Embracing The Slut

I decided to revisit this entry in order to correct a few what I consider important omissions.    

I’ll preface by stating that the garbage coming from my keyboard is based upon my own experiences and conversations; your mileage may vary as to whether it represents the general population.  

Being a student of human nature, I enjoy discovering the desires of my partners as well as what drives them.  When I was younger and incredibly naive, I had absolutely zero clue what women really wanted.  Growing up in puritanical middle of nowhere PA, I was raised to believe women needed to be convinced to have sex (because they didn't enjoy it) and that no matter what, you always always always treated them like ladies.  Our lives were mostly black and white.  We called women who slept around sluts.  Sluts were bad.  Obviously, over time, I've come to realize how wrong we were about so many things.  

I've since discovered women enjoy sex and want it as much as men, if not more.  Some men still haven't gotten the memo on that, but that's another story.  It took a bit longer to understand how women wanted to be treated in the bedroom.  As recently as my thirties, I recall no having no clue why my now ex-wife wanted me to lay her on the bed and brutally fuck her mouth.  Why she'd ask me to cause her pain during sex.  Honey, you're my wife and I could never mistreat you.  

Call me a late bloomer, but it's only been in the last 7 or 8 years that I've managed to put the pieces together to reach the 'AHA!' moment.  In that moment, I realized that women don't always want to be treated like ladies.  That promiscuity has nothing to do with being a slut and that being in love with a slut can be quite the rewarding experience.  That's the purpose of this entry.  I think it's time we set the record straight and embrace the slut.

(I feel as though there should be some opening music, similar to what's played after a talk show host completes his opening monologue)

What Is a Slut?
Before we dive into sluts themselves, it would be helpful to establish what a slut is and just as importantly, what a slut isn't.  A slut is a woman who enjoys being treated as a possession.  She's in touch with what brings her pleasure and how that pleasure's delivered.  She tends to enjoy pain (some or a lot), feeling like a possession and being reminded of her status as one, feeling as though she's just there for her 'owner's' pleasure (a fucktoy), being treated roughly, being dominated, and in some cases, being taken against her will.  Obviously that last one can be tricky and requires great care, because it's not as though you can ask a woman if she wants to be taken against her will.  In general, a slut will do anything (in the bedroom) the man for whom she's a slut wants her to.  Most sluts are monogamous and only wish to be the fucktoy of one trusted man.

Slut Shaming & What a Slut Isn't
This will be one of the rare times where I'll tell my readers how to think and behave.  Being a slut has absolutely nothing to do with promiscuity.  In fact, I've found that women who tend to sleep around aren't terribly good sluts.  However, that's not why society tends to look down upon these women.  Even today, our society retains the outdated notion that women should have only one partner.  That she's a bad person if she enjoys the company of more than one man, or if she jumps in the sack 'too quickly' between partners.  These behaviors will often label her a slut.  However, society doesn't have an alternate term for a women who behaves in this manner.  Therefore, I've decided to take ownership and create my own term, which shall become the standard.  From this point forward, a woman such as I described shall be known as a 'woman'.  I'll hit the double standard and move on.  Guys who act the same way are called studs or just 'guys'.  With respect to slut shaming, just don't fucking do it.  We know you may be threatened by her openness and lack of subservience to an outdated set of morals, but you'll get over it.  Trust me on this.

Back to the real sluts.  Being a guy, and having multiple experiences, I naturally want to engage in some categorization.  So, that's what I'll do.  While the slut factor is obviously a sliding scale with no absolutes, in my experience, women tend to fall into four different buckets.  A bit of clarification first.  The observations I’ve made were within the context of ‘traditional relationships’ with women who I considered to have long term potential.  All bets are off with one night stands and random hookups, which completely change the dynamics below. 

The Categories 

The first two are the easy ones.  There’s the Uninhibited Slut.  She enjoys being dirty, regardless of the partner(s), setting, or law enforcement present.  Being nasty excites her, the state of which tends to be her payoff.  She doesn’t care who knows she’s a dirty girl and it may even excite her further the more people who do know.

On the other end of the spectrum is the Non-slut.  Regardless of how insatiable she might be, she wants a traditional and vanilla fucking.  Fuck her, go down on her, she might blow you, and that’s it.  Don’t even think of tying her up because she isn’t into that, dirty talk, toys, or much else.  Thankfully, I’ve experienced very few of these women and they tend to vanish in short order.  Was it the midgets?

A step down from the top of the freak scale lives the Closet Slut.  She’s tried it all and knows what she likes.  She loves being slutty, but wants to keep it under cover, until the time is right.  The code word to unlock the fun for her is trust.  She must have absolute confidence there won’t be negative consequences she unzips her partner’s pants in a parking lot or screams like a banshee when she orgasms.  ‘Is he going to freak out when I ask him to tie me up and spank me?’  Once that trust is established, she goes from zero to delicious dirty girl in a heartbeat.  In all honesty, I haven’t run into too many women who fall into this group, but, when I do, I always enjoy the ride.

Most women I’ve encountered fall into the category I refer to as the Slut in Training.  Those who live in this realm have some experience being slutty but they still have plenty of exploring to do.  They would enjoy being sluttier but aren’t always sure how to go about it.  They are a bit more self-conscious about pushing boundaries with their partners and will require the right kind of motivation to expand boundaries.  Trust is even more crucial for the Slut in Training, but once you've earned it, she becomes a willing pupil.  In short, sluts in training love sex and are open to trying most things to enhance the experience, but the road to (greater) depravity for them is more of a boulevard than an autobahn. 

I'll freely admit how much I love hearing ‘I want to be your dirty little slut.’  And that’s the thing, most closet sluts and sluts in training want to be your slut and your slut only.  When they want to push boundaries, they want you to take charge and shove them on their knees to suck you, to spank them and pull their hair while you take them from behind, etc.

What drives women to be sluts?

Women have come a long way in terms of respect in society and the workplace.  They’ve worked their asses off to gain parity with men and have no time or respect for those who blatantly and consistently view women as subservient second class humans.  And they sure as hell won’t date someone that sees them that way.      

These women spend their time having to be hard asses at work in order to be taken seriously and in many instances, begin to doubt their own femininity.  They’re still women and want to feel desirable; they want their man to view them as such.  Inside, there is a part of them that wants to be objectified and controlled; they want their trusted partner to ‘stake their claim’ and take ownership of their bodies.  This is the sentiment I've heard from multiple women.  BTW, that was another new concept for me.  Having been brought up to consider women as equals only to discover they craved to be objectified from time to time.  

Because I'm not content to just enjoy my slut, I frequently query them about their desires.  One woman told me, almost verbatim, ‘I spend all day running my business, maintaining a household, making decisions, being a good mother, and all that other garbage.  So, in bed, I want my guy to take charge, spank my ass, pull my hair, and make me his fuck toy.  I want to feel like a woman.’

Insert applicable commentary on traditional gender roles, if you feel so inclined.

While most of the above isn’t necessarily new, I’ll throw out another observation that may be counter intuitive.  That is self-assured, intelligent women tend to be the absolute best sluts.  I've had multiple women, all having their shit together, say the exact same thing.  'I want to be treated like a dirty whore.'   Why would someone who's worked her way into a position of great respect want to be degraded and objectified?   Someone treasure and and definitely falls into the category of successful, buttoned up professional, recently shared her perspective on why being a slut turns her on so much.  For her, she said, the excitement came from being completely vulnerable.  How can one get more vulnerable than being at the complete mercy of a man, where he could do with his woman as he pleased?  Admittedly, the level of vulnerability could be heightened, were the man a stranger, but there's a difference between vulnerable and dangerous.  Although, such encounters aren't exactly unheard of.  

So, the smarter and more self-assured a woman is, the more her desire to be treated like a possession.  But does the logic hold true at the other end of the spectrum?

