How do Narcissists Get so Much? They are Parasites.

Narcissists often seem to possess so much.  People, money, objects.  Narcissists are parasites.  The parasite lives off a host sucking the nutrients.  Rose's last post detailed how her Narcissist sucked the energy out of her; she was used as a servant/slave while he went off to do important stuff (a.k.a. make money).  A successful narcissist is a different breed of cat.  Even the ones with money and success are parasites.

I, too, married a Narcissist.  Mine was perfect on paper: recently divorced, recently moved to our city, hired with tenure to a prestigious university.  

I was swept away and I married him after only knowing him for six months.  We never had an argument in those six months.  Any disagreements we had were resolved amicably.  It was an easy going and companionable relationship.  

The first rumblings started a week before the marriage, but I didn't recognize the symptoms.  Within four weeks of the marriage he showed his true colors.  The cyclical mood swings which characterize the abuser: my Narcissist cycled every 7-10 days with THREE days of silence!  After 2 1/2 years, I left.  I was exhausted.  

He was a parasite.  And, you know, I never really figured that out until after the divorce was finalized, since he was so good was he at hiding his avarice.  He made more money than I did.  We were both well employed professionals.  When he was hired with tenure at his fancy university, they gave him an option on  a university-funded mortgage at exceedingly good interest terms.  At one point when he was house hunting, we talked about buying together.  But, I told him that I had no interest in buying property with a man with whom I was not married.  (Boundary setting.)  Well, he chaffed at that a bit.  He just got divorced after a 20 year relationship.  Yet, I was fully in agreement that it was too soon to get married.  Then he says that he will never marry a woman unless he lived with her.  My attitude was, we'll worry about that in the future.  I think that I handled it well.  The point being is once a Narcissist has his sights set on you, he will lie in wait & string you along.

So, one day he sees this house.  I went too.  I never looked at the house.  I went to the yard & sat down.  A realtor seized on me.  I told her, "I'm a visitor.  I'm not buying."  She scampered away.  After he saw the house, he suggested that we go into the city and have dinner.  Not typical for him.  Always working on his courses & research.  OK.  So we strolled in the city.  Had an expensive meal in a sidewalk café which he paid for.  We strolled around the park & ponds.  All lovely & romantic on a late August afternoon.  On the side of the pond, he proposed to me.  Hmm.  I thought you didn't want to get married?  "Well, I saw the house.  I see us in it.  I want us in it.  I see our future there.  I love you."  I told him I needed to think about it.  Apparently, the next day, he spent almost four hours in the house with a realtor!  He decided he wanted it.  Oh, by the way, I agreed to marry him & buy the house with him.  Within 24 hours, I found that he had made an offer on the house BUT he signed my name to the offer!  I should have walked away then.  He was like, "You were at work.  Time was of the essence."  Huge boundary issue.  Forgery.  But, I overlooked it.  

We bought a house & planned a marriage.  We were married one week before the closing.  Everything was a frenzy.  Did I notice that he did not send wedding invitations to any of his friends from that place he came from?  Yes.  It was far away & short notice & he was busy.  He preferred to send formal announcements after the ceremony.  I realize now, had the sale of the house fallen through, there would have been no marriage.  You see, I was getting married to a man I loved.  Later, I would understand, he got married to buy a house which he could not afford on his own.

At that time, the mortgage market was booming.  But, he couldn't get a second mortgage (to supplement the university mortgage) because he was not a permanent resident alien in the United States.  That's where I came in.  The citizen.  But, in the end, we did not get a second mortgage.  Both he & I ponied up equal amounts of cash with the university mortgage.  Before we went into it, we decided everything would be 50/50.  OK.  After we moved in, all the guy did was WORK.  Work on his job.  Work on the house.  And the money he wanted for all his renovations.  All the time, I was broke.  My checks were spent before they ever walked into the living room.  All the time the emotional upheavals but we never argued about money.  He picked fights every 7-10 days.  My position was to always remain calm & to give him what he wanted to keep him quiet.  

