Why would he choose to hurt me rather than tell me he truth?

Since when does getting someone pregnant indicate you’re in a relationship with that person? He had sex with a woman a month after you broke up – that’s all you know, yes? Does this mean he was seeing this chick while you and he were still together? No. Does this mean he and this woman currently have a good relationship? No. Don’t confuse sex with love.

What confuses me is why you even care. The guy was an asshole that treated you like crap and quite obviously didn’t want a relationship with you. He cut all ties and yet you continued to monitor his Facebook as if you were friends. He doesn’t want you, and it’s not as if he’s some great guy anyways, so who cares?

Maybe you should steer clear of dating prisoners from now on. They’re lonely and want to cling to someone, especially a woman, on the outside to occupy their time and make them feel better. My guess is that he was just using you. Marriage? I doubt he ever planned to go through with it. Even if he did, being released from prison after 10 years is a huge change and, in reality, he’s mentally/emotionally still that 16 year old kid that went in. Prison didn’t mature him or make him a better person – it locked him in a cage to keep him from committing more crimes for at least 10 years. He’s not going to get out, settle down with some nice girl, and live happily ever after. He’s got a long road ahead of him still.

Who cares what his reason was? Move on – maybe try men that aren’t convicted felons.

Deep down, I think that separating from you was an attempt on his part to build a new identity – he is trying to escape the old, prisoner, bad guy persona that he had for 10 years, and move to a new identity where he is a “good guy” and in control of his universe. Basically, he had no freedom for 10 years and now – last year, he was free to do his own thing.

You are/were a tie to the OLD him (the prisoner) and in order to move forward in his life, he has to break all the ties to the OLD him. So he jettisoned you because of what you reminded him of, and that you represented his time when he was a bad guy.

So it’s all about him trying to establish a new, post-prison identity on his part. IN some ways, you should be happy for him in that he has turned a corner to a new life.

@elbanditoroso
that sounds like a very good scenario, however, that isnt the case. He is still associating and hanging with people with a prison/jail background. When he was with me, he knew i didnt approve of that which is why he would try and hide it from me. he is still scheeming and conniving people its just that at the time i was with him, i didnt know all of these things about him. They started revealing themselves slowly. Of couse the situation hurt me because i was truly in love with him but whati dont understand is why if a breakup is whathe wanted that he just didnt say it even when he had plenty of opportunities to do it. I asked him did he want to break up and he would either say no, or make me feel guilty for asking such a thing ie: “shut up! if you mention anything like that again, dead yourself and you can go on with your life” now doesnt that sound like a threat telling me that if i mentioned breaking up, he would break up? That is where the confusion lies.

Welcome to Fluther.

Prison is not a good place to grow up. He did not have relationships that he could learn from. The actions you describe are those of a 16-year-old. Emotionally, he was still a teenager.

Now, you did not ask for advice for yourself but:
1. What are you going looking for a mate among the prison population.
2.Why don’t you consider yourself better off to be out of a relationship with the abusive man?
3. It;s been a year; he has a child with someone else; let him go.

Welcome to Fluther.

I can’t claim to understand the psychology behind his actions, but it seems to me that at a subconscious level he may have felt unworthy of you and your attention and affection, and for that reason, even unknown to him, he manufactured crises and incidents to make you wrong (and more importantly, “to make himself ‘right’”) and drive you away. It was deliberate, even if unconscious.

Do whatever grieving you have to do to get over him, but do get over him. He’s gone, and it was his choice to go. Now it’s time for you to move on, too.

I was not looking for a mate in prison. i knew this person from childhood so its not like i met and fell for a random penpal. i didn’t correspond with him for companionship either it just happened. The background given was strictly to highlight things that may have been an indication of why he acted this way and it seems as though many are using the fact that he was in prison as an excuse for his behavior. HE know how to treat people with respect he just chose to hurt me the way that he did which is why it hurt so bad. All he had to do was say he didn’t want the relationship thus my question; why would he go to great lengths to hurt me when he could have just ended it instead of vindictively pushing me away. It doesnt make sense to me which is why i came here to see if i may have missed something because i was heavily emotionally attached.

I did some volunteer work in a prison and I can tell you that for a large part of the population a few things are true. One is that they are very lonely. They fall in love or convince people they are in love through correspondence. They often carry two personas. One foe their victims romantic interests and one for their friends. I think you just have to admit that you were used by a manipulator who may have even convinced himself that he loved you but in reality you were just a lifeline to the real world and probably good for a few bucks a week at the commissary.
Hopefully you’re a smart enough girl that you won’t fall for it again when he re offends and ends up back in jail looking for a little entertainment and a few bucks.
Most of these guys have several women that they are stringing along and some are collecting hundreds of dollars from several women every month.
In a funny note, I just heard yesterday that sometimes when the prison staff see this happening they will “accidentally” switch up letters and envelopes on outgoing mail.
I’m sorry for the pain he caused you but I have to believe that in the long run he saved you a lifetime of pain. Prison is not the place to find a future mate and I am sure you deserve much better.