In my experience, yes, women who tend to be less secure with themselves are more reticent toward being your slut.  Many have the desire, but are concerned about being perceived as a slut outside of the bedroom.  I've encountered this in cases where a woman has been treated as a slut, period.  Unfortunately, men tend to treat women poorly, in this internet dating world of instant gratification.  If a woman who already has some lingering doubts about their self-worth falls prey to more than one man who said all the right things, just to get her into bed, then disappeared, it's perfectly understandable that she begins to have concerns over being perceived as a slut (misused term in this case). It's a double edged sword for a woman who possesses a strong sex drive.  Something a woman once said to me perfectly illustrates the angst that can be felt.  'I don't want to be classified as a slutty girl.'   In other words, she's afraid of being considered a slut when she only wants to be a slut for the right person.  In her mind, it's difficult to win because even now, it seems she's feels as though she should be ashamed of enjoying sex.  Women with more significant self-esteem issues (where their insecurity encompasses both their personal and professional lives) are almost never interested in being a slut.  When I dated one of these women, I recall her telling me point blank ‘I’m not going to be anyone’s toy.’ 

There does come a point where a woman’s self-esteem drops low enough that she becomes more open to being a slut for you.  That one’s pretty obvious; she'll push any boundaries you want in order to keep you from rejecting her.     

Men are saying to themselves, ‘I’ve been with a few confident women and they weren’t slutty at all; what’s up with that?’  The most common reason I’ve heard from women as to why they aren’t sluttier is because men, as a group, are an insecure lot.  If a woman wants to try a toy or to be watched while she brings herself to orgasm, the first thought from most men is ‘if she can do it herself, why does she need me around?’  Side note of irony as these behaviors are universal turn on’s for guys; until they happen.  One woman told me about having to stroke a previous boyfriend's ego after he discovered her favorite toy was larger than him.  The other factor that brings out men’s insecurity is considering their partner’s ‘dirty past’.  They want their girlfriend / wife to be a dirty whore for them but don’t want to consider they’ve been a slut for anyone else.  If the gf/wife suggests dirty things that turn them on, they risk their partner going into the mode of ‘damn, she must be a real whore to find out that turns her on.’  Followed by ‘someone taught her that thing that I’ve never thought of so why would she want to be with me?’ So many guys still secretly harbor the ‘I want to be the first’ feelings toward women and have serious issues when confronted with evidence to the contrary.  ‘Just how did she learn she liked to be DP’d?  What a whore!’ 

I never really understood being insecure in that manner.  First, I’m happy if a woman knows what gets her off and would happily shake the hand of the guy(s) who helped her discover those things.  Second, it’s rarely the male who comes up with the dirty things.  While I pride myself as someone who pushes the envelope, just as often as not, it’s my partner who brings up a fantasy she wants to live out. 

My ideal partner has to be the slut in training.  This has nothing to do with insecurity and not wanting a woman who’s experienced more than me, but everything to do with how much I enjoy exploration and, if I’m honest, my competitive streak.  Very little gives me as much satisfaction, in the sack, than helping a partner discover something new that completely trips her trigger.  Hearing ‘oh my God, I never thought I’d like that’ is an amazing feeling! 

Probably my favorite experience of helping my partner discover new things was with a woman I dated a few years ago.  I think it was the second time we slept together when this happened.  For some context, she had portrayed herself as a total freak in the bedroom.  Anyway, she had me in her mouth and I asked her if she wanted to touch herself, while she sucked my cock.  She hesitated for a moment, then her hand went between her legs.  She was a complete g-spot girl but she started cumming almost immediately from touching her clit.  After a few moments, she looked up and asked if she should move so I could have a better view.  Uh, yes please!  She just kept cumming over and over, moaning and choking on my cock.  Yeah, it was hot.  What amazed me was how afterward, she gushed (literally and figuratively) over how hot doing that made her.  That she wouldn’t have thought much of it since she only usually had g-spot orgasms.  From that point on, any time she performed oral on me, her fingers went right for her clit.  There were occasions where I had to pull her off of me to move to another activity.  Again, I relished hearing her discovering new ways to enjoy herself, even into her late 30’s.  She told me the new trick turned her on so much that she’d had to pull out her toy every time she thought about it.  I taught her a few more new things but that’s another story.

Obviously, I enjoy the sexual tension that comes with treating a woman like my dirty slut (when she want's that, of course).  However, woman's desire isn't always sufficient motivation for me to properly (mis) treat her.  Even for an alpha male, such as myself, properly making a woman your fuck toy requires more effort than not doing so.  Having vanilla sex with a woman takes very little thought and no effort beyond the physical.  Kiss this, lick that, she sucks that, insert tab A into slot B.  Repeat for some period of time and you're done.  But taking complete control of someone requires thought, effort, and planning, because there's a balance to maintain between harsh and kind.  Not to mention many women have thresholds for pain and maximum humiliation one must be attentive to.  Therefore, for me, a woman must be worth the effort to provide the experience for her.  Because I amuse myself, I always say I have to completely respect a woman in order to treat her like a whore.

Despite all this, I'm certain someone has wandered off the street thinking 'he's just a jerk who gets off on humiliating women.'  While I am a jerk, the rest doesn't ring true.  I'll admit to deriving pleasure from the above activities, but it took time to do so.  Most of the excitement I feel revolves around knowing I'm satisfying my partner and her needs.

Someone else is skeptically that a woman can be a partner and equal, when they're being regularly humiliated.  Of course, that's complete bullshit.  Exhibit A is Scharzmugel, who regular readers remember from my entry on whether it's better to have loved and lost, etc.   You'll remember from that article how much Scharzmugel meant to me, how deeply I loved her, and how much I respected her as an equal.  Yet, she loved being my whore more than any other woman I've been with.  I loved her for being a partner and lusted after her as my slut.  

So men, cherish the slut in your life and provide the support to help her reach her full slut potential.  Women, embrace your inner slut and allow her to bring you the pleasure you deserve.  Let's celebrate the slut!

Semi-Annual Profile of the Week - July 11

I admit to slacking quite a on the dating profile of the week.  The time I've been devoting to my blog has mostly been spent on entries with real content and the POW has been left behind.

In order to make it up to my readers a bit, there are two profiles of the week, this time.  It made sense because they both fall into the same category.  See if you can recognize the theme.


Profile 1 is courtesy of Plenty of Fish user Sincerenow2118.

Seeking a male. Must be at least close to six feet tall or better. Please no out of state responses. If you are dating someone don't message me please. Must have your own place and vehicle. Must know How to treat a lady. No booty calls here.


Profile 2 comes from sannyjo3231, also on POF.

Made a few changes on my profile.. 
1st .. not your baby.. you have to earn that
2nd.. looking for fun means just that.. and for those of you that assume it means I want to **** your brains out..GET OVER YOURSELVES.
3rd.. I'm gonna leave this one open for now because I have a feeling I'm gonna need to update again.

And yes, those are their entire profiles.  Of course, the thing they have in common is bitching about who's been messaging them and sharing absolutely nothing about themselves.

Way to draw a man in with all of your fantastic qualities, ladies.  I'm certain I speak for most of the English speaking world when I say I'm baffled why you're single. 

Happy Dating, readers!

OKCupid's Value Proposition

When I began working on this entry, I reached out to OK Cupid, asking for generic information on their questions, personality algorithm, etc. but received no response.

While enduring the online dating process, I'd found each site to have its own set of positives and negatives; OKCupid was no different.  If you've never perused it, it's like other sites, in that users plug in their basics of age, height, body type, etc. and (on occasion) complete a few short essay sections on various topics.  However, its value proposition is that it generates a personality profile for each user, so you can quickly see how romantic, spiritual, kinky, adventurous, etc. someone is.   This is accomplished by the user completing questions, relating to religion, lifestyle, sex, dating, and so on.  Sort of a cut rate e-harmony, if you will.  In addition to providing your own answers, you may also select what response(s) you'll accept from potential mates.  Finally, you can weigh the question with respect to how important it is to you.  This allows OKC to determine how well you match with other respective users.  The more questions where your responses agree, the higher the match.  Surely, this is a good thing, right?  Knowing, before you even send an email, that the other person's religion and lifestyle are compatible with yours can only be positive, right?  Yes, it would be a great, but it doesn't seem to work out that way.