One day, I put my foot down.  He wanted something for the house.  I said, "No.  I cannot afford that.  The thing works fine.  I'm not paying for that."  A day later, he came back.  "I'll pay 67% & you pay 33%.  How's that sound?"  OK.  I paid.  We also had a joint account for the household costs.  Laundry soap, food, etc.  Well, I noticed that he paid for his personal dry cleaning with that debit card.  Also, I noticed that he used it at the drug store to buy his shaving supplies, etc.  Hmm.  But, I said nothing.  Once I destroyed his sweater which he had thrown into the wash.  He made such a scene, I had to buy him a new one.  The next time he put a sweater in the wash, I said:  "At your own peril.  If it is destroyed, I will not replace."  He sent it to the dry cleaner, & I paid 50% for that cleaning.  Hmm.  

About eight months after the catastrophic crash of the stock market & the housing market, I told him I was leaving him.  Three hours later, he came back with a printout from the internet.  He said, "The house is worth 60% of what we paid.  I assure you, I will buy this house from you & take this crash into the calculation.  You made a bad investment."  I still didn't get it.  Anyhow, lucky for me, after he had FOUR appraisals, the house never really lost value.  I lost everything which I invested in renovations; I lost half a car; I paid for his divorce lawyer; he broke my possessions & stole my stuff.  But, I got almost all my equity out.  Still, I didn't get it.  I didn't realize even then that he was a financial parasite.  I thought that he was just a mean & spiteful, malignant narcissist.  We were divorced within 11 months of my leaving him.  It would have taken less time but he dragged it out.  And, in November when we finally signed the separation agreement,  he needed 90 days to raise a mortgage to buy me out.

Well, two months after the divorce, and exactly a year after I left him, I was contacted by a woman.  She had been with him from the day on which I moved out.  (They can never be alone.)  He swept her off her feet.  Loved her.  Wanted to marry her.  She moved into the house after 8 weeks of dating him.  (My stuff was still there because he never let me get it out.)  I would learn, that first month that I was out & she was in, he proposed to her.  He wanted her to buy my share of the house!  She refused.  But, that week, his parents gave him the money in cash to buy me out.  (So much for needing 90 extra days to raise the money--his parents gave him the money some four months prior to the date he signed the separation agreement.)  What she didn't know, but I had e-mails from the same time frame of their first weeks, no bank would give him a mortgage to buy me out.  (After crash.)  He was proposing to her to get her to buy me out.  (He was sending me e-mails to come back to him at the same time he was proposing to her!  Whatever woman was of no difference, just whichever one would help him keep the house!)  She never knew that he was refused mortgages.  (She's the one who told me about all the appraisals.)  She made more money than him; she sold a house for a small fortune; he had her move all her antiques into his tiny house.  Apparently, she paid the taxes on the house but refused to put any money into renovations.  She paid for all their meals out because she earned more than him.  In nine months, she was out $55,000 with him.  And, he wouldn't let her get her antiques.  (Just as he wouldn't let me get my stuff.)  In the end, he stole from her & broke her stuff.  He cleaned out their joint bank account which had $4,000 in it.  He did the same to me but our account had only $400 in it!  

Another  bit I learned, he portrayed me as pathologically secretive.  (A.K.A. boundaries.)  He couldn't live with a woman who was secretive.  He got all the numbers to her bank accounts!  All her expensive jewelry went into a jointly-held, safe deposit box!  He never got around to giving his account numbers.   She paid for all his trips to her house in Florida & to her other place before she sold it.  The two of us realized, "He's a con-artist."  He gets women to subsidize his standard of living.  After that, I contacted the ex-wife.  She told me that she lost a bundle of money in her divorce!  She, too, had made more money than him & he exploited it to the fullest in the end by getting half of the value of the house which a lion's share had come from her originally!  Also, he stole from her a valuable collection of three hundred year old books!  In our house, he had an "office" which covered 25% of the entire floor space of the house!  He had thousands of books.  But, there was this area which displayed a prize collection of three hundred year old books!  The ex-wife let them go rather than dicker with him.  Good riddance. 

In the end, it all came together.  I saw.  Everything was about a house.  The man married me to buy a house which he could not afford.  And, when he divorced me, he was prepared to marry another woman to keep that house.  I subsidized his standard of living.  Oh, and did I mention the taxes?  I am self-employed.  I made clear that I wanted to file independently.  But, he insisted that we file together.  During the marriage, I felt that all I did was pay taxes.  After the divorce, I would learn.  From his pay check, he would have the minimum amount deducted.  At tax time, we would share what more we owed.  Each year of the marriage, I would pay more & more in quarterlies to the IRS hoping upon hope that would cover it.  Never did.  In the end, I learned that I had been paying approximately 60% of his personal income tax on his salary!  Also, paying 50% or more of his personal living expenses.  Within days of him leaving that woman who contacted me, he had a new woman.  Also, very successful.  Eventually, he sold that tiny house which he purchased with me.  Now he lives in a huge place which he bought with the new woman.  Good luck to her!  


