Last year, Slate published an article called My mother married her prison pen pal. A synopsis of the story is this: After 22 years of marriage, the author’s parents divorced. One day her mother receives a collect phone call from Joe, who was incarcerated. He dialed her phone number at random; thinking it was someone she knew who had the same name, the woman accepted the call. The prisoner asked the woman to write to him. She thought it was a good mentorship opportunity, so she did. Eventually, the woman married the guy.
Please pause now and read the story:
My mother married her prison pen pal
By Anna Balkrishna
The biggest myth
Mom knew that Joe was in jail—she started writing to him because she wanted to be a “positive influence” in his life. She fell for one of the biggest myths that our culture propagates: There’s good in everyone.
Unfortunately, it isn’t true. Despite the platitudes we’ve grown up with”—All men are created equal,” “Everyone deserves a chance,” “We’re all God’s children—”some people are rotten to the core. And they’re called sociopaths.
Joe worked his sociopathic magic, and Mom fell in love. So even when she married him, and then found out that he wasn’t in prison for vehicular manslaughter, he was really in prison for rape, she stood by him, and spent her retirement money on his lawyers. Balkrishna wrote:
She believed that he was put into her path for a purpose. She made a commitment: morally, to “turn him around” and wean him off his bad behaviors, and practically, to help him through his sentence and his parole until he could integrate back into free society. Once she made the commitment, she could not break it.
So Joe gets out of jail and guess what? He cheats on Mom. He stops looking for work and starts doing drugs. Eventually he ends up back in jail. Mom was heartbroken, and the author of the story makes a very telling observation:
Lovers are hard enough to give up, but ideals are even harder.
Discernment
Many of us know exactly what she means. Many of us tried to nurture that “poor, unloved child” under the abusive shell—only to find out that under the shell there was nothing.
We were crushed. We were deceived and emotionally destroyed, and we were forced to admit that our view of the world was deeply flawed.
Yes, our experiences with sociopaths were devastating. But I don’t believe that once we’ve encountered these predators, we have to totally give up on our ideals. However, we do need to recognize that our ideals can’t encompass everyone.
There are people who have been dealt a bad hand in life, and with understanding and assistance, can turn their lives around. They are worthy of our efforts. The sociopaths, however, will continue to do what they do, no matter how we persevere in our attempts to help them, save them, reform them. Once sociopaths are adults, they are not going to change.
We are not all created equal. We don’t all deserve a chance. We may all be God’s children, but some people have forgotten, and don’t care.
We need to be able to discern which people have a heart and a conscience, and which people don’t. Then, we can lavish our time, love and idealism on those who can benefit from our efforts. The others, we leave behind.
Surely if you’re going to cut someone a check to care for a child, you would check to see if they have a track record of using money responsibly?!? I’m still scratching my head over how a person with a clear record of fraud and interpersonal instability can become a foster parent. It should be considered criminally negligent to entrust such a person with someone else’s child.
Anna/Donna
I really feel an affinity with the mother! I like her.
she re-jeuvenated herself, she went for her dream and no matter what anyone said she somehow knew there was an opportunity to re -create herself, and who is to say she Shouldn’t have gone for it?
The sociopath/Psychopath MIRRORS THE BEAUTY THAT IS INSIDE US (thats what we fell in love with???)
she did NOTHING WRONG okay we put our so called power in a sociopath hands, if we had done that then we would not be here….think
we ran with our DREAMS which was to LOVE WOTH ALL OUR HEARTS and believe in transformation. A huge lesson awaited each one of us that DARED TO LOVE QUICKLY and give 100 per cent ….and what stands out for me and no doubt for everyone who ever was “in love” with a sociopath in the very beginning stages is what Anna says:
“and she blossomed in a way I couldn’t deny”
I agree with you, Bulletproof, and she said the relationship was a redemption for both of them. To me, there is a sence of her knowing this relationship was the next step in her growth. I know that sounds bizarre, but that’s kind of what I’m getting out of it.
We do grow through suffering. We become stronger and wiser, and perhaps, in the end, more spiritual, and loving.
kim frederick
Thanks
Redemption- yes and it does sound bizarre!!!
