Jacob Biderman; DARVO, and Why Did She Go Back

Due to recent sexual misconduct allegations; a common question has come up: Why Did She Go Back?

See, in many cases; the alleged victim has gone back and continued a relationship with the perpetrator. And that is considered a reason to disbelieve her testimony. Because of course if she had been an unwilling; she wouldn't have gone back.

There are enough personal testimonies out there countering this line of thought. Mine, as traumatic as it was to me, is probably atypical, because the type of sexual exploitation that occurred to me is atypical, was essentially legal, and did not include the use of force. But what it shares in these accounts is that like the others, the part of the story in which we participated willingly; however small, however brief; silences us from coming forward. Holding him accountable falls by the wayside; as the brunt of the blame and accusation now falls on us- even in our own minds, let alone everyone else's.

In fact I believe that this is what led Jacob Biderman, to try so hard to get me to come back. He is smart enough to know that his ass would be fried otherwise.

A woman calling herself Nami Sheiner had contacted me online and then offered to set me up with a friend of hers; a great catch supposedly. But by the time Biderman arrived in America; I knew something was off. He was too secretive for a divorced man; even a frum divorced man; odds are that he was married.  Note that by this time, he had wood me for a period of months under a fake name and many other false pretenses, including phone sex. I made up to ask him for his ID.

He gave every excuse in the world why he couldn't show me his ID but I wasn't buying it. Truth is once I saw him in person, I didn't really want him anyway. A little chubby older man with a greying beard. But last time I expressed my dismay at his appearance, at a picture he had sent that was years old; he had got me back by calling me superficial and immature. "Nami" also encouraged me to give it another chance. At the time; I didn't have to look at him in person, it was a phone relationship, so it wasn't so hard to overlook it. But it gave him experience in how to get me.

Anyway Biderman finally showed me his ID and as I expected; Jacob Dvir, who had wooed me over the phone, didn't actually exist, and was really Jacob Biderman. But you have to give him credit for persistence and creativity! The guy continued to try to convince me with all sorts of farfetched excuses, about name changes, Hebraicization and so forth. He didn't give up, but I had, and so I left and went home. For the moment I was high. I had won.  I even called my best friend to gloat.

The feeling was short lived. A massive disappointment came crashing down on me like a ton of bricks and I went to feeling from gloating to feeling devastated. After all this was a relationship that had gone on for months. An imaginary relationship to be sure, but a relationship all the same. Now not only had the relationship ended; it never had been; it had been merely a game between a hunter and his prey.

 I couldn't sleep so flicked on the computer. Sure enough, Biderman was there.

There is an acronym of the manipulative tactics used by predators when they've been caught: Deny; Accuse, Reverse Victim and Offender. And Biderman was in full DARVO mode. He stood strong on his denial, accused me of being paranoid, and again; selfish and immature (words that had been used to shame me into compliance since childhood). And then how hurt he was to be so unfairly suspected. How cruel I was to do this to him. How I was triggering all the traumas he had undergone in his marriage that ended from an emotionally abusive women.

And I went back. I thought to myself how impossible it would be for someone to set up a married man. The realization that Nami was Jacob, so obvious in daylight, didn't occur to me until the morning.

He left two messages on my voicemail. The first that I should ask my parents to stop making inquiries about him; as they were causing him a lot of damage. That's right, HIM. The second message said "I am not available for a shidduch". We still have those recordings somewhere or other.

"Nami Sheiner" still has a facebook presence and had the nerve to try to friend me once. Sick, Sick, Sick. I realize that he, nor so many like him, would ever see his actions to me as the predation that they were. Since I went back of my own free will, and I was an adult at the time I know that will erase his culpability hunting me out and grooming me from across the world.

I remain silent.