By AKA Agnes Parnell



Photo Credit: Nick Kenrick 
"A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams."
Used under Creative Commons License.  Via Flickr.com

Photo Credit: Alvaro Tapia
"Vampire"
Used under Creative Commons License.  Via Flickr.com

Blame versus Personal Responsibility

"blame" by Yuliya Nome


There's a balance to life and to everything.   Blame.   IT WAS HIS FAULT.   It wasn't my fault.   Our culture makes a religion of Personal Responsibility.   I would have been better off if I had blamed my husband more. A lot more.  Instead, I fell victim to the cult of personal responsibility.  The trap.   I would rush off to my feel-good personal responsibility sessions, and get enough juice to make it through another week with an abuser.

I thought I could "think and try" my way into a better relationship with him.  Or pray my way.  Or 12-Step Serenity Prayer my way through my children's childhood, and things would get better.  That's what all the women's magazines say.  You know, those periodicals that we pay for in order to be told what to wear, what to buy, what we should prefer, and generally, How To Live Our Lives.   Really?

General relationship advice mostly doesn't consider the fact that one may be involved with a disordered individual who aims to control, belittle and destroy the Other.   Relationship advice which fails to assess the Goodness of the Other is meaningless.  Worse: it is Harmful.

Because he wasn't the A Streetcar Named Desire, stereotypical, movie-version Obvious Abuser, I didn't know that I was in a hopeless situation.  He was slick.  He looked good in a suit.  He made lots of money in a profession that reeks with authority.  He spoke with excellent grammar.  He had an excellent education.  And when he wanted to, he could talk real nice.

I thought we could work it out.  I thought things would calm down.  Well, he never wanted things to calm down. I can see that so clearly now, outside of the relationship.  There was never a chance in hell that he was going to chill.  Drama is his middle name.  What's funny: I'm the one who looks dramatic.  Emphatic.  Funny.  Colorful.  Artistic.  You know, "out there".  He is the calm, ordered, tempered one.  HA HA HA HA HA.  Whatevs.  Without him, my life can return to its peaceful, former glory.  Of calm, quiet, serenity.

Looks can be so deceiving.

He looked really good, on paper.  He still does, I guess. Unless you know how to read between the lines.  Which I do.  Now.  But, back then, in the marriage, I bought the advice of giving 100% to the relationship.  Maybe that is good advice in a healthy marriage?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I don't know.  After what I've lived through, giving 100% sounds like a really bad idea.  But, I didn't have a healthy marriage.  I didn't have a real relationship with the man I married.  It was false, because he was false.

I don't even consider myself to have been married, and this is a new idea for me.  It was like living with a ghost, or a character.  Is it a marriage if you never really knew your spouse?  If you were never really known?  If he wore a mask every single day of his life?  If, when the mask slipped, you were looking at a monster and you wanted desperately to get away, and never see him again?   That doesn't sound like marriage to me. That sounds like a horror story.

If we live in a world where I am 100% responsible for the outcome of the marriage, where one spouse is 100% responsible for the relationship?  Well, that is just the dumbest advice ever given.  And if I am 100% responsible for my mood, and my happiness?  Really?  If I have a monster screaming in my face and chasing me from room to room?  If I have lived with chronic stress for years, caused by living with an abuser, such that I self-medicate with substances or activities that are not helpful or healthy long-term?  Being subjected to chronic stress is my fault?  Really?  When the abuser isolates me from friends and family and work opportunities, it's my fault?  I should take responsibility for his abuse?   Seriously?

Clearly, blaming My Self does me no good.  Blaming Him, and Sitting In That Space of Muck and Yuck, also does me no good.  Nor does it do any of my relationships any good.   Nor does it do my children any good.   Moving On does us all a world of good.

processing the past,
understanding it,
framing it in some sort of positive light,
and letting it go....
this is the work that I am doing.


By AKA Rose Lee Mitchell


Did taking responsibility for the state of your relationship cause you trouble?  Does it still?
I would love to hear from you.

Please make up an alias when you comment, so that I can address you by a name other than Anonymous.  Thank you.

