Tsunami Women

This is for the men, but you ladies might want to pay attention as you can fall prey to one of these women too – either through your son, brother, father or male friend, or even directly. To the tsunami woman, anyone who serves her purposes for the moment is fair game and they are not just the stuff of overblown soap operas. I’m writing about this because I presently have not one, but two men around me whose lives have been turned upside down by such a woman, and along with them, the lives of everyone they are connected to. One of those men has found some possibility of relief – the tsunami woman he was unfortunate enough to connect with has finally gone too far and is facing possible prison time, but she isn’t in prison yet and he and the women in his family who are her most frequent targets still live their lives drawing the curtains, double checking to be sure the house is kept locked tight at all times and looking over their shoulder – all this while living out in the country where such things are not supposed to be necessary. The other man I know in this situation is still simply trying to survive.

If you choose, for the sake of protecting women, to err on the side of believing the female in matters of a domestic dispute when the evidence is ambiguous or even clearly points to a greater aggression on the part of the female partner, please remember that the man involved is likely not connected to just one woman. His daughters, mothers, sisters, etc – even female friends, neighbors or coworkers are all going to be impacted and may even be put in danger by that one act of tipping the scales of justice, no matter how well intentioned it might be.

If you haven’t heard the term “tsunami woman” before it is because I just coined it to name a kind of woman I have become far too familiar with over my 60 plus years of living. We have all crossed paths with a tsunami woman at some point in our lives. For some, like my doctor in Los Angeles, such an encounter turned deadly. He and his wife were the kind of people who could restore your faith in humanity no matter how bad your day had been before meeting up with them. None of us knew the private hell these people were living until he was shot to death on the sidewalk outside his medical office by an ex wife who had been actively stalking him for two years. During those years of being stalked and threatened he desperately tried to get help, but his ex played a good victim. She was a classic tsunami woman.

This kind of woman is a master of manipulation and uses her female status as a way to avoid the consequences that would normally befall someone who preys on others, usually by portraying herself and/or her child(ren) as a victim. Who doesn’t like being a hero? Knowing you have saved another person from being victimized results in a pleasurable feeling of competence and control. These women know this and they utilize it. It is hard to spot these women. Humans are hard-wired to understand that any woman will, at times, need care and special attention – we do bear children and we are physically not as strong as a man, so the natural instinct is to protect us. But the tsunami woman takes her status as a woman and turns it into a “get out of jail free” card. Men sometimes thank me when I point out the reality of this kind of woman, thinking I am standing up for them. I am not – I am standing up for all of us who are trying to live our lives in peace. In the end, the tsunami woman does as much harm to women and children as she does to men, either through crying wolf so many times the legitimate cases of rape or domestic violence that come after her have difficulty being believed – or, where children are involved, through extreme acts of parental alienation – or through the very real victimization of their target’s relatives and associates, many of whom are women and children.

The fact that a woman is very good at getting other people to help her does not indicate she is a tsunami woman; it simply means she is a nurturer. People connected to such a woman tend to thrive. Tsunami women may have good people skills, but only to the point of getting what they want. Any nurturing or compassion they show is an act, and these women are such accomplished actresses their fake is frequently more believable than the genuine. They aren’t just homemakers – they are diligent and caring homemakers, only their house is a mess. They aren’t just good mothers – everything they do is for the sake of their children, only their children do not thrive. They aren’t just good partners – they are the perfect lover who can stroke a man’s ego till he really does believe he’s superman, only as the tsunami woman gets older her past becomes littered with the mutilated lives of her discarded supermen.

Any person who deals with one of these women can see the truth if they look clearly, but the tsunami woman is a master at gauzing the lens. She does not target a man’s “small head” as is so commonly assumed. This is not a gender-specific predator – men, women and children are all at risk when in the company of such a woman. The vulnerable spot she services with skill and dexterity is ego, which is why both men and women can be brought to believe her and children can be convinced to lie for her despite (or perhaps because of) their fear of her. She is amazingly good at seemingly patching up a bruised ego and will tell anyone who will listen how much she has done for everyone around her.

