What are the qualities of a HVW? Here are a few:

  1. Someone who is always working towards their highest potential, physically, spiritually and emotionally
  2. A woman who finds solutions for problems and doesn't give up easily
  3. A woman who cultivates the qualities of empathy and loyalty and displays them towards those who are deserving
  4. A good friend to her girlfriends (doesn't dump them for a man)
  5. Being open hearted, kind and loving with her partner and family
  6. A woman who values education and career and is self sufficient

Now, is there anything wrong with any of these things? No. In fact having these qualities, in normal conditions, should bring someone success in their career, good friendships, a loving partner and even good health. Does is always work out that way for women with these qualities? The answer is a resounding NO. Why is that?

The things I have listed are also what is known as super traits. Researcher Sandra L. Brown has studied many women with these traits and found that they are just as likely to be a target of abusers as women with low self esteem and other overt vulnerabilities, maybe more so. Think about it, a calculating abuser is not abusive at first. You may think you are in a healthy, loving relationship for some period of time, sometimes even years. When the abuser flips and drops his mask he can then exploit your super traits of hard work, loyalty, problem solving and empathy. You as the victim may feel it a betrayal of your deepest values to go against what you believe in dealing with your now unexpectedly abusive partner and stay much longer than you should trying to discover what went wrong and work on the relationship. This is how many HVW get trapped in relationships with LVM.

I see a lot of women on this sub blaming themselves and feeling shame for being a pickmeisha. I get it. I was there too. Why? Because I had no idea what I was dealing with. Who expects the man who was once so sweet and kind, sometimes for years as in my case, to do a 180?

Many of us had one relationship like this, extricated ourselves, healed and went back out into the dating world only to find almost every man, if he didn't initially get weeded out for overt LVM behavior, eventually started displaying the manipulative behavior and lack of empathy of an abuser. It truly is an epidemic.

Women who got lucky early on, despite their own "pickmeisha" behaviors and ended up with an emotionally and psychologically healthy man will now give us terrible advice such as giving these guys second chances or telling us they are afraid of commitment or just need time. Sometimes they tell us that in order to attract the right kind of man we have to love ourselves more. This is victim blaming. They didn't have to do that. When people say things like that to victims of liars and abusers it is because they think they can prevent it from happening to themselves or that somehow we used poor judgement and they didn't. Newsflash - you can't, because they weren't conned by a master manipulator and haven't the foggiest idea of what that is like. (Ex. Bernie Madoff, Dirty John)

I am over 50. I have worked almost exclusively with women for 20 years. I know plenty of women with poor self image, low self esteem, addictions and other problems who have loving, doting husbands and partners. They got lucky. Those of us who haven't been so lucky in that regard do need to be extra vigilant, be aware of how the majority of men these days are operating and yes, follow FDS rules - they make sense. But I would love to see a little less self blame and victim blaming. The problem does not lie with us. It is the men who are exploitative and frankly sociopathic. No normal person would expect this behavior from a decent person.

We can educate ourselves about them and learn to recognize their tactics, cut them off, block and delete and share our knowledge with other women.