Example of an OKC question

To better understand why I think the system is less than effective, we'll begin by taking a look at my own OKC generated personality profile.

Most of us tend to disagree with chunks of any personality assessment they receive, but on certain traits, mine isn't even in the ballpark.  Those who know me will agree the top attributes are spot on, as are the calculations on spirituality and wholesomeness (or lack thereof).  So, those are accurate.  However,  right now, almost every woman I've dated (some of whom read this blog) is calling 'bullshit' on the conclusion that I'm less romantic and energetic.

It would be understandable for readers to think 'he's just mad because it figured out how lacking he is on things women find important'.  However, if you read on, it'll become clear that's not the case.





Anyway, as OKC failed to provide insight on how they calculate these traits, I resorted to searching their website for clues.  Something that touts their team of psychologists who've developed a patented algorithm, based upon years of scientific data.

However, the only reference to the process I could locate was this:


That's the best you could come up with?  You're claiming to have an understanding of each user's personality but can't even conjure a bullshit explanation to validate said claim?  If they can't come up with some plausible BS on how the system works, why would I have any confidence they're able to to draw meaningful conclusions about someone's personality?  Hell, it's a free site, so one gets what one pays for.

In order to be fair, and partially out of curiosity, I reviewed all 397 questions I'd answered, searching for those related to my energy level.  Surely I'd forgotten the ones pertaining to exercise, triathlons, or where I identified the sloth as my spirit animal.  Except there weren't any.  I couldn't identify one question that could be correlated to someone's energy level.  Which leads me to a question I asked of OKC - How is it decided which attribute(s) are associated with each question?  Some are obvious; the one above would provide an excellent indication of spirituality.  Others, looked at sideways, through squinty eyes could potentially be distantly associated with other traits.  Conversely, traits appear with no sort of substance to back them up, such as in my profile.  Keep those thoughts in mind when reading the additional questions below.

What bothers me most about an inaccurate personality profile is how it impacts the interest of potential partners on the site.  Again, I'll use mine as an example.  If you're a lovely lady looking for a partner who's warm, kind, and will make you feel loved, you'll close my profile in a hurry, once you see I'm cold and make roadkill look like the Energizer Bunny.  Surely, I'm not the only one whose cute little bar graph bears little resemblance to reality.

It seems clear the personality profile's accuracy is highly suspect, due to either the algorithm itself or the coding of questions.

As I mentioned earlier, OKC also calculates a percentage of how well users match each other.  According to the site, this is based solely on how your responses match up with those chosen as acceptable by the other user and is not influenced by users' respective personality profiles.  Seems pretty straightforward, right?  Hard to mess up 'do their answers line up or not', right?  As you'll see, much of the matching is inherently suspect as well.

Why is that?  Well, the first flaw affects both the personality profile as well as user matching.  That's poor wording of questions.

As they begin to answer questions, the first thing an observant OKC user will notice is that a large number of them center on absolutes and theoretical situations with no context.  Words such as 'always', 'never', 'anything', 'right', and 'wrong' are commonplace.  I highly doubt any of us live in a world of absolutes.  'Never' becomes 'very rarely' under the right circumstances.  And just because something is 'right' doesn't mean it's important enough for us to actually do.  You get the idea.

Here's an excellent example of the absolute world of OKC questions.

Perhaps my less adventurous side is showing, but I think trying anything once is pretty dumb.  Because anything includes eating blowfish at a restaurant where the chef  decided to give it a go (google eating blowfish and you'll understand).  Anything includes activities prefaced by 'hold my beer'.  And so on.  Having traveled around the globe numerous times, I've become very open to new experiences, however, fugu fish at Denny's isn't one of them.  Therefore, I chose 'not for me' as my answer to the question.  Once that choice was made, my 'less adventurous' trait grew larger.  Seriously, I checked before and after and the bar moved.

Had the question been centered on how open you were to new experiences in food, travel, sport, etc., my answer would have been quite different.

Why are so many of the questions garbage?  Because one of the site's key source for them is its users.  I know this because I dated someone who wrote several that the site used.  One thing I didn't ask her was who determines how answers to those questions are interpreted and what personality traits they're associated with.  We know it's not a team of psychologists.  Clearly this is an issue, as I noted previously.

The question above provides another example of asking the wrong question.  The answer is an easy one for me.  I firmly don't believe it's a requirement to communicate daily.  That doesn't mean I don't communicate daily, because I typically do; I want to hear my partner's voice and connect.  A much better question would have asked how frequently you typically communicate with your partner.  There's another question which pertains to being generous with gifts and such, but the question asked whether it was an obligation.  Some people don't have the means or opportunity to do either for the ones they love.  I'm fortunate enough that I can do those things, yet I still don't consider it an obligation.  There's nothing special about complying with an obligation.  There are so many questions that could be of value, if only they asked about the user's typical behavior.   

You may be thinking I'm taking the questions too literally; that I should consider the intent of each one.  To that, I'd say I answer the questions as they're asked and don't have the energy (ZING!) or interest to try to interpret each one.  As someone who's involved in market research, where each question gets reviewed multiple times before seeing the light of day, I have an issue with studies where questions seem to be thrown in without any proofreading whatsoever.  

Now that the dead horse has been properly beaten, we can move on to the final issue with the survey; users' ability to specify what answer(s) they find acceptable from other members.

The following are all questions / responses pulled from real profiles; my response is on the bottom and an active female user's on the top.  Red indicates an unacceptable answer from the party whose response is in that color.  These are all representative of trends I've encountered and not outliars.  

These first two are poster children for why users shouldn't be able to choose acceptable responses from others.  In both cases, my willingness or lack thereof to date quiet people or those outside my race wasn't acceptable to them.

Why would she care who I dated, if it wasn't her?  Is she a racist?  Does she feel the need to enforce her beliefs on others?  Or is her ability to utilize logic on par with a newt?  Let's face it, those are the only potential reasons for her to answer in this manner.





Here's another example:  

Aside from my nitpicking the wording and grammar of the question, I'm left to wonder why you care whether or not I want my mate to 'smell good'.  If I want to date the worst smelling woman in the world, what business is that of yours?

My responses appear in red 90% of the time with this pair of questions as well.

Most users take issue with my willingness to sleep with someone on the first date or satisfy a partner's desire to play out a rape fantasy.  It's not as though 'you' are expected to do these things.  Just because you don't have a rape fantasy doesn't mean other women shouldn't.  In fact, I've met....never mind.  

Here are two interrelated questions that leave me befuddled.  Both questions are from the same woman's profile, although again, I see these responses from multiple users.  Basically, what you're saying is you've got an issue with me dating you.  Think about it. 

Finally, a few that flat out mystify me.

You don't eat in bed, but it's important I do?    Were this question in the sex section, I could understand where there might be some ambiguity.  I've been amazed by how frequently agreeing with a user is unacceptable to them.

Some have strong opinions in the oddest places.  Fuck, how did I get this one wrong?  Again, not uncommon.

This is probably my favorite example to support my point.  This woman doesn't know what a safeword is, yet she apparently takes issue that I do.  Either you're lying, and know what a safeword is, or just a special kind of stupid.  

I could go on, because other people's responses truly are the gifts that keep on giving.  The entertainment value is the only reason I still have a profile on the site (although I'll kill it shortly after this article goes live).  My lack of energy and romance insure I'm ignored anyway.  Again, my point here is each time someone chooses poorly, it drives their matching percentages down versus those who don't provide those sorts of responses.  I've seen more than one profile stating not to contact them if they don't match by x% or greater, so there are folks that rely on that feature.  A feature that's driven to inaccuracy by badly worded questions and some rather odd folks.

