Tag Archives: toxic people

holidays, narcissists

Christmas time is coming… you know what means, right? Here’s the best Christmas gift…

Before I get started… this isn’t going to be a super lighthearted post. It might be funny or interesting to some readers who know our story, and it could be helpful and informative to others… I just want to warn anyone who’s here looking for festive glad tidings that this post ain’t it.

Still with me? Mmm’kay…

When I was really young, I loved Christmas. I loved the food, the music, staying home from school, and getting Christmas presents. I loved being with my family, too. As I got older, Christmas became more of a burden. I found out that Santa isn’t real, not that I was ever a big believer in Santa… I recognized my mom’s handwriting on the packages. Then I felt like I had to buy gifts, and I never had any money. I also realized I didn’t know the recipients well enough to get them something they really wanted, so it felt like I was wasting money that I didn’t have.

As time went on, I came to realize that Christmas had lost its magic for me and filled me with apprehension and stress, rather than the touching family moments depicted on the Hallmark channel. It wasn’t until I married Bill and swore off family gatherings that I started to enjoy the holidays again. So… from about 2005 onwards, Christmas became fun for us… I now enjoy Christmas. I like shopping for Bill, because I know what he likes, needs, and wants. And we don’t try to make Christmas what it isn’t. It’s just a day. We enjoy the day and all the good stuff that comes with it. He is the one person I can count on to love me for exactly who I am. That is a huge blessing. I, in turn, love him for exactly who he is.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t see drama about to erupt from other sources. Most of it stays away from us in the most personal sense. However, because Bill and his daughter have reconnected, he’s hearing about drama from afar. It occurred to me that this is the time of year when narcissists usually become completely insufferable. And based on what I’ve seen from Ex lately, I think it could hit a fever pitch this year.

Behold:

On the surface, this sort of seems like a “cute” post, right? She’s putting up her Christmas tree, and oops! She forgot to add one of the middle sections! She must now get on social media to show everyone her “mistake” and ask for advice.

Ummm… I know for a fact that Ex knows how to put up a Christmas tree. And I think she knows how to fix this problem. That tree has just four parts to it. It’s not even like the trees of yore, which had dozens of individual limbs and color codes that had to be put on one at a time. It takes two minutes to put up a tree like the one pictured, even if you put the wrong section on the lower part. On our tree, the top part wouldn’t even fit on the bottom section. And why in the hell would you put lights on before you assemble the tree?

But then I notice at the end of her post, she writes “On the 1st day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… no help on the Christmas tree.”

Uh huh. That was a dig at #3, who is apparently checked out. After twenty years of this kind of shit, I can’t really blame him. It took Bill half as much time to withdraw from Ex’s craziness. So when he ignores her, she hits up social media for attention.

Some of you who might be reading this are probably thinking… “How do you know all of this? And more importantly, why do you care?”

The fact is, I don’t actually care, except to the extent that it upsets younger daughter. She lives in another state, true… but it’s the holiday season, and narcissists are typically a nightmare during the holidays. They just can’t help themselves. They have this image they desperately want to project, and they expect everyone else to buy into the image. The trouble is, even if other people are cooperative, the reality never lives up to the perfect image in Ex’s mind. That causes her a lot of stress and gives her excuses to stir up drama.

The holidays are also a time of year when people are expected to be kind, grateful, and happy. Narcissists aren’t naturally kind, grateful, or happy people, even if that’s the image they try, and sometimes manage to project, to strangers. BUT– they expect YOU to be all of those things and more. If you protest when they criticize you, there will be hell to pay. “You can’t win for losin'”, as my sweet husband likes to say.

So… Ex decides to “spread the wealth” that comes with being upset during the holidays. Instead of sending warm wishes in a Christmas card or a lovely present, she sends hateful private messages full of rage, accusations, and guilt. Instead of making a phone call or starting a video chat, she drops a load of psychic angst via Facebook messenger. And then, when the response is anything other than groveling or mea culpas, she “shares the wealth” of misery to other people who care enough to listen to her complaints. Ah… holiday stress. It’s the narcissistic gift that ripples across generations, right?

