Right away my ex began his crusade to play on my emotions to get me back. He sent big bouquet of roses to my office which I either gave away or tossed in the dumpster. He called to plead that he was a pitiful victim and "what was I trying to do kill him?" My counselor had forewarned me about this and cautioned me not to talk to him or agree to discuss any issues with him because he would misinterpret them to mean that I wanted reconciliation. Either that or he would get angry with my answers, so I just said I can't talk right now and hung up every time he called. This provoked nuisance calling all night long and into the early morning. I finally unplugged the phone when we went to bed. I must have changed my phone number a dozen times over the next eight years until I gave up. Eventually he was so disturbed by the rejection that he adopted punishing and terrorizing me as his only option. How did he figure that I was hurting him when he was the one that dished out every kind of rejection toward me for 17 years? Did he not remember his cocky self, ruler of the roost diatribes, not to mentions his violence against me?
My parents had come over for the weekend of my dad's birthday to help me with the repairs I needed to do on the house. It was a hard trip for my dad because of his stroke but he tried. My mom was exhausted but she knew I needed support and some carpentry skills that my dad had so she drove him over. We were sitting in the living room when my ex pulled up in a rage and his headlights were right up to picture window. Mom and I froze for a minute because we weren't quite sure what to expect. Was he going to crash through the window and try to hurt us? My daughter immediately jumped up displaying an attempt to save the day. She was headed outside when I told her, "Stop "No, You can't go out there!" She ignored my warning with a defiant stance that I hadn't seen before. She was taking control of this whether I liked it or not. This was my clue that there was a hidden agenda between them but I was too startled to really grasp that he was indoctrinating her and she was a willing participant in my overthrow as her mother. This was a curve ball I hadn't considered. She strutted back into the house with the arrogance of a conqueror while he drove off. Mom and I looked at each other in disbelief while she smugly disappeared into her bedroom. I was hurt and angry and I had been devalued and humiliated right in front of my parents. She and her father would double team me from this day forward and would add my son to the mix in a rather obtuse way. His vague and non- conformist ways, which would escalate into delinquency and dodgy behaviors, made him the perfect scapegoat. I was the perfect target. My daughter was the perfect pawn. The two of them together(my ex and my daughter), however, were nature's perfect match for a demented duo of hate and dominance. Why me, why her brother and his son, what did we have that they wanted so desperately to destroy? I wouldn't be able to answer this for years to come and never fully, much to my disappointment. My semi conclusion was that he was playing a game of keep-away. He had to keep me away from anyone or anything that made me happy, He had to keep me away from my children. To achieve this he had to undermine me and mislead and confuse the children. High levels of undermining would carry with it low levels of support from family members and directly impact my ability to cope. If he could make them believe that I was not who they had believed I was, I would lose my credibility as their mother, nurturer and provider. There would be no healthy close family relationships for any of us to fall back on. This tactic would ensure his victimization of all three of us, as a group and as individuals. He would continue this approach for years. He was obsessed with the need to defile. These attacks escalated in their degree of harm. Would we survive?
In the final divorce I was awarded full custody of the children, the house and all costs of raising the children like medical and dental despite the fact that he had good union coverage for them He was to pay child support and take weekend visits every other weekend, which he did not show up for. . He said and I quote"I am not going to be her weekend babysitter". I really didn't care because I felt it was better if they didn't see him. I certainly didn't force this issue. I was a 24/7 mom and again he did whatever he wanted.
I didn't want him nor did I need him. He, however, needed me and that angered him the most. It really got under his skin to think that he needed me and was grieving the loss of me. He was mad at himself for ever needing a woman: It fueled his rage to the point that he decided that if he couldn't have me he would destroy me. We must never confuse his need with love. It had nothing to do with love. It had everything to do with not losing. He had to win at any cost. His insatiable ego wouldn't tolerate anything else. He was willing to destroy the very thing he wanted because he couldn't have it. This would be his motivating principle for the next 14 years. The most important thing on his agenda was to turn my children against me even though I was the one responsible for raising them. He relished the idea of this twisted sense of punishment. The misfortunes I suffered at his hands were the antidotes that soothed his miseries. He resorted to harassment, stalking, smear campaigns, threatening and intimidation and exhaustive phone calls and spy games coupled with Parental Alienation. This was one of the longest sieges of cruelty I had ever endured other than my marriage. I consoled myself with the fact that at least I didn't have to live with him anymore. This was a hideous attack on me and I was getting sick from the constant torment. The tragedy within it was a loss of trust which in some cases was never to be restored.
