Calculated destruction

Do people actually DO this ?

Are there people out there in the world who work out how to get what they want by manipulating people and situations? And then actually DO it?

Do some people actually deliberately (rather than by accident, or inadvertently) set out to discredit someone they dislike?

I’m really struggling with this in relation to my ex partner. I know I cant get answers from him (and actually I’m no longer tempted even to ask)

Thinking about things in our relationship that I couldn’t find acceptable , they seem to fall into three categories…

• casual disrespect (or not so casual) e.g. staying out all night and not texting me to let me know; walking off from me on Waterloo station and getting on a train without me, small things that just showed he didn’t have any respect for me at all and didn’t care about how I felt.
• Intransigent position against all logic – e.g. refusing to get any kind of income thereby forcing me into debt. I used to spend ages wondering how I could MAKE him understand why this was not ok, but this was quite the wrong tack – he understood very well indeed, he just wasn’t prepared to do anything about it. he didn’t care about me enough, about what might happen to me, or the consequences to me, to do one single thing that was not what he wanted to do
• and then this. Maybe. Deliberately causing rifts (or trying to) between me and my sons by MAKING THINGS UP? between me and friends , between me and my birth family… lying, falsifying things that were said or done to lead me to believe that son1 had done things he had not.

Do people actually behave like that ? Causing untold damage to others. By deliberately lying to me (if he did) he caused huge problems between me and my son, between son 1 and his brothers and enormous anguish to me.

I know he lied to me about some things, I know there are several occasions in which he manipulated facts and swore that black was white even though I knew it had not happened as he said. I know he stole from me (and I’m not talking about the thousands I gave him voluntarily) I’m talking about taking my bank card and spending my money on something I has specifically said I was not prepared to buy. I know he stole from others (a life preserver mysteriously found its way into his bag on return from holiday – no accident) I know he ‘borrowed’ money from lots of people he had no intention of repaying (and no means to do so) I know his girlfriend prior to me chased him very hard for £14,000 she ‘lent’ him… never got repaid.

BUT, to deliberately make up stories about something son1 had done. To lie, actively maliciously lie with the aim only to damage him and break our parent child bond.  Really? Do people DO that? Honestly is that person I loved and lived with for more than 5 years really not only capable of such evil, but actually did this?

I feel physically sick and ill when I think about this, when the possibility comes into my head. I thought about this at the time, because my gut instinct was that son 1 had NOT done these things, but I allowed my ‘rational’ adult head to believe that no-one, surely, would make such a thing up. Now I really, really wonder. What does that say about him? what kind of a person does that ? And if there ARE people out there like this, who think nothing of deliberately lying, fabricating and deceiving … if HE is one of them…

Its that picture again, that I talked of before, coming into clearer focus. the fog is lifting and what parts I can see , they look distorted. My reality , my memories of the past are shifting, and it no longer feels like something happy and nice, but a sick, twisted, frankly evil relationship with a man devoid of compassion, decency or integrity. A man who spotted my vulnerability and intrinsic honesty and exploited me in every way he could.

no wonder i feel ill.

I don’t KNOW this of course. I have no proof. and I wont get proof. Probably I don’t NEED proof, I have all I need … and I have to find a way to live with it

 

Pause ..

The last few days have been quite difficult.

Examining my motivations for contacting me ex partner, and the subsequent reflections on how deliberate our Interactions with others actually are, has opened something of a Pandora’s box for me.

All of a sudden a load of ‘incidents’ that I have not really thought about for a while are crowding in to my consciousness, and with the new knowledge that my therapy has opened up for me, they are assuming quite sinister implications.

I’m not describing this as a ‘set back’ because that’s not really what it is. I know that to fully heal, to protect myself against making any further destructive relationship I need to recognise what happened, need to appreciate the significance of incidents and behaviour. I need to learn to trust and value my own judgements, and to do that I need to see and understand where I have not done so in the past.

