Bakerstreetpi's Blog

Trade-offs

Following on the theme of women and love I was watching Joy Behar interview Kim Cattrall last night. Kim commented that she thought women being labelled as cougars sounded predatory and inappropriate. I have to agree. Why are these labels so easily adopted by women in their pursuit of pleasure? Hmm – what are old men called – oh right – sugar daddies? This implies an older man taking care of a younger woman. Also repulsive but apparently less so. What makes cougars less appealing according to Kim is that cougars stalk their prey and that gives a predatory image to women. Women have had to deal with labels all their life – fat, short, too thin, too tall, slut, easy, plain and worse. In my job I talk to women who still live with these labels and subsequently compromise themselves for the pursuit of financial stability, status, and sadly love. What many women fail to understand is that these trade-offs ultimately put them in abusive relationships.

As a private investigator I have women tell me about their abusive lives – this is not always physical abuse folks. Often this involves emotional and financial abuse. Don’t misunderstand me though – there is often the threat of or the reality of physical abuse. Lets discuss two situations.
My first example – lets call her Jan. Jan was a single mother for years – struggling at minimum wage jobs to make ends meet. Jan was not a saint though – because in real life we aren’t saints and nobody is perfect. She enjoyed going to bars and picking up men – of all ages. Over the years I came to realize that her respect of self was suffering. She is a smart woman that chose to live in the lower pockets of society. Nevertheless she raised a wonderful child and saved enough money to buy herself a one bedroom apartment. Wonderful! I was happy for her. Shortly after she moved into the apartment she met “the man of her dreams”. He wined her, dined her, danced her and bought her flowers. She was impressed. But you know that saying – If it sounds too good to be true…. Over the next 5 years she became a fearful woman, that ran home to make dinner and accomodate this mans needs, she gave up all pretense of being independent, was paying all the bills (He worked but felt entitled to spend his money on his needs)and became more and more depressed and subservient. Why? Well Jan had been looking for a man to take care of her for years, she wanted a nice home and this man was capable to doing renovations, she wanted to be loved but ultimately the price was too high. She contacted me when she wanted him to leave the home and wanted protection. It is going to take her years, if ever, to recover from this scenario. It is far from over – he is still there.

My second example is Karen. Karen has been a successful teacher for years. For 3 years she dated her partner, then they married. They met online. He presented well – was a successful businessman that travelled the world. She saw her dream of a beautiful home and a wonderful retired life become a reality. After 5 years of marriage she found out he had been cheating with multiple women for the majority of the time. We are not talking about an affair here – we are talking about down and out straight forward Craigslist type of sex. How many women? Who knows. Devastating for Karen – yes, absolutely. Was she hurt? Profoundly. Is he going to change – well he says so. Yet he still speaks to her in a condescending manner and does not address her needs. This man is 60 yrs old, she is his fourth wife, he cheated on the three before her. Would you bet on these odds? I would not. This woman argued that marriage is so important that one has to work on it to the exlusion of their own needs – in other words she was going to help him change and be the man she thought he was capable of. being. Ya – ya. This client stayed in her beautiful home, believed that he would change and finally hired us to confirm that he wasn’t cheating on his upcoming trips.

As I was writing this article, my former assistant Nicole, called me from Ottawa where she resettled about 5 years ago. She reminded me of another case and said that when she tells the story to her friends they can’t believe it. Nicole said “I tell them that all these weird things you see on TV when it comes to relationships and lies – it is just like that in real life. If I had not worked for a private investigator I would not have believed it myself!” We shared a laugh and I hung up saying to myself – it is a dark world, people are not honest with each other, people want to believe the best, people want the fantasy. Why not? The fantasy is so much better than the reality. Of course it is but it is not real.

It is these desires than can put a person in a bad place. It is these desires that can give a woman a reason to forgive bad behavior. It is these desires than allow her partner to behave in a selfish manner.

Aging is I think scary for the majority of women. So is their need for financial security. Thats why they believe the stories con men invent. The con man, the abuser, knows this. They feel it instinctively – they move karmically towards these women. By the time the woman realizes she’s been lied to she is in deep.

My job is to sort out the truths from the lies. I provide the ear, the information, the laid person counselling – sometimes it makes no difference in the woman’s pursuit of her fantasy. Over the years I have learned truth is a tricky thing to be in possession of.