Talk with me- Things no one wants to remember

Similarities broke free from my memories, where they’ve remained hidden for a decade. An interview I was watching, “20 Red Flags that will make you question the man lying next to you…” played on my IPad and my once sleepy brain came awake.

The woman being interviewed said that “psychopaths are not treatable. Psychopathy cannot be cured.”

“I’m well educated, independent, kind, sensitive… am I at risk?” Yes, you are.

Cruel shards of those years popped up, over and over again as I listened, with tears flowing down my cheeks. I paused the interview to let them flow:

The morning I called his Mom as I drove to work and said “I don’t think I can stay with him. I can’t do it. It’s too scary.” She simply said “I understand”

I will always remember the phone call from one of his sisters after I left him “we thought you were the one who would save him.”

His oldest daughter told me that he is calmer when I’m around, and that when she was little “his yelling made me pass out (from fear). They took me to the doctor, but they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me.” She cried when I left him in April, asking me to please still come with him when he visits them in September, because she’s less frightened when I’m there. I didn’t go. I couldn’t.

Sleeping in the guest bedroom with a dining room chair wedged under the door, all the while knowing it wouldn’t stop him, but at least I would have some warning.

The You Tube link above is an interview with Laura Richards. She is a Criminal Behavioral Analyst in Britain. She specializes in the behavior of psychopaths, stalkers and murderers. She has done case reviews in reverse and created guidelines for the police when they are interviewing the victim of domestic violence. Her insights have cut the victims of domestic violence murder drastically, but we have not yet done that here.

There are many stories still buried within my memory. Where and how might the truth telling begin, and why tell at all? Awareness, prevention, and saving at least one woman’s life.. these are good reasons. It was nine months of dating before his first “tell” showed. It was a relatively minor incident of him yelling at me, and name calling. After multiple apologies on his part, and time, we got close again,

The once untold incidents I share about myself are humbling, yet relevant to my point. I am a well educated, (Masters level degrees, graduated Summa Cum Laude in college, and was a national merit scholar in high school), I am empathic, aware of self defense from growing up with three brothers who were all Eagle Scouts, and I was old enough and supposedly wise enough to not be tricked by a con man. Yet, I was. Am I afraid of his retribution? Sometimes. But, there is always this truth: “If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better”~Anne Lamott

I share things to be aware of for any women who is entering a new relationship with a man. Please listen deeply with your heart as well as your logic. I have learned all too well that we all want to deny the possibilities when we meet someone we like. These stories could easily be written from the point of view of a man meeting a con woman, tho the statistics for these occurrences are not as well documented.

Try on the questions. Read the Telltale signs. Are you resistant to them? If so, pay a little more attention. What would your best friend say? or your child?

As of a year ago, there were about 330 million Americans, roughly one third of them are adults, it is estimated that 1% of people fall under the diagnosis of psychopath, and 3% fall under the diagnosis of sociopath, 6% of people fall under the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. (please note that clinically these personality disorders now fall under the category of Antisocial Personality Disorders, yet I use the more colloquial names here for recognition.) This is a total of 10% of the adult American population are one of these three types. That equals 30 million adults. So when you meet someone who acts like this, don’t be surprised.

Empirically, one in ten people you meet could be a psychopath or sociopath.

This statistic is well known. You can listen to more details on the podcast Women of Impact from 5/2024 where they interview Andrew Bustamante

There is a man to watch out for and beware of: He will dazzle you with everything you have wanted in a partner, he studies you as his prey, listens, and watches for clues so that he creates his perfect narrative. He is absolutely charming and charismatic. He will make you feel good. He will give you what you want. (adored, loved, and all the interactions you hoped for with a man.) You will find yourself saying “he’s everything I dreamed of and hoped for. We fit together perfectly.” After a while he will ask you to do something that breaks one of your normal boundaries (like skip a day a work to see him, or stay up way too late on a work night.) if you comply, he now knows you are controllable. He will want to progress the relationship faster than your comfort zone by complimenting you. You will be swept off your feet by his focused “love.” He will present himself as your perfect partner. He will eventually try to insulate you from your network of friends and family usually by reminding you that he knows you best, he’s got your best interests at heart, and you trust him.

Laura Richards is correct, they cannot be cured. Con men are just like salesmen and others who attempt to earn our trust, with one exception: they have malicious intent. They have to searched thru many women to find the one to con. They have conscious malicious intent. They are pros at coercive control.

There is a rubric for gaining power over someone: “know, like, trust”. First we have to meet the person, then we begin to like them for everything they show us (their fabricated and partially true story), followed by us really liking them. Then the more we like someone, the more we fall into trusting them. We naturally give our trust to people who we like, even without solid proof that they are trustworthy. We all assume people are essentially honest and good.

