September 3, 2021

Lots of parts of this experience have been terrible for me. I’ve been humiliated, financially destroyed, and forced, for the sake of my children’s needs, to be dependent on people I otherwise wouldn’t have been dependent upon. I lost everyone who might have otherwise been a support system. I learned new definitions of alone and excommunicated..  

But I think the hardest part was the realization that John obviously never really loved me. It would be impossible to really love and to behave as he’s behaved. The hardest part has been the realization that he was never anything more than a lying grifter and that I gave myself and my sincere love to someone who never deserved it. 

I have learned that I was a fool…. and that he recognized my then-foolishness and took complete advantage of it. 

That was a difficult realization. It would have been nice if I could have looked back on the experience and at least believed it was real love instead of deception. 

John fully deceived me and has spent years doing whatever more he could do to harm me further. He is not a good man who made a mistake. He did this all with intent and has never expressed sincere apologies or done anything to repair his wrongs  Rather, he has liberally salted the wounds he created so he could make more money. I don’t ever expect to be compensated. I wonder at the people who keep donating to him as if he were really the person doing the valuable work.

I, probably more than anyone, wish he were a better person than he is. If he were, my decisions at the time would have at least been meaningful. Instead, as I look back at my old self, all I can see is a woman who is deserving of pity for being such foolish and vulnerable prey. 

It’s very unfortunate that I didn’t have anywhere safer to go. 

Like all of us, I would have much preferred to be honestly and sincerely loved by the man who was claiming to honestly and sincerely love me. 

I should never have honestly and sincerely loved him. 

I was a fool.