I’ve been in Bill’s life for over 20 years, and I have seen Ex spoil MANY holidays. She usually craps on Christmas, but I’ve also seen her fuck up birthdays and Easter. Since one of her daughters and a granddaughter were born on July 4th, you can bet that day will be messed up, too. It’s a double whammy– Independence Day and a birthday for two family members. She hates it when the attention isn’t focused on her, so she’s got to do something to get into the limelight.

Years ago, Dr. Tara Palmatier, the Shrink4Men, wrote an excellent article about high conflict individuals during the holidays. If you have one of these in your life, I highly recommend that you check it out. Narcissistic exes who routinely act even more like self-centered idiots during the holidays is a real “thing”. It’s not all in your head. Dr. T also wrote a hilarious gift guide for the high conflict person in your life. Yes, it’s tongue in cheek… and maybe it’ll make you smile as you figure out how to get through another holiday season… and maybe consider if you really want to spend the rest of your life dealing with this kind of ridiculous nonsense.

A few days ago, younger daughter told us a bit about a recent conflict she had with Ex, who berated her for her supposed shortcomings. Younger daughter, to her credit, attempted to stick up for herself. She actually told Ex that she was being abusive. She hoped that Ex would see the error of her ways… but sadly, Ex didn’t get it and simply heaped on more abuse and blame. I couldn’t help but shake my head. I could totally relate.

I once made the mistake of thinking one of my own family members was mature enough to have a discussion about some abusive behavior from a Christmas past. Sure enough, she turned into a victim, and I was the bad one for bringing it up. The crazy thing was, I was actually trying to be positive. I was trying to tell her that her tantrum during the last Christmas I spent with my family of origin had strengthened my resolve not to tolerate that shit from anyone else, including and especially Ex. Saying “no” to this particular relative had led to my having the strength to say “no” to Ex the following year, when she “invited” Bill and me to Bill’s father’s house for Christmas. Instead of looking back on that incident objectively, she claimed I was being mean to her. She turned into a pathetic victim.

Younger daughter is more mature than I was when I was her age. Hell, she’s probably more mature than I am now. 😉 As she was talking about this dramatic exchange she had with Ex, she got this wizened look on her face and said, “It just totally blew up in my face.” And I knew that she realized, then and there, that there is no point in trying to talk reasonably with personality disordered people like this. They can’t see your viewpoint. They won’t consider your perspective. They have no empathy. That’s part of their disorder and, sadly, it won’t ever change. The best you can do is minimize how that shitty nonsense will affect you. Learn to either diffuse it or ignore it, or better yet, go no or minimal contact.

Then last night, we heard from younger daughter again. She was very excited about and thankful for a birthday gift Bill had sent her. And she told us that she had decided to apologize to her sisters for all of the things Ex claimed they were angry at her about. She also sent them copies of what Ex had sent her in her private message of doom. To that, I say, BRAVO. Ex is a world class triangulator. She has perfected to an art form the skill of telling people different things to get them upset at each other. They don’t speak to one another, so whatever they know has been filtered through Ex, who naturally spins it so that it’s completely twisted and totally askew. She said that older daughter was “nice” and wrote “I accept your apology.” I could see by the slight flash of snark on younger daughter’s face that she could tell it was bullshit that older daughter felt owed an apology for anything. It was quite hilarious.

But what I’d also like to tell her is that it’s a brilliant move to send transcripts of Ex’s diatribes to her sisters. Why? Because then they can see for themselves what was actually communicated. There’s less opportunity to take it out of context. And, there’s a LOVELY side effect to taking this action. Once Ex knows that her secrets aren’t being kept, she stops writing things down and sending them.

Back in 2006, when I wrote to Ex for the first and only time, I ripped her a new one because she had sent Bill an email with all sorts of nasty bile about me, and how the kids hated me and didn’t want us in their lives. She then asked Bill not to tell me what she’d written. She claimed she wanted to “spare my feelings.” Nope… that demand wasn’t about sparing anyone’s feelings. She wanted to drive a wedge between us. She is Olympic class at doing this; I’ve watched her do it for over twenty years. She was hoping Bill would resent me for being an obstacle to having his daughters in his life. It backfired, because Bill could plainly see that I had nothing to do with stopping him from having relationships with his kids. Moreover, the (now adult) kids are free to think whatever they want about me. That’s not something I can control, nor would I want to try. BUT… I will not tolerate Ex telling my husband to keep secrets from me and interfering in our marriage.