I’ve had a relatively quiet few weeks on the emotional turmoil front, the enormous boost that seeing son1 in Nepal gave me, has carried me forwards and filled me with optimism for the future. Planning for our family holiday to Africa a natural mood booster.

However, there is no denying that the past few days have been emotionally difficult and I came close to a panic attack yesterday – the first time in several months.

I do believe it’s better for me to pull these things out into the open, expose them to the light of day, and muse a little about their meaning. My ultimate aim is to rebury them, divested of their emotional significance, somewhere deep in my subconscious. Accessible if I need to refer to them, but otherwise not reaching the surface of My conscious thoughts…

so, having said that …

a couple of things that happened, that deeply upset / disturbed me… that I now believe were either accidental nor unconscious, but instead intended to undermine me, to make me less confident, designed to confuse and wrong foot me. There art truths which I was persuaded to believe were lies, completely reasonable actions from me that I was taught were deeply unacceptable and disrespectful to him ….

Quite early on, one Friday, we were planning to go out in the evening. In the afternoon I had invited a friend, the woman who used to be a nanny for my children, over for tea. For a at catch up and for her to see the children. She cane over for a couple of hours, we had some tea and cake, and then a glass of wine. He was at home, and went upstairs quite early on in the afternoon. I didn’t think much of it. Later in the afternoon, say 5 pm we had a glass of wine, and my friend left about 6. Writing this is giving me palpitations and making me feel anxious. When she had left, I went upstairs to see exP and to get ready to go out. We had a babysitter booked at 7.30pm. He went mad, a huge tirade about how disrespectful I had been how I shouldn’t have people. In ten house, how I disgusted him, how he want repeated to spend any time with me because I was spending time with others (or something) he refused to go out that evening and didn’t speak to me for 3 days. I was utterly bemused. And I never invited her over again, and rarely anyone else .. I felt like I had missed something awful that I had done, the strength of his reaction, I must have deserved it ?

wrong. Him not me. Wrong WRONG WRONG . My having a guest in the afternoon had NO impact on our evening plans, it’s not unreasonable to have a friend over for tea, and his reaction was just one of the things he did to try and isolate me from my friends, it was MY house FFS … but vulnerable, un self confident and in love, his outburst scared me, made me resolve never to do such a thing again, and redouble my efforts not to upset him. Classic abusive behaviour.

Early on in our relationship he visited my, stayed overnight and left his bicycle in the house. The next day he said something was broken and that one of the children , son1, had fiddled with it and broken it. He got very angry when I tried to probe further about what was broken, so I was never clear. All the children denied fiddling with it, and actually, I believed them. This because an enormous issue, I offered (and did) pay for the ‘repair’ but from the on he became obsessive about protecting his ‘things’, refusing to allow the children in to the living room because his books were in there, refusing to allow son 1 to travel in his car, hiding things form everyone so that no one could use or have something he thought of as ‘his’ even if it was not. And yet, he took my car out one day, made a huge scrape down the entire side of the car, both doors and the bonnet panel, and didn’t even tell he he had done so,

I don’t believe (now) anyone touched his bike. I think it was a deliberate lie, to divide me from my kids, to get his bike repaired paid for by me, and to test how far I would back him. He talked a LOT about having respect for possessions and people, but it was ALL one way. Everyone else had to respect him. But he treated others and their possessions with casual contempt.

Writing this makes me feel shaky, tearful and frightened, I feel sick and have palpitations. The physical reaction to the memory is very strong, considering it’s several years ago. I think I’ve only been able to look at this stuff recently, as it’s only recently I’ve been strong enough.

What I’m seeing clearly, without obfuscation, is a systematic narcissistic abusive person, deliberately gaslighting , deliberately sewing doubts and discord in my family. No wonder I feel ill.