Do Your Due Diligence

The Narcissist/Sociopath/Psychopath, with whom I share custody of my child(ren) and from whom I am divorced, is remarried.

His New Wife

My friends and I, we have worried for her, and prayed for her.  We have wished there was a way to intervene, to protect her from the hell she unknowingly signed up for when she allowed a psychopath into her life.

I have no contact with her because the man she married is a psychopath.
Her husband is my former husband.
I could not reach out to her without doing damage to myself.

If I could communicate with the current wife, this is what I would say to her.  And to all of the spring chickens out there, who haven't lived enough yet to understand the way the world can work.

Do Your Due Diligence

I know it is hard to do due diligence on a man who has targeted you.  He has you in his sight.  You are his goal, and he is doing everything he can to win.  To win the game.

He uses everything you say, to win you.  Any information you give him will be used.  Pro and Con.

You are impressed by his big professional status, and his big house.  You are impressed by the display of wealth.

You are impressed by my lovely, bright, articulate child(ren).  The child(ren) used as bait.

Your dreams are used as bait.

You have conveyed your dreams to him.  He seems so interested in your dreams.  He compliments  and praises your passion for life.  He promises to help make your dreams come true.  You will be a team.

I have watched from afar this dream of yours come to life.  You didn't need him to accomplish your dream.

Why does he want you so badly?

1. He wants to prove he is not a failure.  In his mind:  His wife left him, therefore, he's a failure.  He couldn't keep me, or control me.  I escaped.  He failed.

2. He wants help with the child(ren).  Raising a child is hard work.  It is work he never did much of when he was married to me, the mother.  He was largely absent from our lives.  He wants you to do the work.  And you do.  You are the unpaid help.  He flatters your mothering skills.  He's all about the flattery.

3. He wants the added income.  You make good money.  Your money offsets the expense of paying my alimony and child support.   I was a stay-at-home mom.  I didn't work.  You work.  He enjoys the financial damage control and the bonus to his lifestyle.

4. Sex?  I guess he wants you for sex.  But, there probably isn't much sex.

5. His House.  He wants to share the expenses and household chores.  It's a big house.  It takes a lot to heat and cool that monstrosity.   You help pay for the maid?  The gardener?

6. He wants a toy.  You are it.  He messes with your mind.  Dominates you.  Controls you.  Wear and Tear you down.  Good times.  Am I right?



How You Could Have Done Due Diligence

1. You could have dated him for longer.

Much longer.  You didn't date him nearly long enough, and you agreed to marry him much too soon.   You met him and married him within a year.  Not nearly long enough.

However, he kept up his act with me for nearly three years, so, if an N/S/P wants you badly enough, they can keep up the act for longer.  And, he may be on better behavior with you for longer, because you haven't gotten pregnant.  You are employed.  You could still walk out pretty easily.

Is he showing his true colors to you yet?  I know he has shown you some, but can you see it? Maybe they are still too subtle?  Is he wearing you down slowly?

2. Financial Audit.

You could have asked to see his tax returns, and an accounting of his assets/liabilities.  Not so romantic.  And he is such a liar that he would have done a reasonable job obfuscating the truth.  Obfuscation is one of his favorite communication techniques.  Have you discovered that yet?  Surely, you have.

It would have been difficult to see the truth since he was still involved in divorcing me.  Also, not so romantic.  Maybe that should have been part of the due diligence process for you.  A clue.  Like, don't agree to marry anyone who is divorcing.  Let the dust settle.  Let the cards and finances fall where they may.  Because, I don't see how you could have not gotten screwed in the process of him screwing me during our property settlement.

Why on earth would you sign up to participate with a man who is financially still entangled with his ex-wife?  I truly don't want to be mean, but, isn't that sorta Dumb?

3. Talk to the Family.

Ugh.  This one is tough because you were getting snowed from all angles.   I assume that his family was desperate for things to be made right for their darling angel.  He is the crown prince of the family, can't you see?  His mother is desperate for a daughter-in-law who will cow-tow, and whose boundaries she can violate, and on whom she can dote/smother.   I know you are aware of this by now.

I know you tended to her at the beginning and I know you are worn out with her already.

4. Snooping.

If you had snooped in his email, that would have helped.  You would have seen all the crazy emails he wrote to me.  Snooping is also extremely unromantic.  Not the foundation of trust one wants in a new marriage.  But, shouldn't trust be earned rather than freely given? 

You gave your trust to an untrustworthy person.