“I spent the remained or the failing relationship trying to make up for the so called embarrassment i caused him.”

This was the sentence that really grabbed my attention. Why were you trying to please an abusive asshole? I’ve studied the issues surrounding abused women, some in college and after reading this, I think you should consider getting help. A healthy reaction to someone being abusive to you (emotionally too) is to reject the abuser, not to try to please him more to make up for it.

I don’t think it’s healthy for you to get involved in any relationship until you reset this mechanism in your mind. The fact that you even care enough to keep tabs on a former abuser a year later is really scary to hear. Maybe you should volunteer at a battered women’s shelter and get to see where that mentality can lead to. This is the kind of pattern that will repeat itself in your life if you don’t change it.

To directly answer your question, the reason why some people act this way is that they are abusive people. Why are they abusive people? Maybe it was how they were raised at home, maybe it’s a product of surviving prison life, but what is important to know is that YOU CAN’T CHANGE AN ABUSIVE PERSON! It requires a commitment on the part of the abuser to want to change, and professional intervention that cannot work while you’re in a relationship with them.

You seem like a smart and nice woman who a lot of good men would be lucky to get the chance to date. Best wishes, and stay safe.

@gorillapaws To answer your question, i didnt know it was abuse at the time. It was from posting on these forums that I found out about types of abusive traits, sociopaths and i started reading and that s when i realized that I was being abused. I tried to fix it because he kept telling everyone how bad i hurt him and that hurt me because no one likes to know that they hurt a person that they loved. He even manipulated my own family into making me feel like i did something wrong. He used to tell me that I did “this” to him and had me believing that I was the cause of the failing relationship. My confusion is if he is truly abusive or that was just his way of trying to get out of a relationship he didnt want. Thank you so much for answering.

About keeping tabs, i didn’t. It was through mutual friends that i found out this information. At first i acted as though it didnt bother me but then i had to stop people from reporting his info for my own healing.

@Judi thank you so much! I just didn’t think he could do something like that being that i knew him when we were kids. It was definitely a hard lesson i had to learn.

So…let me get this straight…you dated a felon during his last two years of sentence…what led you to pick up a guy in prison? Why not a library or a bakery I dunno…this sounds crazy to me. How on earth do you expect to have a trusting warm relationship with someone like that or a normal relationship at all…I don’t have all the details…but you realize this looks crazy.

You are worried about how you embarrassed an abusive prick at the movies…talk about low self-esteem. Since I am a woman, I get generally dissapointed with women who put themselves in question when dealing with people like this. Tell yourself you deserve better and move on. You wasted tooo much time on him already.

@snapdragon24 wow, your response is very blunt, unlike many I respect that. To address your main concern about what led me to pick up a guy in prison… I didn’t intentionally pick him up in prison. I went to school with him when we were kids and he was my first crush. When I found out about his situation, I felt bad and reached out cordially. I didn’t intent to be in a relationship with him, it just happened and yes I allowed it to happen, not ever once thinking that he could be the way he turned out. After all, I knew him (so I thought).. Yes I felt bad about embarrassing him and at the time I did not know that I was being abused. I blamed myself for the problems in the relationship and tried to fix them. Again, not knowing that I was being manipulated to feel that way. I was naive, and didn’t notice the now so clear warning signs, I take full responsibility for that, but non of that stops the pain that I experienced from the individual, direct and indirectly. I can say that I am a lot better than I was when it first happened.

You have learned that nice boys don’t necessarily become nice men. He changed during the period you didn’t know him and ended up in prison. Having learned that lesson, now it’s time for you to find your own self and go on from here. It wasn’t you, it was him. Take care of yourself and get involved with something and somebody else worthwhile. Good luck.

@Sunny2 Thank you soo much! I see that now and have learned. I am now taking the necessary steps to move on in a healthy way.

Some guys just happen to be douchebags.

@ruby85, indeed that was a bit blunt…only because sometimes when I try to be diplomatic it doesn’t always make sense; how about we just get to the point right?

