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Kay Schubach is a brave woman. It can’t be easy to publicly admit that you were in love with a man the media has labeled a ‘play boy’ and a ‘love rat’. But Kay is in very good company. In addition to a long list of intelligent professional women, Sydney playboy Simon Lowe (aka. Monteiro) has also dated Hollywood actress Barbara Hershey – a part of her life I’m sure Ms Hershey would rather forget.
In a recent telephone interview with the author, Kay Schubach told me that she has received a lot of criticism for ‘allowing herself’ to be fooled by Simon Lowe. But as someone who has been dating for twenty years, I can understand perfectly how it could happen to the best and brightest of women.
As detailed in Kay’s memoir, Perfect Stranger: A true story, Simon Lowe was skilled in the art of lies and seduction. He was charming, good looking, spontaneous and exciting.
You know the type. The kind of man who makes you feel like you’re the luckiest woman on Earth just to be with him. He could have any woman in the world, but ‘he chooses’ to be with you. And who among us can honestly say they wouldn’t be seduced, or at the very least, tempted?
But Kay was more than just tempted, she was completely taken in by Simon Lowe.
When they met, Kay Schubach was in a de facto relationship with another man. Although her relationship with Rob was relatively stable, there was one major point of difference. At 40 years of age Kay’s biological clock was ticking but Rob, who is 9 years her junior, wasn’t ready to be a father.
As Kay Schubach explained, “I’m an educated, well travelled, successful woman and [Simon] got under my guard so very quickly. So obviously there was something else working on me at the time. And part of that was that I was quite vulnerable because I wanted to have a baby and I was in a relationship with a man who was doing nothing about that and I was at my wit’s end with him. So Simon quickly picked up on that.”
“Simon was very skilled at seeing where women’s vulnerabilities and their wants and desires were and then feeding the information that he was going to be the white knight who would come in and be the answer to all your dreams.”
The one thing a writer has to be concerned about when publishing a book that portrays a real person in a negative light, is the possibility of legal action against the author for defamation. It struck me whilst reading Kay’s book that Simon Lowe is the kind of person who might file a law suit, even from prison, where he is currently serving a long sentence for the rape of another woman.
Kay Schubach told Australian Women Online, “My family, my friends, everyone’s very concerned about this. But I’ve got a very strong defamation clearance for the book from [the publisher] Penguin. So I feel very well armed…and there’s something about his personality type. He’s a narcissist, so he’s always moving onward to the next thing.”
Although the threat of a law suit doesn’t concern her, Kay understandably still harbor’s a fear that she hasn’t seen the last of Simon Lowe.
“He might come back out of vindictiveness and the Police have suggested I be very careful about being alone at night,” she said.
I was deeply saddened to read at the end of the book that after disentangling herself from the violent Simon Lowe, Kay Schubach then had to battle an aggressive type of cancer.
“It’s been 3 years since I finished my treatment and I just recently had a round of tests. I have to have them every 3 months and they’re actually better then they’ve ever been,” said Kay.
“The doctors have said I’m out of the danger zone now. But it’s still pretty anxiety making [because] it’s five years until you’re declared free of cancer. I’m technically in remission. But I must say I feel fabulous!”
Despite the heavy subject matter and with all due respect to women who find themselves in violent relationships, I found Kay’s book to be a very enjoyable read. It’s a real page turner and I devoured most of it in one night – a testimony to the author’s tremendous talent as a writer. Books like these pop up all the time, but often they are self-published and written by people who have lived through a horrific experience but have no real talent for writing. This is not the case with Kay Schubach’s Perfect Stranger.
I was also in a similar relationship, the only difference was that my husband was not physically violent…his violence was of the psychological nature. It wasn’t until I engaged in specialised counselling that I was able to put a name to his behaviour – psychopath. He is in another relationship now, and I have no doubt he will repeat the pattern. He exhausted me mentally, physically and financially. I, too was enthralled by his charisma and charm only to find that he had a hidden personality that was polarised to the one he displayed in public.