( Side note to my self: ALERT!  Ethical Dilemma! After being in a relationship with a psychopath, will I snoop around in a romantic partner's email account?  Horror.  That's not who I want to be!  But, that is what it takes to be in a relationship with a psycho.  Strategy.  Deception.  No Thanks!  And this is why I maintain Extremely Limited Contact with the psychopathic father of my child(ren).)

5. Steer Clear of the Man With the "Crazy" Ex-wife.

Calling me crazy was the name of his game.  By now, however, you have probably started to wonder: How Crazy Can She Be?  His argument is worn out.  Time marches on, and no sign of Crazy Ex-Wife have you seen. Maybe the fact that I won't talk to him, see him, come near him, sit with him, participate in any way with him or his family....maybe that looked crazy or questionable to you, back then.  But, maybe by now, you have seen enough of his crazy behavior, and the way he treats his child(ren) and your pet(s)...that my avoidance of him is starting to make sense?

Calling the target "crazy" is typical of an abuser.  He used his "Crazy" Ex-wife as a marketing tool to win you.  He flattered you by telling you how much better you were than me.  I don't know this for sure, but I can hear him now, complimenting you about how good you are with his child(ren).  So much better than his crazy ex-wife.  Flattery.

He's a Really Good Psychopath

You were his target.

He wanted you, and he got you.  You were easy.  You married him too soon.  You asked too few questions.  You didn't press for the hard answers.   You didn't walk away when he gave you a reason, and I know he gave you reason.

I expect that he is desperate to keep you.  I expect he doesn't want the stain of another divorce.  I expect that his game has improved, which may keep you around longer.

If you leave him, he will find another woman asap.  We are utterly replaceable.

He doesn't see us for ourselves, just for the services that we provide.  We fill in the blank.



by AKA Rose Lee Mitchell


Further reading for the spring chickens: Here is how life really does work, when one is dealing with an entitled, abusive, narcissistic spouse.  
From the New York Times:  Divorce Funding Firms Help Spouses Expecting Big Payouts

Binocular Photograph by "Daniele Zanni" on flickr. 

Title "A sort of birdwatching"
Used under the Creative Commons License

Target Photograph by "Pete" on flickr. 

Title "Stay On Target"
Used under the Creative Commons License

Verbal Abuse In My Marriage

I had no idea what verbal abuse was until I accidentally ran across something on the Internet. I wasn't even looking. It was a pop up on the side. I thought, "What the heck is verbal abuse?" I clicked & it was an article about a guest on Oprah's show. I ran out and bought the book the next day. Hid it in the house. It was MY MARRIAGE! Everything I didn't understand and couldn't wrap my mind around. It was all there in black & white.  

At first I was in denial. I didn't believe that my husband could be doing this intentionally. I thought that he too didn't understand that he was being abusive. I didn't show it to him or say anything. BUT when he was verbally abusive, I would say -- "Can't you see how your phrase there implies X which is hurtful to me? Can't you see how that (blah blah)." He would deny. When I suggested that "name calling" was very hurtful & should not be done, he told me that name calling was NO BIG DEAL & not hurtful & I really had a problem. His ex-wife & ex-girlfriend had called him names all the time. It's no big deal. Yep. The whole devalue & discard & the bolstering & negating my feelings.

I started reading more & more. I think all people are verbally abusive & even abusive at one time or another. It comes when we are unhappy, etc. Also, most people grow up with it to one extent or the other. My reading certainly brought chagrin to myself & I saw that I too have been verbally abusive, angry & controlling. I tried to STOP all that immediately. There are a few folks out there I really would like to apologise to.

But I also learned there are other people who are simply abusive = angry & controlling. And I finally got out of my denial & accepted that my husband was an abuser. As I told you, when I read the book about "gaslighting" and saw that he was a textbook case -- and the worse kind of gaslighter -- the book had several different types. I got very scared. I think he was an "intimidator gaslighter." If I remember. It predicted physical violence. And, as I learned from his exes -- he can be very violent. I just "handled" him very well & managed to diffuse the situation . . . or I think he sensed that if he really hit me or slugged me . . . I'd be gone & I might have him arrested.  

In the end he did get physical . . . but I had told him I was leaving. And I deeply regret that I did not call the police or get a restraining order. I wish had had taken him to the rails & gotten him convicted. And thrown out of this country.  