I still struggle to believe this. I find it so hard to believe anyone would actually DO this, I contacted his ex wife earlier this week (by email) to ask for help, I feel like this just CANT be true,and yet…. she is probably the only other person who would be able to confirm or refute my thoughts … she hasn’t replied (which is disappointing, but perhaps nor unexpected) ….

Sigh …

Motivations

I find examining the motivation behind why I feel or act as I do very interesting. Its also pretty useful in helping me understand some of the feelings that I have, when I can’t regard them as logical.

Since I have been sober, I’ve done a LOT less things on impulse; still some things (like the very beautiful sculpture I bought on instinct on last year’s holiday) but much less. I generally pause, get less carried away by emotions and employ a cooler more rational and analytical thought process. In general I think this is a good thing, but occasionally I still do things impulsively – I guess the habits of a lifetime are hard to modify.

Since Christmas I have sent two emails to my ex Partner.

The first, sent on an impulse, was the photograph of me paragliding, far above the Himalayas. The second, which I sent last Friday was a considered gesture – I heard via my mother who does voluntary work at the local hospital that his mother has a possible serious diagnosis. Being an only child, whose father is dead and estranged from his son and somewhat from his daughter, he and his mother are close. I know that any such diagnosis would be devastating and frightening for him. I considered whether I should acknowledge this, and in the end sent a short mail expressing sympathy.

He has replied to neither.

This bugs me a bit (as no doubt it was intended to) and yesterday I discussed this with Angela my therapist. She, from an outsiders view point, asked me why I had sent these emails, and pointed out that they send very conflicting messages, that although the first contained no words, and the second only the briefest of sentences, there was a wealth of hidden meaning in both posts, that would have been obvious to the recipient.

The first was a “fuck you” message. In that one image, of me flying high, in Nepal with son1 (whom he loathed) excited, experiencing new things (that my regular income can buy) it was a real ” look how great I’m doing, despite the fact you thought I couldn’t manage without you, look how fantastic my life is now” It was a message of defiance, confidence and condescension. I can honestly say I didn’t think all of that when I sent it, but now I reflect on it I can see what was behind the sending – and I’m sure that’s what he picked up too …

The second message was one of sympathy. I thought long and hard before I wrote it, but eventually decided it was too pointed NOT to acknowledge the information my mother had passed on to me. Angela suggested that this is the exact opposite of what I sent in the first email. Sympathy, empathy, compassion, caring. All the kindness that I genuinely felt, but of course it sends an entirely different message about how I am feeling to the one I posted 3 weeks before.

After discussing this, I concluded that it very much mirrors exactly how I DO feel about him. Confused (still). Alternately free, independent, following my own path, building my relationships with my children, being the best mother I can be, excited about the opportunities that await me, and on the other hand vulnerable, kind, anxious not to see him hurt, thoughtful. Angry, and then sad; Optimistic and then vulnerable and lonely.

The fact that he hasn’t replied probably just reflects that he doesn’t know how to read me, that he’s fed up with my conflicting messages verbal, written and in person,  or he may have moved on to the next mug, or he may be angry or …. well , It doesn’t really matter does it. I meant it when I wrote a few days ago that I can accept its in the past and that nothing, no words or actions can repair this broken relationship. But Angela pointed out to me that it’s ok to be ambivalent sometimes, its ok to falter, it merely reflects the depth of emotions and the strength of my feelings. They don’t go away or resolve overnight and that this is a process, a path that I’m following. I’m a great deal further on than I was 6 months ago, but the emotional attachment takes time to wither and die.

The take home point for me about all this is that we convey a huge amount of meaning and emotion in the small, non verbal things we do or don’t do. That the majority of small things; ‘forgetting’ to send a text, not responding to a comment or reacting to situations in a way that is out of proportion, convey a huge multitude of meanings. These things are not  unplanned, they are deliberate manipulations to wrong foot someone, they are designed and engineered to gaslight and confuse.  I’m getting a glimpse of a deeply unpalatable and thoroughly disturbing outsiders view of that relationship, Its still shrouded in fog at the moment, still obscured by my naivety .. but the fog is lifting a little momentarily and small acts are now assuming a much greater significance.