To summarize, we've established both OKC's personality profiles and matching figures can be less than accurate, due to highly suspect algorithms, poor wording of questions, and user error.  Despite that, you might be surprised I consider some of the questions to bring value, when considering whether to interact with a particular person.  So long as you focus on basic, unambiguous questions individually, and ignore others' acceptable answers, one can quickly determine compatibility on religion, sex, lifestyle, and a few other aspects.  These are often the areas where incompatibility is fatal to a relationship, anyway.

As always, I welcome feedback from my readers, both positive and not so much.  

For those who have clicked over from OKC (I've hotlinked to this entry in my profile), I genuinely want your feedback on any of what I've written.  If I'm so obtuse as to not understand, please edify me; explain the error of my ways.  Or just call me a jackass, like some other readers.  Feel free to use the comments section or email me at theinsightfulbachelor@gmail.com.

Mental Illness By The Numbers

This is Part 2 of a set of entries revolving around the same topic.  In Part 1, we established definitions for a few terms I've used and will continue to use.  This entry will be a sort of fact check on prevalence of those with mental health issues within my dating demographic.  Am I allowing my frustration to cloud my judgment or am I correct in my assertion that you're more likely to encounter someone with mental illness, in my dating demographic, than one without?

Some of my readers have taken me to task on that very topic and insist something in my subconscious causes me seek out the broken.  That it's a reflection of me and not the population.  Because someone being wrong in the internet is intolerable, I've taken some time to research and locate relevant data to either support my claim or discredit it.  However, before I share what I've found, I'll make a crucial point, which is I don't write about everything that happens to me.  I've dated women who seem to be perfectly well adjusted and provided not a hint of being broken.  But these women didn't work out, for one reason or another.  They're not interesting enough for me to put the effort into writing about, so I doubt the material would grab my readers' attention.  Let's be honest, it's the fucked up stuff that people want to hear about; people can't turn away from a train wreck.  So that's mostly what I write about.

Important Words and Stuff:  Before I go any further, I'd like to make my position on mental illness crystal clear.  While it may seem that I'm flip about the topic and uncaring of those who suffer, nothing could be further from the truth.  I do not in any way, shape, or form, consider those suffering from a mental illness to be defective, nor do I seek to marginalize them in any way (with the noted  exception of those who refuse to even consider treatment for obvious conditions).  I can both sympathize and empathize with those who struggle to maintain some sense of normalcy in their lives, despite the voices in their heads telling them they're not good enough, that they don't deserve happiness, etc.  In most cases, these issues didn't develop on their own or because someone's 'defective'.  Abandonment issues, for example, require multiple traumas to develop; traumas inflicted by others.  The affected women I've encountered, have almost invariably been kind, warm, caring, engaging, intelligent, and very much deserving of someone's love.  But because one or more very important people in their lives have hurt them deeply, their brain compels them to act in a manner that destroys their relationships.  It's heartbreaking to see such amazing women act in such a self-destructive manner.  However, they can also break the heart of those who might come to love them.  Therefore, I don't want to wind up in a doomed relationship with one.  Not wanting to date someone with a mental illness is not the same as feeling they should be tossed aside.  It's a big distinction that I felt needed to be made.

As usual, it'll seem like I'm picking on women but, aside from the usual caveat that I don't date men, I'll also point out that according the NIH, women are 50% more likely to suffer from mental illness than men.  This shouldn't be surprising because, as I mentioned above, a wide array of mental illnesses have their genesis in trauma; trauma inflicted mostly by men.  There are a number of other factors for the disparity between sexes that I won't go into, because I'd just be plagiarizing this article on the topic.  It's worth a read.

About The Data: In every instance, the data I'm using applies to any mental illness, as listed in the DSM.  This guidebook is rather comprehensive, categorizing everything from psychosis to phobias to depression, so the numbers include everything, except where noted.  Again, no data provided sufficient granularity except for studies on certain conditions which tend to make folks completely non-functional as people.  That's of no value here.  I'll say this again, when I state that X demographic is Y% more likely to experience mental illness, said mental illness could be anything from depression to complete psychosis.

My goal was to discover the incidence of mental illness in separated or divorced, college educated women between the ages of 40 to 50 (my dating demographic).  It should come as no surprise that level of granularity doesn't exist.  However, the data that is available allows us to sort of back into a number, albeit with some educated guesses. For example, all of the data sets I've found have too wide a range (26-49) for this exercise.  However, when viewing a graph of what sets I have found, it's clear that the incidence of mental health illnesses peaks in the thirties and forties, so there will be some weighting involved there.

Takes a deep breath....  So, with all of that being said, let's see what I found.  Every study I've found indicates a rather sizable gap between the likelihood of mental illness in married people versus separated or divorced.  The logic is somewhat self-evident.  A stable (even if not stellar) home life will often not only prevent some mental illness from metastasizing, but also mask existing issues.  For example, a woman who's been even somewhat happily married for two decades isn't as likely to suffer from abandonment issues as one who's been divorced twice.  Also, it would follow that more virulent mental illness may be the cause for some to be divorced.  Certainly, this was the case with my ex-wife, whose borderline personality disorder destroyed our marriage.

And here's the actual data, for you numbers types.

We'll start by establishing a baseline.
26% of adult population suffer with a diagnosable or serious mental illness (NIH)
Women are 50% more likely than men in general. (NIH)
That extrapolates to 31% of women.
Throw in a 5% bump (see above) to ballpark an adjustment for women in their 40's and you ultimately reach a incidence of 33%.
However, this doesn't take marital status into consideration.

The only base data I could find, with respect to marital status was a source (Robins and Regier, 1991, p. 334) that says 44% divorced or separated have mental illness versus 24% for married people.  In that case, if we adjust for women being 50% more likely to experience mental illness, we reach a number of 66%, with no age adjustment.

If we stick with the 31% baseline number, from the first scenario, and apply another data set I've found (Marital Status and Psychiatric Disorders, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, June 1992), the impact is even worse.  According to this study, separated/divorced women are 2.59 times more likely than married women to suffer mental illness.  Now, you're at 80% on the very low side.  I don't necessarily buy into the magnitude of that particular data since the sample size isn't as large as I'd like it to be.

Regardless of which data you use, it supports my assertion that in my target demographic, you are more likely to find yourself dating someone with mental illness than not.  Granted, it could be anything from depression to anxiety to multiple personality disorder, but that's the best I could find, short of funding a study of my own, which won't happen.

Stay tuned for Part 3 of this series, in which I whine, wallow in self-pity, and wonder if I'm being unreasonable.  It'll be fun.

Whackjob - Earning The Title

My last entry, on love and loss, left me feeling a bit melancholy and sorry for myself, wondering whether I'll ever fall in love again.  However, it also kicked my brain into overdrive.  This will be the first of two or three back to back entries further exploring a recurring topic in my blog; mental illness and dating.  This one will establish a few definitions as well as serve as a platform for a mild rant.  It may be offensive to some; they are welcome to go view cat memes instead.  Worth noting is these entries are not references to the woman I noted in the love and loss.  I wanted to make that clear because I know she'll read them.

Regular readers of my blog know that I’m nothing if not understanding of those with mental health challenges.  That I have had more than my share of exposure to those suffering from various issues and have first hand knowledge of how lives can be turned upside down.   I've always offered my support to those suffering these people and written a great deal on my experiences.

One thing I've taken flak for in the past has been my characterization of certain women (again, no experience with guys) as broken.  That such a term is hurtful, stereotypical, and further stigmatizes mental illness.  I've ignored this criticism and will continue to use the term for a few reasons.  First, it might make be helpful to define broken, in the context of humans.

Broken (adj). - Suffering from a treatable or curable mental health condition whereby said condition significantly impacts or prohibits that person's ability to form or maintain a healthy relationship with others.

I've shared numerous examples of encounters with broken women in this blog.  While most have serious signs of abandonment issues or intimacy issues, I've no doubt there are other conditions I've not been able to identify.  I've noted a few of those in this blog as well.  Regardless, they are all mostly incapable of having a healthy relationship.  And while it's a bit stereotypical to lump them together, it would make entries unreadable were I to be so granular each time the topic came up.