But anyhow. I think children either "get" that the parent is abusive & avoid it when they grow up. Or they go the other way . . either become abusive or get involved with abusers.

Hopefully you can teach your children to see the BS -- avoid it when they can . . . & to never do it themselves.

Even when I left my husband, he said to me:  "I'm not so bad. I don't beat you." Excuse me? What a jerk!  Minimizing the abuse inflicted.   AND, I will never forget the day that I told him to back off; I had no more time for his drama; I was finished.  I told him, "Yes.  I am going to the gym now."  He asked, "How can you leave me like this when I am so upset?"    Well, husband -- I am saying the exact words & doing the exact stuff you did to me when I was so upset.  I said, "I gotta go to my job.  I gotta go to the gym.  I gotta take care of myself.  I gotta work on the house."  An hour later, when I came back, he had packed a little bag & was leaving to spend time with his gal pal colleague & her husband.  He accused me of being "verbally abusive" and that "nobody speaks to a dog" the way I spoke to him. He ran away to his gal pal's house & told her & her husband that I was abusing him!  

So...he knew exactly everything that he was doing to me. And in the end, would deny everything he did to me. I was the liar & I was crazy. Sound familiar? Even had several of his gal pals in the house tormenting me & protecting him from his abusive & thieving wife!

One can never win with these types. Maybe your children will reflect & understand intuitively why you have NO CONTACT with their father. Because it's actually the sane reaction when confronted with somebody so useless & hurtful.

---------------------------------------------------
This post, "Thoughts On Verbal Abuse" 
was written by my Coach.  

http://roseleemitchellsblog.blogspot.com/2015/02/verbal-abuse-in-my-marriage.html




Image by The LAMP on flickr
"lampverbal-abuse--most-interesting-and-creative-ads 
Creative concept of what verbal abuse does to an individual"
Used under the Creative Commons License

A Man Who Beat Me With His Words, Not Fists

"What on Earth is Happening To Me?" 

During my marriage, I did not know what was going on.  I did not have words or context for my situation.  I didn't know what was happening.  Why was life so hard?   Why was I so miserable?  What was wrong with me?

On the nursery school playground, I would listen to the complaints and stories that other mothers had about their husbands.  I would compare my complaints and stories with theirs.  Maybe the bad parts are intentionally left out, you know, for polite conversation?   Maybe my situation isn't so strange?  Maybe if I knew these women better, then I would get down to the truth of their marriage? 

During my marriage, I would minimize the bad stuff that happened.  I would forget.

Part of this was survival tactic.   Part of it was hopeful, wishful thinking.

Maybe, I wished and hoped, we could work out our "communication problems".
Maybe, I wished and hoped, the stress would subside and we would have some peace.

We had everything in place to have a wonderful, beautiful and enviable life.
We had healthy, lovely children.  We lived in a wonderful town.  We had plenty of money.
On paper, our lives looked great.  There was no reason to not live a lovely life.
I kept waiting for things to "calm down".

Things never calmed down.

Identifying Abuse

Lots of us have no experience with the kinds of overt physical abuse that we were carefully taught to avoid.  You know, the kind of abuse where the man punches you in the face.  He wears a 'wife-beater' tank top, and drunkenly comes after you.  The next day, he brings you flowers and weeps for forgiveness.  He promises to do better.   The image that comes to mind in Marlon Brando in "A Streetcar Named Desire".

I totally know how to avoid THAT guy and THAT abuse.  (or so I think)

Movie versions of overt or covert abuse are really really tricky.  Even now, they do not help or educate me.

The abuses of my marriage were more like "Sleeping With The Enemy."  Maybe if They made a movie of my story, it would play that dramatically.  Unfortunately, watching "Sleeping With The Enemy" in my youth taught me nothing about avoiding my marital abuser.   I was never ever educated to avoid the Jekyll-Hyde-Narcissistic-Psychopath that I married.  I had no idea what was happening to me.

There is a film that especially primed me for the abuse, however.  I loved the movie before I met my husband, and I watched it repeatedly.  I found it to be so appealing and compelling.  Tom Hanks is so honest and sincere, emotionally open.  Meg Ryan is so sweet and charming.  Even now, I still love it, but I watch it with a different eye.