I think that view, when its clearer, will be a much more accurate picture of the reality than the fairy tale and guilt I’ve been carrying around with me.

 

 

How very far I have come

Its is now 12 months almost to the day since I ended my relationship

I have come a LONG way since then

Back then it was a huge burst of frustration and anger: the culmination of several years of unhappiness, increasing frustration, and inability to communicate that drove me to change to lock on my front door and call time on what I had hoped/ believed would be my relationship for life. I knew it was right, a bit like stopping drinking, but It had been very hard to do.

I surprised almost everyone with that decision. Even my closest friend K, who had listened and held my frustration and anxiety over the destructive elements at home had not expected me to be so abrupt and determined; I think my brother (perhaps) was the only one who was less surprised. He knew, to some extent, all was not well and he knows that I can be pushed a LONG way, but that eventually I will snap.

Back then, I was so sad about it. Back then I thought I had a loving partner who although he had some problems with my children; problems with his business / earning a living; problems with his relations with his own children; was basically a lovely man who I just couldn’t get through to.

I see him very differently now. Now I see what others saw. I see what K saw, my brother saw, and bless them for their diplomacy in not ever trying to force me to see what I could not, until I was ready.

Now I see a bullying, insecure man who at least borders on narcissism. I see a man with delusions of grandeur and arrogance that mean that he listens to NO ONE, talks a LOT about respect and integrity but has none himself. Now I see a man who probably had such an issue with my eldest son because he saw reflected back at him some of his most deeply unattractive traits. I see a man who had so little regard for me, that despite the fact I had 100% financially supported him for 5 years, refused to even TRY and support himself financially when I struggled to service the debt I had incurred by taking on HIS responsibilities. I see a critical, unkind, self absorbed person, unwilling (or unable) to compromise on anything, and I shudder.

The best decision I made in the immediate aftermath of the split was to find a therapist I could work with. I saw one, who I am sure was perfectly competent, but I felt no empathy. Then I saw Angela, my current therapist and knew that here was someone who could ‘cope with’ me (Because I recognise that I’m not the most straightforward, with my alcohol addiction, eating disorder, propensity to attract men who are damaged / damaging) – but ‘cope with’ me in a kind and supportive way. I knew I needed this support and space to be honest, to be able to hold on to the decision I had made.

In retrospect I can’t believe I was only about 24 weeks sober when I did this. Of course I was committed to being sober, and of course I had negotiated the very hard early days.. but 24 weeks ?? That seems very early in sobriety to me now, to make such a big change to my life and expect me to see it through. Reflecting on it, I’m proud of myself that I did it, and prouder that I a) stuck to it and b) stayed sober.

For several months I struggled with the decision, I ‘knew’ in my heart it was right (at least for the children) but struggled to recognise or accept that I too had been badly treated, that I deserved better. With patience, lots of conversations, reflective discussions, and time –  I came to see exactly that. That he treated me very badly – the emotional abuse he dished out was not confined to my children ( not by  along chalk); that expecting to be ‘fully funded’ by another adult rather than pulling your own financial weight is a form of abuse in itself (if not a negotiated and shared decision between a couple), I tried ‘seeing’ him a bit in the early part of this year –  coffee here and there, the odd day out / walk with the dog. One part of me enjoyed this, but there remained a part of me that felt uncomfortable; and eventually at LAST I recognised that there were things done (or actually not done) that I could not forgive. More than that, it was ok that I could not forgive them. That I had a right to my own boundaries and he had crossed them, I had a right to say ‘no’ that is not acceptable TO ME.

Oh yes, I have come a LONG way. And this shows in many other aspects of my life. I dont always find it easy, but I’m learning to set my boundaries with my kids, my mother, and my work colleagues. Im learning (about 30 years late) that it is healthy to respect yourself, your time, your person, your beliefs.