Pause for a minute and ask yourself, how fast do you usually like someone? Honest people are less able to read their environment and a con man plays into what your expectations are. Cons are talented at “reading the room” and responding with exactly what you hope for. Only time will allow you to know if someone is real or not.

Being a victim of a con man has nothing to do with weakness. In fact, it is usually one of your gifts that is used against you. (Your natural kindness, your willingness to give people the benefit of the doubt, etc) When you realize that you like someone, please internally remind yourself that you need to be careful at this point, and even more attentive. When we like someone, we can be easily duped. A con man will search for someone who is suitable to being conned and then will test how reliable are you. He will test to see how consistent you are about your patterns. (Do you reliably answer his texts within a certain amount of time, do you always arrive at work on time etc.)

Psychopaths are violent, and easily act with malicious intent. They have dynamic ranges of emotions. So do narcissists.

Sociopaths are devoid of real emotion, cold and calculating, they don’t naturally have a temper or get heated / out of control. They can maintain calm while they are planning how to take revenge. They are calculating. They can read your patterns of behavior, and mimic emotions of others while internally they really don’t feel any emotion. They know how to say the right thing and act their part. But it’s all faked.

Telltale sign: they lack empathy, which is the ability to relate to someone’s feelings, and feel your pain. You have to pay attention. And notice what is the most relevant information. Who are they today? They might have been polite to a dozen of waiters when out dining, but tonight they are short and rude for no reason, pay attention.

He was easily cruel to others, I wrote about this in I should have known better and he had an explosive temper. He literally screamed at me when I asked whether a bonsai plant he owned was healthy he yelled “How dare you! This is a special plant, important to me, it can’t be dead”. Then a month later, three weeks after my Dad died, he got in my face and said “how long til you get over this? I can’t believe all I’ve had to put up with” when I quietly and tearfully responded that he would deeply understand someday when his dad crossed, he stood over me, screaming at the top of his lungs “Don’t you ever say that again! You are the meanest person in the world”. He violently rejected any of my attempts to stir his empathy.

Telltale sign: They don’t believe in the rules of conduct with others, they don’t believe people are equal. They have rights to privacy, but you don’t. They deserve respect but you don’t. They are often rigid about others respecting their time and space, but they have no regard for yours. Here’s a small test: make an unpredictable change to something. (Say, change the date of when you plan to go to dinner) Do they accept change gracefully? Do they act fine, and say, no problem, it’s okay. Or do they become irritated and unhappy with you because it’s now inconvenient for them? If they are upset, it is because believe their time is more valuable than yours, and you should always concede to what is best for them.

After we were married, he spent days working on his work/personal schedule, then he came to me one day and handed me a copy of it, saying “here’s my schedule for next year”. It contained all his class dates, his meetings, his volunteer schedule, the vacation times he chose and all dates he wanted to celebrate something. I remember looking at it, quite dumbfounded and responding, ‘Aren’t we going to talk about this? So we can work out our schedules together?’ He got very irritated and barked “I’m giving you my schedule, what more do you want?!” There was no further conversation about when it might be best for me to take a break from my work, nor dates I wanted to celebrate. They didn’t matter to him. I was supposed to bend to his plans.

Telltale sign: they lie, gaslight, twist your words, isolate you from your support network. They get you to act in a way that violates your normal behavior Once you agree with their demands, they know you are controllable.

It was a hot Sunday afternoon, about 102 degrees. Despite my having to leave at 2 pm to attend a choir practice, he drove us to the river a friend lived on. We swam, ate lunch and laughed so much. They were fun people. When it came time for me to leave and get ready to drive home, he said “seriously? You want to go and sing? Inside a building with no AC? That one rehearsal can’t be that important. Everyone will understand.” He refused to drive me back to my car, suggested I could walk. My car was at least ten miles away. It was one month into our dating, and I wanted him to like me, and I didn’t want to be the party pooper. So I didn’t leave, despite how important singing was to me. In hindsight, I still cannot believe I made this choice to not show up for something so important to me. It happened so quickly, he acted so “logical”. Singing was what fed my soul, and I didn’t attend something that I normally would never miss. He now knew he could manipulate me into bending my boundaries.

Telltale sign: they rush the connection, the relationship. They want to move along the commitment faster. They dive into your secret life, and continue to dig and push for deeper sharing. They pass this off as “I just want us to be close, no secrets”. Your logic says ‘gosh, this is moving fast’ your emotion might respond ‘but I really like them’. At this moment: beware. Are you liking them too fast? And trusting them too fast? Have you allowed for time, distance, and space?