I think you really need to have been there to know….well for me, I wanted to love and do good and he mirrored that hope I had, and foolishly perhaps I thought he was a “kindred spirit” because he had the same vison-
He simply mirrored back MY VISION and I’m pretty sure that’s what had me GLOWING
What if this woman had been taught, educated, enlightened about consciously choosing to make healthy choices.
What if when she picked up that phone and once she realized she was mistaken about who the caller was and made aware he was a prisoner — what if she CHOSE to say “No, I will not write to you” and hung up. I certainly would make that choice today….but not sure a few years ago…
But what if she made that choice.. could she have gone on to find a next step in her growth that didnt involve the destruction of herself along the way??
I hear you Kim and Bulletproof – because I myself struggle with the goodness from the end result (within myself) after having gone through such suffering with him.
Isnt there a way to become stronger wiser more spiritual and loving by not choosing bad choices or making it ok to choose bad choices in order to be ok with the initial bad choice and ALL the ones that followed that she/we chose to make.
This story hits home for me. I didnt quite see it as the daughter being a narcissist about it. I saw a daughter ahead of her time and way more grounded secure and mature than her own mother (at times)… the mother got lost along the way… by choice, by circumstance, by fate???
I say by making bad choices because of not enough self-awareness, sociopathic awareness and being in the wrong place (divorcing) at the right time (phone call)
Learning, You make a very good point-Isnt there a way to become stronger wiser more spiritual and loving by not choosing bad choices or making it ok to choose bad choices in order to be ok with the initial bad choice and ALL the ones that followed that she/we chose to make.
I hate to think that’s what I’m doing, but aknowledge that it’s possible. I certainly wish I’d made better choices….but, alas, can’t change that now.
I didn’t really think the daughter sounded narsissistic, I just thought she had the tone of superiority, like she was very condescending toward her mother…..the way adolescents are always sure their parents are stupid and they know everything about the world, because they’ve experienced it all in their 15 years here….I thought she even sounded a little bit jealous….and that is crazy.
But you are right. The mom did make bad choices, and hopefully her daughter learned vicariously, through her, and won’t ever have to suffer from making those mistakes herself.
I think some, not all of us, had red warning flags but we didnt know thats what they were – or that we couldve chosen to say no, or had the self- awareness to say no, in order to protect our future.
Such a difficult conversation without it appearing or being received as blame on the recipient of the abuse. Thats not what my intention is…. its more of this dumbfoundedness over the lack of knowledge, education or enlightenment of whats best for us in certain situations…
Its like we have to go through hell first to get to the understanding, lightbulb moment. I struggle with why that is….
We both had different takes on the daughter in the story. I really felt the daughter was able to tell the story straight from her eyes (what she saw) through her soul (what she felt at each stage ie her mom falling in love, to the obsession, to the abuse, to denial, to closure) as her daughter.
Just wish there was some way people could learn/be educated/be enlighted without having to experience or witness it.
How did we learn not to put our hand in fire, or use anything electric near water, or not walk out into the middle of the street, etc… we were all taught about that or things that harm us in a physical sense.
But for me there were no lessons taught about what can harm us in an emotional sense.. or as a result of making choices based on the truth of whats out there ….vs. what our belief was that all others are good or surely must have goodness within them…
I kind of think we are enculterated to be victims…fairy-tales, and romantic love stories….being swept off our feet, the long suffering love, the swoon, the whole,”stand by your man, ” mentality. I don’t think we are taught to love ourselves first, nor are we taught to recognize the red flags of disorder, and especially, if we were raised in disfunctional homes, we’ve never even seen emotional health. We get love-bombed, it feels good, we assume that it’s love, and we’re ready to through ourselves head first right into it.
K-
I think you are right on. This is the Victorian Era concept of love that persists in our everyday life and fantasy-
Doesn’t quite seem fair to me that women particularly of our age were raised to believe this myth as well as the one about working full time AND being a MOM and WIFE.
They threw the book at US!
Crap! Its still Suffragette City! Women have to shake the rights trees over and over in the office, at home and across the bench from the judges because the same fantasy that gave us romance also punishes those who succomb to its dark side either or not wittingly!