Angela said to me, early in my therapy with her that she had heard a good expression, that when you are psychologically ‘well’ with good boundaries and a healthy self respect ‘What is not good for you wont LOOK good to you’. All through the Winter and Spring I wondered why ExP still ‘looked good’ to me… it was because I was focussing on his negative features with respect to my children, not with respect to ME …. once I “got” the latter – he no longer looks ‘good’ to me in any way, shape or form.

 

Life is immeasurably better now. I have learned to be more open with  people close to me, and to ask for help when I need it. I have been on a couple of dates, and decided I can’t be bothered at the moment! My kids are happier, my home is calmer, I am restarting painting classes next Month. I will continue with my therapy – I don’t know how long for, but you don’t correct the poor self esteem from many years in a short year… I will stay sober and I will build myself, am building myself, a contented, safe, peaceful home.

I do, actually genuinely feel proud of myself for achieving this. HE said I would never cope without him… well I have, I am and I will continue to do so.

Not any more……

 

 

Narcissistic personality disorder

I dislike “self diagnosing” patients who come to me and tell me they have “bipolar” because they are a bit moody, or lupus because they have a spot on their face.

And I try hard not to diagnose myself – I have a wonderful GP and I trust her 100% tomake sensible decisions about my health. She is secure enough not to be challenged by the fact I am a colleague, humble enough to come to joint decisions when required and mature enough to be firm ! 

BUT. I’m now going to do exactly what I hate others doing and do a bit of armchair Psychiatry with respect to my ex P

Narcissistic personality disorder: wiki definitions in italic, my observations in plain type

According to the DSM-5, individuals with NPD have most or all of the following symptoms, typically without commensurate qualities or accomplishments: 

1. Grandiosity with expectations of superior treatment from others. Yes yes yes. He expects others to treat him with the utmost respect and deference, yet shows little to others. He really believes he’s had a successful career when he has sold two works in the last 6 years, and has earned no money

2. Fixated on fantasies of power, success, intelligence, attractiveness, etc. He has  a whole load of completely unrealistic expectations as to how he can take small comments forward, believes he will be a global success without putting in any of the spade work

3. Self-perception of being unique, superior and associated with high-status people and institutions. He was once and I don’t think he has got over the loss 

4. Needing constant admiration from others. Always always, especially me. Have to tell him how wonderful everything he has done is…

5. Sense of entitlement to special treatment and to obedience from others. Enormous sense of entitlement to be supported financially whilst he does very little. Expected everyone – including me – else to do as he wishes. Shows no respect to my kids, but excpects them to respect him

6. Exploitative of others to achieve personal gain. Hmmm 6 years or not working not contributing and having everything paid for, absolutely no remorse or understanding as to how that could have been detrimental to me. Note debt in the 10,s of thousands … 

7. Unwilling to empathize with others’ feelings, wishes, or needs. They are so unimportant to him he won’t even discuss them

8. Intensely envious of others and the belief that others are equally envious of them not so sure about this one

9. Pompous  and arrogant demeanor, Oh yes, extremely 

So where does this get me? I sent this to my friend K ( without the annotations) and she saw immediately the traits within ExP. I also asked if it mattered what you call it ? She thinks it does, and I’m beginning to believe her – it helps me to know I’m not going mad, that this is him not me, that he will never change because these are fixed personality characteristics and he doesn’t not, cannot , see where he is wrong ? In which case I have to give up any faint hope that he will change, do anything different, understand what I’m saying and why I am upset. 

I have to let go, and understand that I can’t win. K also pointed out to me that I sound like I do not LIKE him much, and I realise I don’t – he has few of the personality traits I admire and many I positively dislike ; and that I don’t have much respect left for him. 

So maybe I’m going to go ahead , inside me and say that I believe my ExP has a narcissistic personality disorder. And that just maybe I’ve had a lucky escape.