It was here that he started his:
SECRET SPY SCHOOL
And his first inductee was my daughter. While enrolled here she would learn the rules of a toxic alliance. She would be drawn into his hidden spy games while he played on her craving for special attention and admiration. He lured her into his web of lies and deceit with promises of money, gifts, freedom from rules and inclusion into his adult world by placing her on a pedestal. He would instill in her a need to be his "one and only" now and my replacement. She would begin to lead a double life, living with me as my child and reporting to him as his "special" agent. She would parrot his words as her own and deploy her charm on the unsuspecting as a weapon. She would learn to deceive people with a smile and to be a convincing liar at a tender age. At first she would pretend to admire me while she stabbed me in the back for the sake of his approval. She would learn to play people off against each other and had no loyalty but to him. I have no doubt that she also reported on her brother to get him in trouble. I suspect this, in turn, contributed to his addiction and lying to save himself. (This is a reason not an excuse) We had a traitor in our midst and we didn't have a clue for the longest time. We lived in fear of his reprisals from her betrayals. It was no surprise when I caught her drinking, I am sure the drinking was to alleviate the painful realization of her two faced, false persona. She was pretending to be what she wasn't and he was willing to sacrifice her for his selfish need to be in control. She lost her real self as she creatively developed this impersonation of me in order to gain favor with him.
After a time she became hostile and defiant. She would behave in ways that made me think she hated me. The person she replaced was him. She became him in our household: The bully, the tyrant, the selfish thief, the belittler, the disrespectful show off, an incorrigible dependent who intended to rule the house and everyone in it. She observed no rules and listened to no one. She told everyone off if they corrected her. She would demand to get what she wanted. She had no fear of consequences because she was he daddy's favorite and he would protect her no matter what she did: Except for the fact that he really didn't step up for her.
She began to really enjoy this new found power and she advanced her game steadily over time. It was an exciting adventure into the dark world of the sly of heart. She not only provided him with information, she looked for ways to get juicy tidbits about my life in order to sustain her place in his life. She interfered with my relationships male and female, she would take my personal belongings and keep them, she would go from house to house telling stories about me to the neighbors and friends, building herself up as the victim of a negligent mother. She would listen in on my phone calls and tell him my plans. She snooped in my dresser drawers and personal space to see what she could find out and pass on. She would report if I had paid a bill or not. She skipped school repeatedly knowing that I wouldn't catch her until the damage was done because I worked full time. She tried to convince my mother that she was more worthy of her love than I was. She inserted herself in every aspect of my life and she truly believed she was winning. Nothing was sacred or private. She thought I didn't notice when she took things and then put them back later after she was finished sharing them or using them to her advantage.
She didn't stop to consider that I had stopped believing her and started to see that this wasn't ordinary teenage rebellion, it was downright a malign behavior desirous of my complete destruction. She didn't want me around, I was in the way. If she couldn't get rid of me she would at least enjoy the tell-tale signs of my distress. Perhaps she knew deep down that she hadn't replaced me in her father's eyes and she was only being used as his tool to try to get me back and to gain inside dirt on her brother and me. Rejecting the obvious, she continued her hate campaign and sadistic enjoyment of my compromising situation. I was her custodial parent and was responsible for raising her even if she treated me in the most terrible of ways. She thought it was funny that I was forced to become a battered parent.
The natural course of the Electra complex had been interrupted when he exploited her for his own use. At a certain stage of her development she should have switched from "daddy adoration" (competition with mommy for daddy's attention) to mommy emulation but that didn't happen because of his psychopathology and Parental Alienation. The bond was broken and she was the worst off for it. There was no chance of regaining trust and even if there had been she wouldn't have been able to overcome the obstacles to attain it because of her damaged self. I was powerless to stop what had been put in motion. She had actually betrayed herself and so evolved another dangerous narcissistic psychopath with an injured core.
In the next post we will reexamine the Invisible Spyglass (available in the archives of this blog) in detail and the ways in which this Spy game unfolded.
