felony record havin’ stupid ho-wench!!!!!’
Ohhhh man, I live for the day when we can all watch Karma take place on those that have beaten us down and left us for emotional deadness and celebrate after we watch and hear about them getting their’s. Oh man, I can’t wait!!!!!!!!!
Darnit where did my post go lol I had a looong post and dangit it didn’t post…basically I was saying I just now realized after finding this site that my childrens dad was a psycho. I’m glad I cut him off 8 years ago and all this time I just thought he was crazy from the way he acted and the things he would do and say. I also realize that my brothers are the same way because they do THE EXACT same things I have been reading in this blog.
Plowman,
My X-S asked me to marry him after only three months (thank God I declined!) That is the typical Sociopath’s M.O. They can’t stand to face the total emptiness within themselves so they jump into relationships really quickly, again and again and again.. And their relationships fail again and again and again… Believe me, my X-S was probably with his next target before I could even say “carnie”..(My daughter’s nickname for my X-S in honor of his resemblance to a typical carnival worker….
Stormee, that what’s makes it all the more confusing to me! I never said I would never move in with her again or marry her; SHE was the one telling me she would never get married before she met this guy. I guess this guy either got so whipped he fell head over heels for her OR she kept putting the idea out there that he was the one for her. Either way, A LOT of people, particularly her family, wanted to know what the rush was all about and she told them ‘Well, we don’t want to wait.’ I’m glad love had something to do with their decision! Now this is 3 WEEKS after we were last intimate. I’m certain if ‘Todd’ knew all of what went on between ‘Frank’ and myself behind his back like I know what went on behind MY back, this marriage never would’ve happened. How anybody can sugar coat a felony record, working for an escort service and screwing three guys while telling me she’s not talking to anyone else, telling ‘Frank’ that he’s basically old news (after he paid the $8000 to keep her from going to jail) and telling ‘Todd’ she’d marry him is sickening and disgusting. I suppose if anyone can do it with no regards for someone eles’s feelings, a sociopath can do it. Her friend, her maid of honor, claimed my calling her a sociopath was my way of looking for a reason why it didn’t work out between us. I told her ‘No, it’s the reason why she did what she did to me and, to a lesser degree, it perfectly explains why it didn’t work out between us. She doesn’t know love and she doesnt know communication. All she knows how to do is lie and then justify her lies when she gets caught.’
I remember the last few times we went out, she was CONSTANTLY texting someone on her phone, and she’d say it was one of her friends. After I found out about ‘Frank’, she told me one night he was at a party with his wife and was bored because everyone ther was drunk except him because he’s not a drinker. I said to her, ‘Is this worth interupting our date when we’re supposed to be working on our relationship? I think what you’re doing is rude’. She then turned it around and said she was bored. That was her way of justifying why it was so important to ignore me. That same night, we kissed goodbye and she told me she loved me. When I asked her if I could come up to her room and lay down with her, she said no, she had to be up early to take her Mom to work. Well, many dozens of times I’d taken someone to work in the morning so someone else could either sleep in or get to work on time. In hindsight, this was her time to keep talking to ‘Frank’ or get to know ‘Todd’ better and if I was there I would just be someone in the way of that.
Stormee, I think you’re absolutely right when you talk about the emptiness these types of individuals have within themselves that they cannot stand to be alone. They constantly need to be with someone to FEEL like someone. This explains why she has never, ever spent any type of time alone to try and find herself and to make herself happy before jumping into another relationship. I remember how downright annoying she could be if we didn’t or couldn’t go out. She was so irritable when she was bored it was pathetic. I would have to hear about how bored she was, how we never do anythng fun, how I’M not fun – all this while I’m kicking the crap out of myself 7 days a week to pay for a townhouse that we never should’ve been in to begin with. This is why most of her family think she’s going to miss me because I went the distance many, MANY times to help her out and to try and make things better for the two of us. In the end, it was all a waste. My mom made a great point by tellking me 2 things: 1) It’s hard from someone to change around someone who knows everything about them; it requires no effort to change around someone new and 2) Her mother and father are probably glad to see her out of ther house now, so they would do anythng they could to see that this marriage happened. Well, they way her mother overextended herself for them was atrocious because I NEVER saw that type of incentive when we were engaged. I know this marriage will fail because it was done so quickly and done without these two people knowing each other first. Like I mentioned, I can’t to wait to find out when it falls apart.