"YOU'VE GOT MAIL"
A story about a man who deceives and charms a woman who is minding her own business.
She shares her heart with a complete stranger, via email.
The man DESTROYS her way of life (her business).
He is rude and aggressive towards her.
He IGNORES her direct requests that he GO AWAY.
He lies to her.  He charms her.  He insults her.
She allows this man into her life, and they become Friends.
He continues to lie to her, charm her, and insult her.
In the end, he confesses.  She loves him anyway.
And it is supposed to be romantic.

I will write a much more in depth analysis of this film, and how it relates to emotional abuse. 

Abuse?  Abuse. 

No one told me what to do when my husband spit on me, or dragged me across the floor, or screamed at me, raged at me, bullied/coerced me into financial situations, knocked down doors, shoved me into walls.   Oh, and sadly, there is much much more.   None of these abuses occurred until I gave birth.  

No one told me how to identify the signs of emotional abuse, the chipping away of my confidence, and my self-worth.  These abuses began BEFORE I gave birth, but I didn't notice because it was subtle and I had not been educated to know the signs.  

I still don't want to think about it.  I want the past to go away.  Just like, when I was married, I desperately wanted the truth to NOT be the truth.  I wanted everything to be all fixed and perfect and shiny, as it Could Have Been and Should Have Been.  I wanted my life to be the way it Would Have Been, had my husband NOT been a Psychopath.  I wanted my life to be NORMAL.

Shame and Secrets

To use words like “Abuse” and “Domestic Violence” makes me feel uncomfortable, and it makes most other people uncomfortable too.   After all, I don't want to think of myself as Abused, or A Victim.   I still have a desire to minimize the bad stuff.  Maybe this is what makes me resilient?

Focusing on the bad stuff brings me down.  If I think about it, or talk about it, it causes me distress.  Even now, as I write this, my breathing is quickened and I feel anxious and upset.  Cortisol is pumping.  I lived awash in cortisol for too many years.

I think a lot about the concept of Shame in the way that Brene Brown speaks about Shame.   

I find that my story is not a story that I can share with many people.  Lots of women don't want the added drama.  Lots of women simply can not relate.

I think some women can not tolerate hearing my story because they wrestle with an awful story of their own.  If they hear my story, then they have to face the truth of their own abusive marriage.  They would have to do something about it.  And right now, treading water is all they can possibly do.

I know.  I have been there.

And, it's okay.

Telling my story costs emotional energy that I don't want to spend.  I don't want to relive horrors, disappointments, regrets, and shame.  If my story was a wood carving, I don't want another chip or line pressed into it.  Let it be done.  I don't want my story to have any more weight in my life, for it is already too heavy.  If I could let my story fly away on the wings of a white dove, I would.   If I could close my eyes and forget, I would.

I have become very careful with whom I share.

I agree with this advice from Brene Brown about how to choose listeners.




The End Of The Road - Death Threats

I was able to minimize what was happening in my marriage until the death threats began.
Then, fear took over.

My husband began to threaten my life.  Not in the 'wife beater' obvious way "I'm gonna kill you, bitch!"  Nothing that overt.

I made him mad, and he began to describe how I was going to die.  Okay.  That sounds overt!
But, he did it in such a way that he could explain his way out of it (sort of) later.   Psychopathically.
I was rattled so deeply that the truth spilled out at dinner with a group of women friends.

Their reaction changed my life and possibly saved it.

I think of myself, back then, as a fish in a bowl of abusive water.  The abuse was such a normal part of my life, and "Look! Really!  It's not so bad!  I'm swimming in this water!  It must be okay here if I am able to survive!"

My amazing group of women friends rallied around me and said "NO!"

The look on their faces, the fear in their eyes, and the words they spoke told me: This Was Serious and I Was In Danger.



It was the first time I told the truth of my situation to anyone, and it was clear to me why:

To Speak The Truth Meant That My Marriage Was Over.  

Now that the truth was known, my marriage HAD to be OVER.  I was not the kind of person who could stay with an abuser once people knew the truth.   Before I told the truth, I could minimize it and fool myself into thinking that it was okay.  I wasn't trying to be a liar.  I was conditioned for abuse.   These women, who were outside the fishbowl, who had not been conditioned to withstand the abuse, told me that he treated me was NOT okay.  I knew they were right.  I couldn't possible stay with a man like that: a man who beat me with his words.

From now on, I propose that we call it by the correct name: Emotional Abuse is Domestic Violence.


by A.K.A. Rose Lee Mitchell




Great fish shot by Peter Baker on flicker. 
Title "Marie se Toet" 
Used under the Creative Commons License