To those who consider the term to stigmatize mental illness, go look at cat memes.  Every time I encounter someone in whom I identify a mental illness (in the context of dating), I am incredibly supportive and urge them to seek treatment.  I've never considered the term to be derogatory when I've used it.  Of course, I'd be happy to never encounter a broken woman again, but that's a bit much to ask (more on that to come).

Not every person who can't build a healthy relationship is broken.  Some merely have their heads up their asses, either with unreasonable expectations, being self-centered, chronically immature, etc.  Others are just pathologically odd, but these people don't suffer with a diagnosable mental illness.   These are the fuckups because, they have no excuse to be well, fucked up.  I think we've all encountered a few of these people in our lives, although since I've jettisoned most quickly, I have no way of knowing whether they're broken as well.

Fuckup (noun) - someone without a diagnosable mental health issue yet causes havoc for those in their life

Having defined broken and fuckup, we'll move on to the title appellation and explore the whackjob.

Whackjob (noun) - A person with a treatable or curable mental health condition whereby said condition repeatedly causes harm to those around them but they never seek treatment despite overwhelming evidence of a condition existing.

Essentially, a whackjob is someone who's broken and despite overwhelming empirical evidence of their abnormal behavior, refuses to admit they're in need of treatment.   The whackjob is where my kindness and understanding leaves the building because not only do they cause harm to others, they repeat the cycle over and over again.  You may think I have an issue with whackjobs because of the harm they've caused to me, but it's much more than that.  It's damage to the truly innocent who can't run away that make me dislike whackjobs so much.  And yep, this term does stigmatize those who fall into it.  That's intentional because if we call them for what they really are, perhaps they'll take responsibility for themselves.  I tend to use this term quite sparingly, reserved only for the truly deserving.

My ex-wife represents an absolute perfect example of a whackjob.  Her borderline personality disorder harmed many many people who I don't think she'd want to inflict that upon.  Bullet points are probably best to document both behavior and impact.

• Promiscuity, resulting in unwanted pregnancy and subsequently putting her child and herself at risk
• Inability to be alone, causing her children to see a parade of sometimes dangerous losers passing through their lives
• Compulsive lying serious enough that all three of her siblings cut contact with her at one point or another as well as destroy numerous friendships and job loss
• Now on her fourth husband, with uncounted engagements (seriously, she had a collection of engagement rings but would never tell me the actual number of fiances she'd had)
• Treatment of her daughter resulting in her suffering from borderline personality disorder as well.  (because borderlines often beget borderlines) 

While she made my life a living hell for almost a decade, it was her family and children who suffered the most.  It's one thing to hurt someone who's a grownup and can extricate themselves from the situation but another to cause grave mental injury to defenseless children.  Regardless of your ability to self-justify, anyone could see such behavior as being abnormal.  She solidified her whackjob status after I sat down with her (after separating) and outlined all of this and more to reach the conclusion she had BPD.  Like most borderlines do, she told me I was out of my mind and tried to get me to drop it.

One doesn't need as severe a condition as BPD to become a whackjob.  I wound up in a one night stand with a woman exhibiting such nasty intimacy issues that she tried her best to disassociate herself from the event and left the house at a run when I tried to hold her after sex.  You and I both know this wasn't a one off; it's a pattern in her life.  But running from various men's homes doesn't seem to have made an impact.  Shame too, because I really liked her.

And I get that the mind has ways of rationalizing your behavior and protecting itself.  Hell, borderlines have been known to unintentionally, subconsciously 'rewrite' memories to where they could pass a lie detector test with their version of events.  But. for most whackjobs, there just has to be a point where the evidence becomes so overwhelming they can’t ignore they’ve got some serious fucking issues. Certainly, those people exist, but they can't really function in society.  When you're lying about your conduct, because you know it's aberrant, there's no way you can convince me you're unaware you're a mess.  And that's one of the things I've asked the potential whackjob.  'Did you tell your friends what you did and why you did it?'

More importantly, how can you be so self-centered as to continue with the same behavior, inflicting pain and suffering on every person who comes to care for you?  Instead of reaching out to an appropriate mental health professional and addressing your issues to take some fucking responsibility for your actions?  When someone sits your ass down and provides pretty compelling evidence of your condition?  When you know damned well it's hurting those you say you love?

(This is not a rant on my ex-wife.  While some of the above applies only to her, the majority is relevant with other whackjobs I've encountered as well.)

I have no time for whackjobs and absolutely hate encountering them because they consider only themselves and not those who love them.

I warned you that kindness had left the building.

Now that I've got all of that off my chest, I have one final term to define.  These are the people who are just odd or screwy.  While they're not screwy in a manner that repeatedly damages them or others who care about them, they are screwy nonetheless.  These are the people we shall refer to as normal, because let's face it, we're all a bit screwed up in some way.  For that reason, you'll never see me refer to anyone as screwy.

Screwy (noun) - Normal

In my next entry, we'll delve into some numbers.

In the meantime, stay healthy, friends...

The Girl Who Owned Nothing

Preface:  Most of the names, places, and details in this post have been changed, or omitted, to protect the identities of those portrayed.  These obfuscations do not materially impact the story.  This post also introduces the use of green font, which will be utilized to denote when a particular sentence is pure sarcasm.  There have been issues with some readers taking everything I write literally, so this should assist in clearing that up.

Over the years, I've encountered just about every personality type and disorder one can, but recently I ran across someone whose actions made it clear they were messed up, but in way I just couldn't put my finger on.  I was friends with this person for a period earlier this year.  Fadwa was highly educated, cute, and an international traveler, according to her Match profile.  We traded a few notes before my better judgment took over; I told her I wouldn't date her because she was separated.  If you've read my post on the topic, you'll understand why.  She was disappointed and initially tried to convince me to reverse my decision.  That wasn't happening, so we agreed to be friends.  Fadwa shared that 20 years ago, she emigrated from a middle eastern country, was Muslim, and a virgin when she married her husband.  She said she could probably use some friendly assistance navigating the world of online dating, considering her lack of life experience.  I agreed to offer the insight I'd gathered over the past several years.

She would share 'snapshots' of the various men she was communicating with and ask my opinion on each.  Most weren't accompanied by enough information to offer much insight, but a few were quite clearly ones to stay away from, in my experience.  One who became a source of friction between Fadwa and myself was Nick.  She shared how Nick was smart, successful, witty, etc. which made him sound like a good match for her.  Then she shared that Nick was a recovering alcoholic.  Danger, Will Robinson!  She said he was six years sober and did yoga, running, and a few other athletic endeavors to assist in maintaining his sobriety.  I warned her that she'd do best to steer clear of a former addict (having experience with this, myself) and that his sobriety seemed fragile, considering all the work he was putting into propping it up.  She chose to ignore my input and went out with him anyway.

At some point, our friendship expanded to include benefits.  She wanted to experience all the sexual freedom and pleasure she'd been missing, having only ever been with a man who sometimes wouldn't even get his clothes off before finishing.  I made the offer and she accepted.  And yes, this is germane to the story.

On either their first or second date, Nick flaked.  I don't recall where the photo was (house, phone, etc.) but Nick saw one of Fadwa and her hubby together, it freaked him out, and he disappeared, saying he couldn't take seeing her with another man.  At that point, I more strongly advised her to put him out of her mind and said, very specifically, that he seemed to be on the verge of a relapse.  Freaking out at the thought of someone you're interested with another is screwy to begin with, but after two dates?  That's just scary.  She told me she really liked him and still wanted to see him.

Long story short, she went to visit him one Saturday night, and he was drunk.  Wow, what a shock! No one saw that coming!  But he convinced her that he had just started and this was his first relapse.  Sure, because an addict would never lie about something like this.  I did my best to make Fadwa realize this guy couldn't be trusted.  That addicts will lie their asses off to everyone; I sent her a ton of source material to back up what I was saying.  She was convinced otherwise, repeatedly telling me 'he's always been honest with me'.  Of course he has....  She wanted to help him get sober in the hopes they could date again.  Ladies and gentleman, I give you the height of naivete.

