Following is a reader’s very personal commentary regarding attraction to “bad boys,” based on a question from a woman who’s considering marrying a jailed man who once tried to strangle her (March 5):

Reader – “He tried to kill her in a paranoid rage.

“For her to look up someone in jail, who’s once tried to kill her, indicates her extremely low self-esteem or a death wish.

“I’ve had a man (my roommate) try to strangle me in the past. He later turned up at my new address once; I didn’t answer my door.

“I saw the mood he was in as he left in an angry huff. I had to block his phone number on my landline and changed my cell phone number and email address.

“While I’d carefully evicted him from my home, I stayed in another city. He claimed to have no memory of choking me until I almost blacked out.

“At that time, my self-esteem had been ground down by his abusive nature.

“Previously, one girlfriend of his stated that he’d held her dangling over a balcony, threatening to drop her.

“I had no way of assessing her credibility. This happened before he strangled me and had been in and out of periods of severe depression, rages, and several attempts to jump off the balcony.

“My self-esteem has improved greatly, but I’m still very wary about trusting men.

“I would do a police check on any man in the future who might be a candidate for a relationship, and run him past all my trusted friends who have better “radar” for troubled men than I appear to have.

“I’ve reviewed all the men whom I’ve been involved with in the past and discovered the common attracting factors they had for me.

“I’ve also taken a close look at what my own self-esteem levels were when I got involved with them.

“There was one particular man about whom I kept feeling nostalgic. I had some fantasies about the potential for getting back together with him in the future.

“It’s taken a lot of work to come to the following conclusion:

“We fell in love with who we wanted each other to be, not who we really were.

“We were too young when we got together, and acted too quickly because we both lacked sufficient self-esteem to know ourselves and see each other clearly.

“We put each other on pedestals and were very good for, and to, each other for several years, until things started to unravel.

“We parted amicably and are still friends, but do not socialize as he’s married to a wonderful woman who’s realistic.

“I hope that the writer of the March 5^th question will look elsewhere for a decent, caring mate, with a clean criminal record after she finds out what attracts her to “bad boys.”

“If she’s been communicating with him for 18 months, has she had the presence of mind to call the prison warden to find out what the charges were that put him in prison and the sentence length?

“If not, she should do so immediately.

“Women who experience violence do so at the hands of men who then blame the women for their own actions.

“Each time a woman experiences another event of abuse, whether verbal or physical, her self-esteem sinks down deeper and any sense of empowerment to escape the problem is diminished.

“Her courage crumbles and she starts lying to herself, just trying to survive.”

Been There

I'm 27 and want to attend college or university, but I have a mild form of cerebral palsy, a type of brain damage.

I'm intelligent and capable. I volunteer to gain experience, skill, and favourable references, but I've never been hired.

I've been on my own since age 17, when I was kicked out of a very abusive family. I have zero support, live on disability, and am unable to save money.
I can't afford rent in the city and can't stay in a dorm with my two cats.
Six years ago I suffered a severe back injury, and have been unable to work. I feel trapped by circumstances and am looking for a way out.

Stuck

Contact the association for people with cerebral palsy nearest to where you live. Ask for direction to resources, regarding your circumstances.

One phone call or email can start a search towards accommodation, employment, support groups, etc.