She could see that I know all about her and that Bill is loyal to me. Sending him nasty emails simply gives me more evidence of who and what she is. I’m not going to keep her secrets or accept her abuse. So, when that fact became clear, she stopped sending Bill emails! Blessed be! She also never called him again! The last we directly heard from her was, unfortunately, when she sent many boxes of Bill’s possessions restricted delivery, along with an itemized list marked “confidential” and a toxic little story book Bill used to read to the girls… HA! There was a nasty letter about what a horrible father and husband Bill is, along with paperwork for Bill to sign that would allow #3 to adopt Bill’s daughters. Of course he wasn’t going to sign the papers. Even if he did that, she wouldn’t have to file them, and he would have to keep paying child support. And then she’d have a paper with his signature on it to use as an alienation tool. That nasty little delivery occurred just in time for Bill’s 42nd birthday. Another special day ruined!

Bill still has all of that stuff. He’s kept it for the day when he needed to explain it to one of his daughters. Sure enough, that day recently came, and he told his daughter about what Ex had done. He did that because, in her recent little tirade, Ex told younger daughter about how Bill hadn’t wanted to pay child support and “offered” to let #3 adopt them. So younger daughter asked about what had actually happened… or even just Bill’s side of the issue. She’s figured out that her mother lies and twists things to suit her agenda. She knew there was more to the story and she wanted to hear it. So Bill told her his side, and offered to show her the stuff Ex sent anytime she wanted to see it. He told her about how he went next door and spoke to our neighbor at the time, who is a lawyer and is still a dear friend. 😉

But, I think what really made me PROUD of younger daughter and impressed by her smarts was when she looked into the camera and said, “Now I can see things from both sides.” She said she remembered how Bill recently explained to her how, when she was still a kid, Bill would call and try to speak to his daughters. At that time, younger daughter was always “unavailable”. She was in the bathtub, or had a headache, or otherwise couldn’t come to the phone. Gradually, former stepson and older daughter also quit speaking to Bill. Ex turned the ringer off of the phone, so he’d call and no one would answer. Younger daughter became more and more hostile, and for a long time, I didn’t like her. My dislike was because of the image she was portraying. But that wasn’t really her. It was a facade spackled by Ex, designed to turn off anyone who might influence or assist her daughter, whom she sees as solely her “property”. Ex can’t share, and she resents anyone who takes what she thinks belongs to her. That includes other people, especially those who have passed through her birth canal. 😀

Since younger daughter now lives in another state, and has her own family, she is now seeing things the way Bill used to see them when he and Ex communicated. Now, she gets it! It’s a beautiful thing that she finally understands– although I am very sorry that she’s now on the other side of her mother’s abuse. Being on one side is bad enough. I guess we can take comfort in knowing that this is how she treats everyone eventually.

In any case, I strongly suspect that the holidays are causing an uptick in drama at Ex’s house. But I also suspect that her husband is about to ditch her. And this time, she might not land on her feet. So that will cause her to act up and act out, and try to pull other people into her crises… to include strangers on social media whom she asks about how to put up her stupid Christmas tree as she slides in a little dig toward #3, who clearly isn’t paying enough attention to her during this holiday season. Too funny… and it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person, huh?

What I’d also like to tell younger daughter is that I’ve learned not to be too hard on anyone who has to live full time with Ex. For a long time, I didn’t like people who seemed to be on Ex’s side. But now I realize that Ex makes people miserable. She’s a toxic person, and having to live with a toxic person is unpleasant. Toxic behavior is contagious, especially if you live in the FOG (fear, obligation, and guilt that comes with living with a high conflict person). It’s not really personal. They’re literally living in an environment that makes them “sick”. I have observed people leaving Ex’s sphere and becoming completely different, happier, healthier people. I also observed my own mother becoming a different person after my toxic dad passed eight years ago.