To be clear, I'm not unsympathetic to her situation.  Having feelings for someone who isn't healthy for you or emotionally equipped for a relationship sucks.  In fact, I can empathize, because despite my best efforts, I still have feelings for the woman I've mentioned in previous posts, whose abandonment issues destroyed our relationship.  It's not just your rational and emotional sides duking it out on this particular issue.  Logic says 'we care about each other, we're both available, and neither of us are in prison, so we should be together!'  But you can't and attempting to wrap your head around that can be maddening.  In any case, the strong feelings Fadwa had were out of place, after three dates.

At some point, Nick was temporarily put on the back burner and a new cast of characters came into play, one of whom became the straw that broke the camel's back for me.  She wasn't terribly interested in most of the men, save one who looked good on paper.  I shall call him Gomez.  She pursued meeting Gomez but noticed what she thought were a few red flags, and solicited my input.  For the sake of brevity, I'll just say he was attempting to 'couple' himself to her before they'd even met.  I told her those were signs of either intimacy or abandonment issues.  I warned her to be cautious, which seemed to motivate her to interact with him with him further.  Gomez revealed a great deal about his past to Fadwa, which she then shared with me.  This guy's history could have been included in a textbook for abandonment issues.  Mother died, father remarried, new wife didn't like son so son was shipped off to live with family in Europe, previous significant other died, the list goes on.  I practically yelled at her to stay away from this guy; to learn not make the same mistake I had.  Seriously, if there's one thing I've got a ton of experience on, it's abandonment issues.

Throughout this period, conversations between Fadwa and I had become increasingly tense.  I openly shared my frustration that she continued to make poor dating choices, despite having my guidance to prevent her from doing so.  I pointed out that in every instance, what I'd said to her had been spot on, and listed them off one by one.  I'd correctly called out Nick as being fragile and predicted his relapse.  Before that, I'd provided input on how her mental well being had been impacted by an emotionally abusive husband and that she should break off contact with him.  That he was continuing to manipulate her.  Her therapist told her the exact same things as I did; that, she took seriously.  But she repeatedly ignored my input.  It doesn't take much of an imagination to realize this dynamic became incredibly frustrating to me.  It even felt a bit insulting.

She told me she listened to my advice, but made her own decisions.  I have to admit her response grated on me a bit because she just didn't get it.  What I offered wasn't advice; advice implies an opinion.  You ask for advice on whether the green dress or the blue one looks better on you.  Whether you should study engineering or marketing.  What I was offering was informed guidance that comes from possessing vastly greater life experience than her as well as my knowledge of human behavior.  As parallel example, I'm not a certified mechanic but have wrenched on almost every car I've owned.  So, I know a few things about them.  Enough to be able to recognize that if a wheel has two lug nuts missing and the others having one thread of engagement, said wheel will fall off.  That outcome is almost a certainty and well beyond the level of opinion.

The conclusion of every one of these exchanges was always the same.  Fadwa would push her bad choices off on others.  Things were left 'in God's hands' or it didn't matter because fate had already determined her path.  My personal favorite was her saying she'd pray for guidance.  I'd scream at her that I'd already given her great fucking guidance if she'd open her ears.  That I was fairly certain God would want her to use the fucking brain he'd given her.  But she wouldn't be the one driving; God needed to take the wheel.  If you've read my religion post, you know that's something I consider to be beyond ignorant.  And thus the title for this entry.  She'd make one bad decision after another and pawn it off elsewhere.  She owned nothing.

I recall the crux of the last few conversations we had.  She told me she was in love with Nick.  Sure, that's emotionally healthy after a few dates.  The last conversation we had ended with her considering dating Gomez again.  I'd had about enough of her acting like a child, so my warning at the time was only half-hearted. Besides, I'd said it all before and she never listened.  The last words I heard from her were 'but I do like a smart man', referring to why Gomez was attractive to her.  I know they were the last words because I hung up on her after she said them.  I'd had enough and cut ties with her.

But the story, and the theme, don't end there.  I'd apparently mentioned her (well disguised, of course) in a previous entry and she sent me a less than pleasant note demanding I remove the reference.  Of course, I always do what I'm told by people who ignore my advice.  I'm certain she'll throw a major fit after reading this post.  Anyway, included in the email was this gem:

I don't want to be friends with you. I feel much happier now that I am not in a fwb relationship as it is against my nature and interest. 

First of all, it seems she didn't quite get my not having anything to do with her for a month meant our friendship was over.  More importantly, without context, one could infer that I'd manipulated this chaste and virtuous woman into being fwb's.  Clearly I'd done an excellent job at it because she would regularly ask if she could come over for extra benefits, over and above the nights we'd planned.  (In the interest of good taste, I'll skip describing the less than virtuous things she wanted me to do to her.)  But yet another decision that she couldn't take responsibility for and wanted to pawn off elsewhere.  And that's why she'll forever be known as the girl who owned nothing.

Living With Borderline Personality Disorder - A Former Spouse's View

In the time between clients, my mind begins to wander, well, all over the damned place. Lately, it’s been drifting toward past relationships and, in particular, my one and only marriage. I’m over the marriage, put it in the past tense, and moved on, blah, blah, blah. But you see my ex-wife has undiagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder. In fact, I’m the only one who truly recognizes her condition, being in the unique position to see her current and past behavior in fine detail.

My Ex Wife

This entry will provide a view of what it's like to live with someone suffering from BPD.

For those who aren’t familiar with borderline personality disorder, you can read more here:

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/borderline-personality-disorder/index.shtml

The short version is that those with BPD do everything they can to prevent abandonment. This includes manipulating (i.e. lying, gaslighting) their partners in order to keep them from leaving. Their emotional state is in constant turmoil.  Consider BPD to be abandonment issues on steroids and then some.

I’ll preface by saying, despite some parts of the story appearing to be, this is not a ‘woe is me’ story. Consider it as more of a precautionary tale for those who don’t realize that true nut jobs walk among us and can damage you in ways you never believed possible. I certainly didn’t have a clue this was the case, when I met my ex. Hell, I didn’t know what the hell BPD was. I thought mental illness was people wandering the streets, talking to inanimate objects.  Surely, those people would be locked up or labelled or something, right? Aren't they required to wear tags around their necks?  I obviously learned the hard way that's not the case.  They walk among us and can appear very normal.

What sucks about BPD, is that it’s incredibly difficult to diagnose. In fact, I was dating a therapist who had been married to a BPD’er and didn’t figure it out until after the relationship ended, which is what happened with me. She also shared that when a patient at her practice is suspected of having BPD, they are interviewed by multiple therapists because of how adept they are at manipulation.  As a result, most borderlines never receive treatment.

How did I determine my (ex) wife had BPD?  First of all, I knew a great deal of her behavior was abnormal (as you'll see throughout this entry).  In digging around, I found the DSM and considered my ex’s behavior; BPD was the landslide winner. It was solidified by research on the effects of children of Borderlines, which seemed as though they’d just written a description of my step-daughter. I compared notes with the aforementioned therapist I dated and it was as though we’d been living the same lives. The final piece of confirmation fell into place in an almost humorous fashion.   I'd been seeing a therapist, during the dark days of my separation, and kept throwing supporting information at him but he refused to diagnose C as a Borderline. Not seeing her, ethics, blah, blah. Then, in one of my last sessions with him, I shared a recent rather lengthy email conversation with her where everything she wrote screamed ‘I’m a Borderline’. I showed that to my therapist, who after reading through the correspondence, blurted out, ‘Wow, she’s a high functioning Borderline.’ I looked at him and said, ‘gotcha!’

