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.
…and so it has.
i finished another resume today – using publisher – it’s pretty snazzy. 3 more to go.
i wanted to say about the guy who said he’d call you when he was hiring more folks – i think that’s a line kim. he has no idea of your knitting, self loving, book hunting, looking sidways self or he would have hired you on the spot!
gotta go catch the bus…catch up tomorrow. xx
Thank-you Onestep.
Dear One-step, yea, you and Jenine have a LOT in common. There was a television show a while back (several yars ago) about a woman who met a “man” on a dating site and left her husband to go and be with this “man.” The online “man” turned out to be a woman and when the woman who left her husband and went to the “man, rejected her lover as a woman, not a man, the Woman/man lover murdered the other woman.
So, this is not totally an unknown thing—a person of one sex pretending to be another sex. On line, people can pretend anything, and Jenine’s “man” was pretty gutsy to meet her as a “friend” of his. I’m just glad that Jenine escaped with her life! And that you did. At least you are both alive to heal, and not another statistic! (((hugs)))) have a good rest and be good to yourself today!
One,
I bet you have a lot to say about the story. Was it the same one?
Hope you are hanging in.
Scary stuff Ox talks about, scary stuff.
One step,
It sounds as if you could use some reminders of what a truly intelligent, creative, wise, funny, and strong person you are to counteract the self-judgment. So here I am to give you that reminder! If you can actually hear your mind judging and hear what the judgments are, you can challenge those judgments. Good work you are doing in being mindful! (Can you see my Buddhist influence here? :
wow – what a story – admittedly more dramatic than some of our’s and less dramatic than others. I too was a bit pithed off by the daughter’s attitude in writing about her Mom – clearly she hasn’t ever been taken for a ride and considers herself above it.
It is so easy to be manipulated by a sociopath / psychopath because it happens GRADUALLY. You all remember that saying about boiling lobsters alive in a pot – if you throw them into boiling water immediately they jump out but if you turn the heat up gradually they are boiling before they’re even aware of it and by then it’s too late to escape. That’s what it’s like with a socio / psycho. Personally I prefer the word PSYCHOPATH as it adequately conveys the danger these people represent.
I felt a lot of empathy for the mother in this story – her hope for a happy future was palpable and that pig took it all away from her. She spent thousands defending him in court from charges. We may not have paid for lawyers, but we all have been guilty of defending our psychos to others and to ourselves. And we all stayed longer than we should have because we were asleep and unable to defend ourselves.
I like that statement about the loss of ideals – I think that is perhaps one of the most devastating aspects of ending a liaison with a PSYCHO – you not only lose the relationship and end up lonely, but you also have to rethink everything you believed about the world and the people who live in it. I lost several things to mine:
1) The belief that there is good in everyone – this was a hugely strong belief for me and I really aimed to see the kernel of good in everyone. This belief kept me there trying again and again to help heal and support him.
2) Marriage is for life. This belief also kept me trapped with him and afraid to leave. I rationalised that if God had put us together then I had a big responsibility to work at the marriage and make it work. I also took on board the Christian view of the wife sacrificing herself for the good of the relationship and doing more than her fair share.
3) Bad men are physically abusive. This was a biggie for me – I didn’t realise there are many ways to wound and kill someone and my yardstick of badness only stretched to black eyes and broken limbs. I asked myself many times “When is it enough so that I can leave?” I honestly couldn’t make the decision to leave when ALL he was doing was ‘messing up with money’ – of course it was much more than that but that is the main thing I was consciously aware of back then. I didn’t know the symptoms of psychological abuse or emotional abuse or financial abuse or academic abuse. And even when I read them some years into the relationship I didn’t connect them explicitly with my own situation for some reason – blocking it all out perhaps??
Like Hens and others I knew it was bad for quite a long time but I was waiting for a reason big enough to leave him – in my mind back then being desperately unhappy just wasn’t enough. He would expect justification of why I was ending it and was likely to blame me for ‘not trying’ if the reason wasn’t good enough. In reality any reason wouldn’t have been enough for him because nothing I ever did was enough for him. Everything was my fault through an through.
I really hope the Mom finds this site – I might try to leave a comment to be passed onto her. I hate to think of her feeling small as her daughter passes judgement on her actions during that relationship. I would like her to have what we get here – affirmation that we weren’t crazy and didn’t do anything wrong. We were simply taken for a ride by slick, unfeeling and manipulative people. I would say to her Mom “I believe you about how devastating it was. You will be ok though – you will get through this – just like all the people here are one day and one step at a time.”
One Step – I am liking this new attitude of your’s in seeing the positive benefit of the computer being offline. I sensed from your writing that you have a constant internal dialogue spelling out each and every step of everything that must be done in the day. If so … well you’re not alone I have it too. I think it is related to high anxiety and the need to not make mistakes. So my mind treats me like a three year old inside sometimes …
“First you have to pay this bill – go to the post office to do it – and make sure you get a receipt. Then cause you’re close to it you can go to the library and look for books on x, y and z and you might like to check if they have V. Then maybe go get a coffee and go to the supermarket – don’t forget the toilet paper and the treats for the dog and the washing powder – you’re an idiot at forgetting things. Then you might have time for the craft store – then again knowing how slow you are at doing things probably not. If you had just got up an hour earlier you would be fine but look at you lazing there and wasting time!”
It’s usually about that point I recognise it as a parent style voice and tell it to shut the feck up and leave me alone. Another strategy is to write a list of what has to be done – then I don’t have to hold it in my mind and obsess about it.
You also mentioned feeling pressured with time – not having time to take things slow. I am feeling the same way. I think this relates to the sense of having lost time with the spaths – we are almost trying to make up for lost time by squeezing in as much as possible and exhausting ourselves – this can also be related to adrenal exhaustion from too much stress – rather than relaxing the body tries to stimulate itself to the point of exhaustion to get more energy coursing through the body.
I think one of us needs to win the lottery and hold a LF retreat on some tropical island so we can all unwind from our experiences and allow our bodies to recharge slowly!
Anyways – you sound lots better than you did the other day and I am glad of that. You’re doing a damned good job of staying in the present – it’s the future and past that promote high anxiety.
Cup of tea and cake from me to you (well virtual tea and cake anyway!)
Hi Polly:
Missed you darlen…..
Hope your well and remaining STRONG!!
XXOO
EB
I am great thanks Erin – have left the midlifecrisis tag behind now – I still choose to see good in the world 🙂
The property settlement is done and I filed for divorce yesterday – should take a month as it cannot be contested – no fault in my area and I filed a copy of the property split agreement that records the date of separation. So life is looking up and up!
How are things with you? I saw you were having some more dramas with some person a while back – hope it’s all resolved to your satisfaction now! They just can’t stay quiet can they???
Good for YOU!!! It’ll be nice to have the legal crapiola behind you!!!
I hope your satisfied with your property settlement.
I (CRS and all) knew you changed back…..to Polly…
I’m glad your seeing the up and up of life…..that’s a GREAT sign!
The spath got busted with 9 lbs of pot, transporting it 5 states….a few weeks ago. 2 felonies…’facing’ 15 years/20K fine….although there is a chance he could get off with probation…..but NOT if I can help it.
I have blocked any plea bargin and I provided the DA in that state with some legal docs showing a prior….in the late 80’s. I came across this info in boxs under my stairs.
Also 2 drunk driving felonies.
he’s back in my town after posting bail…..and I’m not okay with it…..don’t want him here!
THIS IS MY TOWN!!!
I’m filing some docs in cout tomorrow…..another block….we’ll see where it leads…..
Glad your well….and good to see you, don’t be a stranger huh.
XXOO
eb