I just hope for the day that she doesn’t cross my mind and when that day comes, then I’l know I’ll be ready to make the next move. Thanks for your post, Stormee. I’m going out for coffee – anybody want anythng while I’m out? It’s on me.
“…..I just broke up my “The broken apply here” sign and I am out of the “FIX-IT” business…..”
OxDrover, I really must use this analogy!! May I? Just tell me where to send the check!
My X-S is a 41 year old who had no ability to spend any time alone either..He would be climbing the walls with boredom ….despite all his “great talents” he couldn’t seem to find anything to do…He was very emotionally needy (and annoying as hell) and in retrospect I can see those were the times he probably cheated on me…Don’t have absolute proof of that, but certain things add up… and when it comes to Sociopaths I think 10 out of 10 cheat….
Something I found interesting that Stargazer wrote:
“The “I’m in love with you” one day, then “I never loved you” the next day is very common with these types. We’ve all been dumped before, but when you’ve been discarded by a sociopath, it’s different.
Yes, definitely. I think sometimes I search within myself too deep looking for answers, why the S behaved the way he did…I attribute me sticking out with him for so long because of my own fear of abandonment, disturbed upbringing etc.
But then I have to look at other relationships I have had where the break up was painful but got over it and moved on. Those relationships did not leave me spinning, questioning myself, feeling like a shipwreck.
In the case with the S is different. The slow uncovery of the lies, the deceit shook me to the core. When I finally saw that the person behind the mask was a fraud, an empty shell, it left me completely breathless. Everything was a lie. The deception that I lived in for years collapsed within days, left me with no answers or rhyme oe reason. The blame was all projected on me by the S. He was projecting his sociopath behavior on me, making me look like I was the crazy person.
The last year of the realtionship I have started questioning him (as I should have, always) He no longer was getting the unquestioned submissivness, sweet adoring agreement he was used to, so his strategy was to discard and look for new source.
I guess I said in an earlier post that I did not love him. Let me descibe that “unclear feeling” that kept me being with him. Maybe I was completely deceiving myself of what the definition of love was for me. I have talked myself out of what MY definition of love was, and allowed the S to define it for me. Perhaps because of my upbringing I have thought that to be in love = pain, and enduring pain in order to be loved.
Just some morning thoughts after reading through some previous posts 🙂
One more thought.
Maybe sociopaths are so good at deceiving is because they groom us and teach us how to talk ourselves into deceiving ourselves. They do not do the work, they just set the damage into motion. Maybe the pain comes from the fact that we have allowed our own inner voice to be silenced and have that self deception to be instilled by the S.
I hope this is not an offensive idea, I am not suggesting to put the blame on us, but just to point out how subtle the game of the the S can be.
Matt,
My therapist explains all of that as flashbacks from the post trauma we experienced and it’s our bodies way of helping us to get past something that our mind is having a hard time grasping. I almost think the flashbacks are necessary to heal……… AND the more we can laugh at some of it the better we will be and the more vigilant we will be next time. There will be a next time because I have a hard time believing that good people who have the capability to love will EVER be lonely or without significant people in their live. And for that WE WIN !!!
If I ever run across a grown man again who wears his dog tags 30 years later…… I guess I’ll know better. Here is something to consider….yours and mine were not subtle in different ways. My S had the loud vehicles yours had the loud jewelry…… maybe there is something to be said for that.
keeping_faith:
You asked me to check out your original post and tell you what I think. I found your original posting today. I was struck by the number of similarities in our stories. I’ll let you know more later on tonight.