The Courtship
When I met C, she seemed like everything I wanted in a partner. Admittedly, I’d never experienced a true partner in previous relationships so I really had zero clue what I really should be looking for. But C was beautiful, smart, and thought I was the best thing since sliced bread. I was her savior from the other horrible guys she’d dated. And she’d dated a lot of losers, the most extreme example being her second husband who had done time for armed robbery. (Under the heading of ‘some people don’t change’ this would be the same scumbag who I, later, wound up showing the business side of a Glock to convince him he shouldn’t be following ‘our’ kids to their bus stop.) Truly, these should have been warning signs (not almost shooting her ex; that came later) but I defy most men to have a gorgeous woman praise them as their knight in shining armor and think ‘hmm, something ain’t right here’. It’s just not gonna happen! Hell, most guys are somewhat insecure to begin with, so they eat that up like a fat kid wolfs down cake. I know I did.

The relationship progressed incredibly quickly. On her side, the BPD was forcing her timeline. On mine, I was at an age where I decided it was time to settle down and C was amazing. It was almost as though my subconscious said ‘yep, you’ll do nicely’ and that was that.

The Relationship
So, all was right with the world. As time went on, there were little warning signs. I caught her lying to her kids in order to manipulate them. Hmm…she wouldn’t do that to me though, right? Her treatment of me changed over time as well. In the beginning, I could do no wrong but, seemingly overnight, I developed a dizzying array of character flaws. Every misstep was categorized and thrown on the pile. The general message from her to me was ‘I love you regardless of how useless you are’. Pretty effective at making someone feel really lucky they have such an understanding spouse. As time passed, my self-esteem dropped precipitously.

When there were differences of opinion, with respect to our relationship, I would try to be accommodating. There was a part of me that thought ‘she’s been married twice before so she knows better than me’. Hah! Dumb shit!

In general, every disagreement we had was seemingly my fault. When having a disagreement with a partner, my preference is to sit down, as soon as possible (sometimes one or both parties needs to let the steam vent before they can have a productive discussion) and have a frank and respectful discussion. But she wouldn’t discuss differences of opinion between us, ever. And when I would become agitated at her avoiding the discussion, I would somehow find myself apologizing for yelling at her. To be clear, I raised my voice less than half a dozen times, during my marriage, but apologized for yelling no less than fifteen times.

And she was the master at this type of manipulation.

She was also a black belt of the ‘I told you X’ to cover herself. I thought I was the worst husband in the world for not paying attention to my wife (adding to the shame). This was until I wound up taking notes from our conversations (for reasons too lengthy to get into here). Sure enough, her story (in this case, our relocation from PA to RVA) would change almost daily, yet she’d claim that whatever today’s story was had been her position the whole time.

BPD’ers have a great deal of difficulty controlling their emotions, often ‘losing their shit’ on perceived transgressors, many times to the point of becoming physical. C was unusual, for a Borderline, in that she rarely went ballistic and never got physical. But when she did freak out, it was usually in a context one would least expect. 

My favorite example almost invariably blows the minds of everyone who hears it. In fact, even the folks on the BPD support message boards (a community for those living with, or trying to escape, a Borderline) were impressed with this one. It involves cured meats. 

The Ham Incident

We were hosting Easter, and my parents were visiting from out of state, along with my grandmother. The morning of, my mother and I were in the kitchen, both finishing breakfast as well as prepping some sides for Easter dinner. Somewhat out of the blue, C began an argument with me over something I’ve since forgotten. Suffice to say it was something trivial and I defended myself. The argument escalated, with her yelling at me and being generally nasty.

And then, it happened. Out of the blue, she threw the Easter ham at me!!! I was accosted by a projectile of porcine smoky goodness!

Needless to say, things got really ugly after that. After all, you don’t throw smoked pork at me and get away with it! Nothing physical but there was a ton of screaming and yelling from both of us. My parents were mortified and left (they later told me they never liked my wife). 

We later sat down to talk and here’s the best part of the story. I apologized!!! God, she was an artist. The logic went like this: She had (allegedly) told me the previous night, to try to vacate the kitchen early so she could get the ham prepared. It was because of my mother’s and my loitering, in the kitchen, that she had no choice but to go ape shit and throw meat at me. Yeah, I guess it was my fault you had to throw the ham at me. I’m sorry; I don’t deserve you.

Attempting to project blame, to some degree or another, is a common theme in most relationships, so nothing new there. Most people try to deflect blame at some point. But she took projection to new levels of artistry. Here are two quick examples of her amazing projection, both relating to her wrecking her car, which she did regularly.

Once, she slid on ice, during a big snow storm, while approaching a stop light, and hit the guy in front of her who had already stopped for the red light. Whose fault was that? The dude who stopped at the light, of course.  He should have kept going since it was icy.  

The other one, that was quite inventive, was when she backed into a truck. We had moved into our new home a few months earlier and the builder was there to knock out some punch list items. His truck was parked in front of the closed garage door. C had to leave, opened the garage door, and promptly backed into the contractor’s truck. Whose fault was that one? It was mine because she was late and rushing to meet me. If it weren’t for me wanting to treat her to a nice dinner out, she wouldn’t have wrecked the car.

Her refusal to take blame for anything became a source of resentment for me. I wanted her to take ownership for something; anything. I tried to explain that I don’t care if someone makes mistakes; everyone does. But, if you screw the pooch in your marriage, you take ownership, apologize, and work through it together. Didn’t do a bit of good.

Gaslighting

C would often utilize a certain manipulation technique that I later learned was called gaslighting; a common tactic among those with BPD. Gaslighting is a form of manipulation that is considered torture, in some contexts. An excellent description can be found here:

http://counsellingresource.com/features/2011/11/08/gaslighting/

C demonstrated some serious skill at gaslighting. There would be some sort of disagreement between us, followed by her returning (from work or a family ‘meeting’, etc.) with the message that other people with whom she’d discussed the topic with agree with her perspective on the matter. To top it off, invariably, someone she spoke with would allegedly make a disparaging comment about me. Sometimes, there was only a disparaging comment about me; ‘my friends think you’re an asshole’. But the underlying theme was that I was wrong and a piece of shit but C wasn’t the one saying I was a piece of shit. She remained blameless. (I’ll revisit that theme in a later story)

A quick example of her gaslighting: we’d had a non-yelling disagreement over a topic which has been lost to history (which I’m sure I apologized for). The next day, she returned home from work and informed me that she’d spoken with five coworkers about what happened. All five had said they never have arguments with their spouse and one suggested I had an anger management problem. Pretty powerful stuff, if you trust your partner, which I did at the time.

However, as time went on, she got sloppy (desperate) with her gaslighting and made more and more outrageous claims. I used to joke she would claim her colleagues advocated killing puppies, if that’s what her position was. She began to tell me her position was supported by people who she had no way of casually speaking with (i.e. were out of the country, people she had vowed never to speak with again, those she admitted she hadn’t spoken with in years, etc.). In one case, she tried to convince me she’d just discussed ‘whatever’ and gotten support from someone who I knew had passed away a few months earlier. Yep, even those pushing up daisies agreed with her!

To top it off, she was a compulsive (yet talented) liar; a typical trait of those with BPD. I’ve never met someone who had such an aversion for the truth as C. It wasn’t just me she lied to. After we had been married for a few years, each one of her three siblings shared stories of how her compulsive lying had caused a rift between them. Of course, my response was ‘and you couldn’t have told me this before I married her???’ Honestly, I missed most of her lies until later in our relationship or after we separated; she was that good at it.

After we separated, I called her out on the lying, citing various examples where I had concrete evidence. She admitted she had lied to me quite a bit, over the years, but explained ‘I didn’t feel as though I could be honest with you’. She was afraid I’d go bat shit over the truth. Huh? I asked her whether she felt the same way with – and proceeded to rattle off names of her family and a ton of others she constantly lied to.  I don’t recall the fabrication she came up with in response and it doesn’t matter.

I have since come to understand that she was attempting to manipulate me into her own storybook version of the perfect marriage. Instead, the only thing she accomplished was to drive me away. But, to be clear, she was incapable of rational thought in many instances. In most cases, a Borderline truly believes their version of events because their brain can’t process the reality that they may be to blame for something. It’s called dissociative behavior and it creates a new reality of a situation that the borderline mind can accept. There were many occasions where she’d recall a recent situation / conversation / whatever and I’d wonder whether we were discussing the same thing, because I certainly wasn’t part of the event she was describing. 