Interesting that when she met him the person she was with on that day didn’t want her to keep his business card and remarked that he seemed like a coke dealer. She insisted on keeping the card. There were so many times when it was obvious that Simon was not a healthy partner for her. This is a lesson for us to be stronger in our self esteem as women. It doesn’t matter how successful we are in work or how attractive we are, we also need to have strong self esteem. She also let him abuse her friends and say horrible things about the man she was living with. She didn’t respect herself at the time and she didn’t honour her friends, she chose him over them. I was really disturbed by this story. It could happen to any of us if we are not careful. It won’t happen to me though, I’m 46 and I’ve seen it all before. You can bet it won’t happen to her again too. I just wish she would own some of the responsibility for what happened. I say that becuase it will give her more feeling of control and power.
I’ve heard many women say ‘it won’t happen to me’ Kim regardless of their age.
until one has stood in the shoes of someone on the recieving end of High levels of Narcassistic Abuse. Only then do you get an insight into the bizzare confusing degrading upside down twisted world of a Narcassist and how quickly a strong level headed successful person can be turned into an unrecognizable deflated hollow of nothing close to how they once were. Raping of my Soul is what I experienced at the mental psycoligical hands of the ex Narc husband for 6 years.
The warning signs are there in the beginning yet the ‘spell’ that’s cast is more powerful the thought that someone wants a family or to create a history with us so very strong. Kay does take responsibility by saying she was weakened by the want of a baby & family. Exactly the same thing I experienced at 33 when the narc entered declaring exactly the same thing Kay’s abuser did. The promise of family life love so very strong. And like Kay has mentioned as part of her experience, many women watching or just hearing of domestic viloence become rather hostile and also verbally abusive & blame the vicitim of high levels of Narcassistic Abuse. I experienced the same thing found it hard to explain the crazy making going on. Experienced further verbal bullying from women which only pushes an abused woman/person further into depression. I once stood in your shoes Kim back in my early 20’s ‘I’d never let something like that happen to me’ – compassion and kindness is truely a gift a rare gift from people that want to support rather than those that kick I when ur down.
I agree with Maria and disagree with Kim. You have to have one of these relationships to really understand how trapped the victim is.
I left Australia 18 months ago to get away from my ex and still he plays the most horrendous pranks to get at me but in the process is hurting my family and friends, including my elderly mother – telling her that dad was having an affair. The magistrate (male, of course) threw my second AVO out of court. He was convinced I was a ‘fruit loop’. That was $60K of Australian taxpayers money down the toilet, which is what the police had estimated it cost to run the case. My ex kept having it adjourned and while that was happening, it gave him months more time to terrorise my family, friends and me, only then for the AVO to be dropped. I was gobsmacked!
He has had four AVOs that have stuck and two that were dropped. Unfortunately in this case, a person’s past doesn’t equal their future in the eyes of the law, yet none of us women (including his ex wife, daughter and ex partner before me) have taken out AVOs on any other man so one has to ask whether the problem is more with the women, or with him. He’s now onto his next victim and she is apparently blissfully happy. If I told her what the rest of us have been through, she probably wouldn’t believe me. He is completely charming at the start, just as Simon was.
I relived my experiences through Kay’s book and I could see where she was going wrong and I totally understand how she got sucked into Simon’s vortex as my experiences were very similar but it is not appropriate for outsiders to judge these situations. I think Kay is amazing to have survived all of this. Sadly the law in Australia lets us down badly in these situations and costs the Australian tax payers millions of dollars unnecessarily and these men don’t get the help they need so they keep on offending over and over again. A detective in NZ advised me that my ex would have been in the ‘clink’ long ago had he been in NZ, although he went to jail as a result of harrassing his last partner while an AVO was in place. Actually he had two AVOs simultaneously, that’s how bad he was.
It’s interesting to note that Simon lost his mother at two years of age, and my ex is part Aboriginal and was put into foster care as a child. Both these men clearly have issues around rejection and abandonment and their mission in life is to make the women in their lives pay for the pain of their entire lives. Our lives, as victims, become a living hell. Kay’s was only for a couple of months but mine has been going on for over three years and he promises he will never leave me alone, even though I completely ignore him, no matter what he does. So no judgement please! You really don’t know what how horrendous it is unless you experience this yourself.
I admire Kay’s courage to get through this situation and to write this incredible book, which I couldn’t put down. It’s was gripping, riveting, and unfortunately all too close to the bone!