JACI STEPHENS brave confessions of the heartbreaking pigs who hurt her…AND her bank account
No, money can’t buy me love. If only my six-year-old self had been smart enough to listen to the Beatles in 1964.
Because six decades later, I’m still brooding over why I wasted so much of my well-earned money on men. Travel, gifts, hotels, tickets to sports games, concerts… I’ll be honest: there seemed to be no end to what I wouldn’t do to hold on to the scraps of affection that I kept getting back.
No, I wasn’t after diamonds and pearls; I just wanted to love and be loved. Unfortunately, that always came at a price, both literally and figuratively.
The Four Weddings and a Funeral Director/writer Richard Curtis once told me that all of his films are about one thing: how do you find the right person to love?
He and I met on a Virgin Atlantic flight in 2008, when I had just paid for an expensive ticket from the UK to LA after deciding to live in the US. See, I was looking for a man who had given me every indication that he was interested.
‘You belong in Hollywood!’ my admirer was delighted after seeing samples of my writing. ‘I already love you! You are the best!’ I was on this flight faster than you could say beam me up Scottie.
When I arrived the guy hadn’t mentioned that he would actually be in China.
Complete waste of money. No, he hadn’t literally taken it from me, but he had, on the back of a Hollywood dream, encouraged me to empty my bank account.
But let me say that I like men. Some of my best friends are men. I’ve worked mostly with and for them most of my life, and I’m also a straight woman – yes WOMAN, and I’m proud to say that – with the pronouns she/them. I know it’s a bit eccentric these days, but that’s who I am. Live with it.
No, money can’t buy me love. If only my six-year-old self had been smart enough to listen to the Beatles in 1964. (Above) Author, Jaci Stephen
But my life experience in the romance department tells me that men are the very last thing I should have in my life as each new relationship has drained my bank balance significantly.
Why do women (and my research shows that it is mostly women) do this?
Are we just natural nurses? Or do we believe that the more we give to men, spend or, in some of my cases, waste lavishly to keep them?
I watch a lot of TV court shows in the States, although my favorite, Judge Alex, is no longer airing. I watched him on a case-by-case basis, despairing at women paying men’s bills, buying them expensive cars, or giving them money as “loans,” only to be confused when they (a) saw no emotional, let alone practical, investment in theirs return, and (b) the guy was having an affair with Candice from downstairs – who was invariably the woman’s best friend or sister.
Judge Alex sees it very simply: women do it because they think they can buy love and affection. They want to keep the guy and think he’ll stay by buying him stuff.
I remember saying to a woman, “If you think buying a truck, a boat, and a jet ski will make him stay, you’re wrong. He’ll just go better equipped; drive the truck, pull the boat and with the jet ski on the back.’
Yes, and no doubt parked in the lot in front of Candice’s.
It’s a basic truth, he says: “Everyone who loves you loves you whether you give them gifts or not.” How I wish I had met Judge Alex 40 years ago.
Being financially exploited isn’t limited to women, of course, and no doubt there are plenty of men who have been ripped off too; we just don’t hear that much about them because, says Judge Alex, “they’re too embarrassed to complain about it; probably for fear of appearing weak.’
My life experience in the romance department tells me that men are the very last thing I should have in my life as each new relationship has drained my bank balance significantly.
I was in a relationship where Bill (I won’t give his real name) told me he wanted to live with me but I would have to rent the apartment (with a yard big enough for his dog) and buy all the furniture . He specified jaws – well, that was the late 80’s.
I practically set up an entire pine shop in a three bed house just so he could pay me two weeks into the lease.
Yes, silly of me, I know; I don’t need to be told. But I was 30 and thought I was in love’s last chance saloon.
I dated my dentist for a while — and didn’t even get a deal on veneers.
I bought him an expensive chess set, paid for every meal, and even took him and his kids to the live set of a TV show (he was divorced).
He called me one morning to say he had a rash on his face which he thought was stress related and he couldn’t see me again.
My last serious friend (let’s just call him the monster) ended up leaving Boston in search of a green card with a nurse.
In five months I’d loaned him thousands of dollars, treated him to great expensive vacations, entertained him and his friends at overpriced restaurants practically every day, only to be treated like dirt.
He once sent a bottle of Bollinger champagne to a group of women he liked at another table – on my bill.
Four years ago, the monster took to Twitter – broke and his marriage to the nurse in tatters after spending a night in jail after a fight.
‘Why contact me?’ I asked. “Because I thought you’d understand.” Fortunately, his sister had already called me to warn me that he was tapping old friends for money.
And I know it’s not just me.
A friend — let’s call her Clare — fell madly in love with an actor who was working at work when they met. Shortly after she moved him into her house, he was out of work again and she had debt collectors knocking on her door trying to track him down for years of unpaid bills.
Clare paid everything for him, not because she was trying to buy love, she says, but because she believes women, by and large, are caring and also very trusting.
She started smelling a rat when he tried to persuade her to cash in her pension.
I’m not that trusting these days and the only thing I would never do again is lend money to a man. I got my whole back from the monster by subtly writing about him in print, and his catholic mother was overcome with guilt about giving it all back.
I remember saying to a friend shortly after I met him, “He’s not funny, smart, interesting, attractive, and the sex is awful.”
‘Then why are you with him?’
I was over 40 at the time. “Because he’s 37 and single.”
“But that doesn’t mean he’s the right 37-year-old and single.”
Maybe, as Richard Curtis says in his films, we’re all just looking for the right person to love. Some people are clearly better at preserving their bank balance while doing this.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11342057/JACI-STEPHENS-brave-confessions-heartbreaking-pigs-whove-hurt-bank-account.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490 JACI STEPHENS brave confessions of the heartbreaking pigs who hurt her…AND her bank account