He wanted me to move in, as soon as I could. When we got engaged (July 7th) his Dad said “please don’t wait to long to get married, because I want to be there.” He pushed very hard after that for a November wedding (which I paid for, since he was broke.) It was only after I had given my formal notice of vacating at my apartment in Sept. that he gave me a prenuptial agreement he demanded I sign. Someone else had already rented the apartment as soon as I was leaving, so I seemingly had no place to go. I sat at the desk, while he (all 6’3” of him) stood over me yelling at me how stupid I was not to sign, because “it’s so simple. Any idiot could see it’s for the best. And even my best friend, an attorney used this exact one for his marriage”. I ended up driving away that day, not sure where I would go, or if I would return. My Dad told me to say “Fuck you” (that was the first and only time I ever heard my dad swear.) I remember replying to my Dad, it doesn’t really matter, I have nothing to hide, and I want him to trust me. I won’t get divorced, we are great together. So it’s irrelevant”. I did eventually go back, we modified the prenup, and we signed. His best friend was furious with me and told him to dump me. (Fortunately, in the end, the prenup actually protected me.)

Telltale sign: They threaten to or actually commit violence: you feel small and frightened with no where to go, and you try to tell yourself that they’ll never hit you.

He was a big man. His physical presence was enough to intimidate most anyone, plus he was a trained martial arts master for his career. One day when he was gaming me, he lifted a small picture off of the wall by the kitchen, and showed me a fist sized hole. He said “yeah, I did this when I was married. She pissed me off.” He never repaired it, he kept it as a souvenir of how angry he could be. He showed me this to scare me. It did.

I’ve often reminded my clients that the distance between a wall and your face is very small. He didn’t hit me in my face, but he did on my arm. He apologized. I forgave him.

Telltale sign: They will control you in any way they can. Some control by having you check in wherever you go. Others say things like, ‘who’s your best friend? Me! You can trust me more than anyone” yet then they take the vulnerability you share with them and later throw it in your face as an insult and testimony about how stupid you are. They might tell you that you’re beautiful exactly as you are, then later shame you with unkind statements.

It was New Year’s Eve day. He got up first and was making breakfast. As I went to the kitchen to help carry plates to the table, there was less than a child’s size portion on the plate he made for me. He said: “I’m going to take over regulating how much you eat, so you can reach your ideal weight.” (This was after he bought a pizza for dinner the night before despite me being on a zero carb diet. I had already lost 20 lbs without his help and despite his intentional sabotage. I had not eaten dinner that night, I was so upset). I didn’t eat that breakfast. I went into the other room to read instead while he ate both plates. Throughout the day he drank straight vodka he had home distilled from grappa he made from his grape vines. By my estimation, it was more than 150 proof since he had distilled it three times from its original creation. When he passed out on the couch, after a day of hurling insults at me, I packed up a back pack and drove to my daughter’s home to sleep on the couch. He didn’t hear me leave. He text me later that night and said “come back. You’re not being rational. You’re not acting like yourself”. The next morning he didn’t remember anything from the day before, he was sweet and begged me to come back. Being one to give one more chance, I did.

Telltale sign: He will build you up, respect you, and make you feel so deeply loved. After awhile, when he needs to put you in your place, he will throw something in your face that you trusted him to know about you. This moment will feel humiliating, and he will twist your understanding by reminding you that he’s the one who loves you the most, but even he thinks you’re crazy.

I once shared the stories of how I came to have the ability to dissociate. He was interested and acted sympathetic during my telling of history. About a year into us being together, we watched an intense True Crime series on tv. I dissociated during the final episode to the degree that I did not remember the ending of that series, despite being present for it, and knitting while watching. I foolishly shared this knowledge with him (that I had dissociated) and not even a week later he told several friends of his (in front of me) that I was “clearly crazy”. Sharing how I couldn’t remember the ending. Months later, he used this same example to convince his friends that I “made up” all the incidents between us, that I dissociated things all the time and couldn’t be relied upon, that I was crazy.

I got away. I left. I became aware that my level of raw fear was unhealthy as I lay awake in the guest bedroom. When I moved out, I stored all my belongings in a distant storage facility, and rented a studio in a long term stay hotel. It had locked doors, and key only entrance. Only my daughter knew where I was for the next six months. I blocked his calls, texts and emails, and walked away from the entire network of his friends whom I had come to love and call friends of my own. Anyone who can terrify a five year old child to the degree that she passes out is not a safe human.

Please don’t become a statistic. I survived. And you can too.

Always remember : One in Ten. Ask yourself, is this person one of the “one in ten?”