We tried two go ‘rounds of marriage counseling. However, in both cases, I was in the mode of accepting ‘things aren’t working out because I’m a bad husband’. And she certainly wasn’t going to admit to lying and manipulation.

I’m ashamed to say the lying, manipulation, turned me into a bitter, selfish man. I had an affair at the office (she never found out) with another married woman who gave me what C wouldn’t; the feeling that I was a desirable man. Time went on and I made a couple serious efforts to regroup and be the best husband I could be to C. When I asked for some sort of positive feedback on my efforts, she responded with the message that I’d likely go back to being ‘worthless’ soon. So, I truly became a bastard because why bother trying not to be? 

I absolutely tried to be the best step-father I could. This was very important to me, as their own father wasn’t in the picture and C was incredibly erratic as a parent. On that, I believe I succeeded but that’s another story.

The ultimate tipping point was my taking a job in Richmond. She agreed to the move and was excited about my promotion. But, she wasn’t being honest with me or herself. As her sister later told me, ‘regardless of what she told you, there was no way C was moving down to VA.’ I’ll spare you the blow by blow but suffice to say that dynamic ripped apart what little was left of the fabric of our marriage.

And as the marriage finally disintegrated, I never once heard her tell me she loved me and wanted to save our marriage. Instead, she would berate me about not honoring my commitment; or abandoning her and the kids. 

In all honesty, I didn’t see the lying, manipulation, and emotional abuse for what it was. My motives to end the marriage were purely selfish at the time. I was tired of being told how horrible I was as a husband and tired of being lied to. I wanted out. I had to get out. My self-esteem was shot to hell.  I'll never forget that conversation I had in my head the night I decided to end our marriage.  I thought to myself 'I'm a worthless man and no one will ever want to be with me, but I just can't take this anymore'.  

The next evening, I told her I was done.  I became an enemy in a heartbeat and she wouldn’t allow me into the house. It had nothing to do with fear of me taking things from the marital home; just that she didn’t want me in ‘her’ home, being the traitor I was. She told me, flat out, that she was going to punish me for not living up to my commitment. She was so petty as to change my contact in her phone to ‘Dickhead’. It should go without saying that she dragged out the divorce as long as she could, milking me for spousal support the whole time. She wanted to keep our house, and belongings, and have me walk away with nothing. 

I can’t say I was devastated because I wasn’t. Sure, it hurt like hell that my world was turned on its head overnight. I was in a new city, in a new job, going through a divorce. Stress much? On the flip side, four days after I asked for the divorce, C had signed up on an internet dating site. I found this out later; her daughter was appalled.

Changed the Locks

Funny story about punishing me and how the manipulation continued during our separation.  She and I were working on a day for me to come up to PA and collect some belongings. She had commitments come up on the day I had free. No problem, I said, I have the key and I’ll get what we agreed to. She then told me that the locks had been changed. I asked why; I hadn’t threatened her in any way, had I? No. And I lived four hours away, so it’s not like I could pop by to serve some ulterior motive. She said her brother-in-law (who I got along with very well) did it because he ‘just thought it would be best’. I said it had to be an expensive proposition, considering what we paid for the custom finish on our door hardware. Yes, but he wanted it taken care of.

I was visiting my parents, during this email exchange (she wouldn’t talk on the phone and I was glad for ‘paper’ confirmations of what she’d agreed to) and it hit me. That common theme again!!!  I was being screwed, it was by some other entity, and C was blameless. I said to my parents, ‘the locks weren’t changed, she just doesn’t want me there.’ I tried to get my dad to take a $1k bet that the locks weren’t changed, but he’s a smart guy and passed.

So, the day arrived, and I pulled into my driveway, walked up and rang the doorbell. C opened the door and, after some small talk, I asked about the locks. I told her the finish matched really well to the original equipment. She took the bait and told me all about the process and how she didn’t want to change the locks but her brother in law did it without asking, etc. etc. etc. I let her dig the hole for ten minutes or so, then pulled out my key and said, ‘I guess this is trash and won’t work now.’ I stuck the key in the door, sure enough, it worked. The look on her face was priceless and all she could say was ‘whoops!’ I’ve never seen her so uncollected. She then began berating me about how useless I was and how I betrayed her and the kids. Broken record…

The Escape

One very important thing to remember about Borderlines is that it’s tough to get away from them. Even though I was the enemy, C continued to reach out to me. These little pings took various forms but they all were intended to yank my chain to get a reaction; ‘I’m throwing out you’re X (that I wouldn’t allow you to collect) that you like so much.’ Or, if her new boyfriend went out of town, she’d act like I was her friend again. You see, even though we were divorcing, she was desperately trying to prevent my final abandonment. And that’s the fun gift that keeps on giving with a Borderline. Unless you find a way to make a final break, they’ll keep bouncing back into your life. You must escape, period.

How did I get C to leave me alone? Simple, I shared my assertion she had BPD. The short version is that, once I determined without a doubt, she had BPD, I sent her a letter detailing how her behavior was perfectly in line with someone with BPD. That even her daughter was a textbook example for behavior of a child with a BPD parent. I (stupidly) offered to reconcile in order to get her the help she needed. Thankfully, she refused (it was easier to stay with the poor guy who didn’t realize how fucked up she was) and denied she had BPD (as borderlines do). From that point on, when she’d try to manipulate me, or exhibit other typical BPD behavior, I’d point it out and tell her I understood it was her BPD driving her. She’d attempt to suck me into an argument by insulting me and I’d respond calmly that I’d be happy to discuss my shortcomings with her and her therapist. Ultimately, she stopped communicating. I’m sure there were two factors involved in her backing away. She was freaked about being identified as having BPD. In fact, she was freaked even more when her own therapist pointed out some unrelated corroborating evidence. Plus, she realized I had become impervious to her manipulation so there was no longer a payoff for the behavior. In fact, it became dangerous for her because every little nasty trick she pulled was answered as another behavior typical of borderlines.

During that period of punishment and nasty tricks, my friends would ask me why I wasn't more angry over her treatment of me.  I told them the alligator story and explained she had no control over her actions.  I can still remember the puzzled looks on their faces.

There’s obviously a whole lot more I could share but those are the high (or low) points. Some readers might ask how the hell I could be so naïve not to see all the warning signs. Well, as I mentioned above, I’ll throw a beautiful, smart woman in front of you, have her extoll your amazingness to the world, and see how long you last.  And with a borderline, when things are good, they're amazing.  Once you’re in, it’s tough to break away because you’ve been convinced you’re not worthy of a good woman. It’s a slow, insidious process. Truly, the nut jobs who have their act polished are incredibly seductive. I wound up dating another girl who made the same noises (she didn’t seem to be a Borderline though) and it wasn’t easy to walk away from, even with the knowledge I’ve gained. 

While some may read this and think otherwise, I’m not bitter over what happened. The truth is that C wasn’t in control of her actions and, as a result, I can’t blame her. 

Ultimately, what came out of the whole episode? Well, I learned a lot more about myself. When I looked in the mirror, after we separated, I didn’t like what I saw and made a sincere effort to change the things that bothered me most.  For some time after, I overcompensated for missing what I felt I should have caught by ‘chasing shadows’ in other women. OMG, she likes the same type of apple C does; she’s gotta be nuts! I developed a rockin' case of fear of intimacy.  But, I’ve settled down and moved on to be what I would like to think is an emotionally healthy state.  In the meantime, C has married her fourth husband; the shelf life on her marriages seems to be around seven years, so the clock is ticking.

So, to all of my readers, I wish you happy and healthy dating.  Don't ignore warning signs in a potential partner.  If something seems abnormal, it probably is, regardless of how the other party justifies it.

https://tinyurl.com/gkvnbwz