If the people she has “helped” are now in her past she will also point out how ungrateful the recipients of her largess have been. This woman’s life is littered with an inordinate number of “ungrateful” people who misused and abused her. Anyone can mistakenly stumble into an abusive relationship, but for a normally social person, good experiences with people far outweigh the bad and they are fully aware and ashamed of their own transgressions. The tsunami woman, however, is "always faithful, always truthful and always the victim" – and she will tell you this over and over. It is all those other people who have harmed and betrayed her. It is never her. If you have ever escaped such a woman, you are the bad guy. All the while, her real-time ego stroking of her latest targets is accomplished through portraying herself as a serial victim nobly struggling on who needs your rescue. She will tell her present-time associates they are different, they may be someone within the legal system, her friends or her lover, but they are always her savior. Hindsight examination of her actions toward those closest to her will reveal that all that delightful ego stroking was covertly accompanied by multiple hidden pricks simultaneously deflating that same ego. This leaves her victims confused and more easily manipulated. In the beginning of any relationship with such a woman those pricks are so slight, they are barely noticed and easily explained away, but they have a cumulative effect.

Research in domestic violence has shown that one of the signs of a mate who could turn abusive is an instant, overbearing love of the one they will eventually abuse. Tsunami women abuse their partners mentally, sometimes physically and in the end through the legal system, but they also take advantage of friends, coworkers – anyone who they feel could be handy in their life. These women form hard, fast friendships in an instance and quickly become demanding of their new friend's time and attention. A normally social and caring person will interpreted such behavior as insecurity and will at first try to accommodate this sort of woman; though they find her needy, that neediness she has for them does provide an ego boost, and thus they are caught into an abusive relationship. When the actions of a tsunami woman become clear, just as with female victims of an abusive male partner, those who are looking at the progression of what was done wonder at the gullibility of the target. In fact, any sociable person can be temporarily fooled by this woman. I have been more than once.

This type of woman is especially dangerous and can create far more damage than a violent and abusive man for two reasons. First: Her violence at the beginning is seldom overt or easily detectable and frequently her victim is not believed. Second: In an attempt to compensate for a past lack of protection for legitimately abused and/or assaulted women, our present legal handling of domestic violence and our way of talking about and administering justice for victims of domestic violence heavily favors women. The most unfortunate part of this is female victims of rape or domestic abuse and/or assault by men flounder and have no understanding of the system that they are going to need to gain help and maybe protection, which frequently results in such victims getting help too late or not seeking help at all. Tsunami women have no such problem. They know the system well and they know how to manipulate it. Any man who attempts to bring them to justice is in danger of having abuse or harassment charges leveled against him as well. This is a dangerous character to deal with and taking her on is not for the timid or faint of heart – it is a frustrating and too often unsuccessful undertaking. And so, she often walks among us, free, while those she uses, abuses and casts aside strive to avoid further contact with her at all costs. The men who have been her husbands find that when there are children involved it is impossible to escape her revenge. She will torture the father of her children through those children, handicapping their emotional future by mentally manipulating them against their father. Children held hostage in such fashion begin to fail badly and it is not uncommon for a man to give up and walk away in the hopes that his absence will prevent further abuse. This woman is adept at wreaking vengeance on anyone who has failed to please her.

If you extrapolate out all the damage caused by such a woman through compromised partners, people connected to those partners, abused and damaged children, people who are or will be connected to those children throughout their adult life, the clogging of our courts with vindictive demands for restraining orders or false accusations of domestic violence or even molestation and a general loss of faith in our justice system’s ability to protect the innocent from the guilty, you will find the amount of damage that this one person can cause is truly staggering. Recognizing and properly handling a tsunami woman would be the first step to a more peaceful existence for society as a whole.

The above assessment is what I have found through observation, both subjective and objective over a period of years. I have seen these women, I have seen their victims and I have seen the ongoing carnage. It is time for the existence of such a woman to be recognized and dealt with. They have done enough damage. Ordinary people trying to make their way through an already difficult world do not need, nor do they deserve, what this kind of woman will produce in their lives. It is time for those she targets and victimizes who are currently being rendered invisible by a society that insists women are victims and men perpetrators to stand up and declare that we do have rights. The right to a peaceful existence belongs to us. We are the creators of a productive and harmonious society.