Thanks for giving me more info, now it makes more sense. First crush, you thought he was a good person deep down inside…but I think you’ve realized that sometimes we see what others don’t, and thats exactly how we get stuck with people like that…giving them a chance cause we think they will better themselves. I am sorry this happened to you, it happens to many of us, but the red flags were there since he step foot in jail right? How safe do you think you would have felt with him in the long run? I think you get it now. Count as a blessing that his family doesn’t like you and that the marriage in non existent..they’ve done you a favor :)

@snapdragon24 Many have told me that it is a blessing that he is out of my life and that I didn’t marry him or get stuck with a baby by him, which is confirmation that everyone can see what I can’t. I can only imagine what this new girl is going through. Yes i thought that deep down he was a good person. He seemed to have his head on straight and know exactly what he wanted out of life, and a great foundation of how he was going to execute those plans once released. I admired the fact the he was locked up so long and was able to keep his head on straight and boy was I ever so wrong. The irony of it all is i never felt uneasy about him until the moment he stepped foot out of those gates. I felt something different about him but couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I thought it was paranoia and tried to ignore it, but that feeling kept bugging me. I didn’t trust him, and I couldn’t understand why. He was finally home and I wasn’t at peace. I now know why I was feeling that way, it was my intuition kicking into overdrive and I failed to pay attention to it. My recovery is based on the constant reality checks that I must have with myself, that keeps reminding me that I fell in love with an illusion, a facade and that he is not that person, and will never be that person; a very hard pill to swallow. Thank you for taking time to respond. It means more than you know.

The positive thing to take away from all of this, as you must surely realize from that response, is that your intuition is clearly worth listening to. In a lot of people, what they consider their intuition is merely a very vivid imagination, but yours seems to be functioning pretty well. Kudos on that.

I would have a hard time finding a way to make a relationship with someone who did 10 years for armed robbery.

I wish you peace in the future. I hope this guy’s new girlfriend keeps the baby out of this guy’s crazy way. Maybe if she’s lucky, the guy won’t want anything to do with the baby or with her and they can find peace of their own.

@ruby85, glad your head is working over your heart and I think the best thing to do is focus on yourself and make sure the next guy you meet will work hard to be with you :) thats when you’ll know he’ll be worth it. I’ve made some bad mistakes in my life…and eventually I learned that being difficult is important even if we are sensitive beings who love and get attached easily. Its not in my nature to be reserved, but I trained myself to take a step back and observe, like this the chance of me getting hurt again is less probable…and guess what…I found the right guy :) and so will you. Glad I could help.

@snapdragon24 I humbly thank you. I do need to be more assertive with my feelings and more reserved in who I trust and lear to let others earn my trust, that is a definite.

How exactly does one meet someone while they’re in jail?

why would someone want to meet someone while they’re in jail?

@uberbatman I know that I mentioned many times throughout this post that I knew him from childhood, I grew up with him, he wasn’t some penpal that I met randomly.

@ruby85 and you randomly started talking to him again after he’d been in jail for 8 years?

@uberbatman when I found out about his incarceration, I reached out out of sympathy and concern. It was platonic at first and then before I knew it, it escalated; very quickly at that.

Just out of curiosity, how does something “escalate quickly” when you have no direct contact with the person?

@livelaughlove21 If I remember correctly, you were the one who gave all that Information about sociopaths and Psychopaths right? If I am right then you would be able to tell me better than I can tell you how it could have happened. If I knew the answer to that I wouldn’t have been devastated by the demise, devalue and discard that happened. In an attempt to explain, I can say that he knew the right things to say that nurtured insecurities about myself that I didn’t even know I had. What I mean by it escalating quickly was by his over the top actions of getting me involved in his life (ie. meeting family, hanging out with his sisters, baby sitting for them, our families getting together and hanging out, to him even getting my name tattooed on his ring finger) His family talked so much about how much happier and a better person he was since I came into his life, and how much he talked about me and they were impressed and felt that I was good for him. In terms of contact, I went to visit quite often.

@ruby85 I was just confused at what “escalated quickly” meant, not how you were fooled by his antics. When I think of a relationship escalating quickly, I think of sex and moving in together and marriage – things you need a lot of contact with the other person to do.

@livelaughlove21 , When I was young I had a fascination with inmates. Believe me, it CAN escalate quickly because these guys can write the most eloquent love letters.
I’m in my 50’s now and when my mom moved into a retirement home I found a box of letters from some guy I don’t even remember. To read his letters you would think that he was the love of my life! My sister found them first and said, ‘Who is this guy who was so in love with you??”
Thank goodness I never met him. I was probably 13 or 14 when he wrote those letters. They were very intimate and in today’s world would have gotten him in a lot of trouble. If I would have met him I would have been in a lot of trouble.
You can have an emotional connection without sex and @ruby85 was able to visit him and his letters were probably every bit as romantic as the letters the creep sent me.
@ruby85, so sorry that it turned out this way. In the future remember that the word CON is related to CONVICT for a reason. You were conned and now you are smarter and wiser.

@livelaughlove21 oh, I thought you meant how it went from platonic to romantic..

@Judi Thank you luv, I definitely am getting there :)