So, when her sisters are snarky, rude, or clueless, or #3’s mother says something thoughtless or insulting, it might be helpful for younger daughter to remember that they live in a toxic place, and they are affected by Ex’s toxic bullshit. Misery loves company, so they’re inviting her to join in their little miserable soiree. That might help her feel more sympathetic when they say shitty things to her. Actually, in her case, it probably would have that effect. In my case, it probably wouldn’t. I’m not as nice as younger daughter is, and I have never had a “loving” relationship with the people involved in this situation. In fact, I barely know them at all. So… I guess I could muster empathy, because they’re fellow human beings, and I don’t like to see fellow human beings suffering.

Anyway… Bill told his daughter that she doesn’t need to apologize to anyone for living her life on her own terms and being as healthy as she can be. One of the best things about being an adult is that you have the ability to make choices like whether or not you’re going to show up for people who behave like jerks. Children don’t often have a choice in whether or not they tolerate abusive behavior. Adults do. And younger daughter is well beyond the age of majority, so she really doesn’t have to tolerate this crap anymore. Better yet, she has young children of her own to protect from this toxic, narcissistic fuckery, which is an even more important reason to tell Ex to “zip it” and kick her to the curb.

For you, Ex.

I’d say that realizing that she doesn’t have to put up with ruined holidays and acting accordingly is the best Christmas present a person could ever get. I know it was a life changer for me when I stopped showing up for dysfunctional family holiday drama. 😉 So… Merry Christmas! And have a happy, HEALTHY, new year.

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LDS, music, narcissists

Introducing “Bill” to his daughter…

Happy Halloween, everybody. My morning got off to a rough start, but after a bowl of oatmeal and some fresh coffee, I’m feeling somewhat better. Daylight Savings Time ended on Saturday, so our dogs are a little confused. Arran got up at 3:40am, thinking it was an hour later, and he demanded his breakfast. And because Bill is a good guy, he gave in to Arran’s demands. I’m a little tired and out of sorts this morning.

Bill got a message from his younger daughter. I had sent her child a birthday gift, and it was delivered to the wrong apartment. There are a bunch of single guys in the apartment, and younger daughter went over in her church dress and knocked on the door. They ignored her. I guess they figured she was going to ask them to go to church, as they live in Mormon mecca. I hope she’ll leave them a note and tell them that the package they got (and for which we have a photo) contains a present for a child. She doesn’t care if they go to church. She just wants her package.

Bill sent her a link to my video of the song, “Bill”, which she had never heard before. She apparently loved it, probably because the video has tons of pictures in it of her dad. For so many years, she was denied contact with him, so she never got to see the warm, funny, and sweet side of him that makes me love him so much. She also had questions about how I made the video and others like it. And that just struck me as kind of sad, because she’s a young woman in her 20s, and she should be teaching ME about stuff like this. Unfortunately, she grew up very sheltered. She’s very bright, but her education is apparently not as good as it could have been. At least when it comes to basic computing skills. I was thinking that if Bill and I could have been involved with her life when she was growing up, we could have taught her some of these things, along with some other stuff. But that was too threatening for her mother to contemplate.

I’ll bet she’d love Ron Block’s music, even though he’s not LDS.

I’m glad she liked the song, especially since she has a music calling in church. She said that she listened to a couple of the other videos, including my version of “There Is A Reason”, a song written by Ron Block and made famous by Alison Krauss and Union Station. To date, I think it’s my most popular video. It even gets ads! She wonders how I made the video, having never been exposed to Garageband and iMovie, and she doesn’t know the songs, but likes them. If I had known her when she was growing up, imagine how much broader her experiences could have been. She might have made different choices.

That’s not to say I think she’s made bad choices, per se. She has a beautiful family and is completely on her own now. But I can see that she never learned things that most young people get exposed to when they’re growing up, because she was basically trained to be her mother’s minion instead of a person in her own right… with her own hopes, dreams, and desires to fulfill. She got away from her mother, anyway, thanks to people in the LDS church who helped her. But she never had the chance to get exposed to other things– other experiences and beliefs that she never considered. She’s been all over the United States, thanks to Ex’s love of road trips, but she’s never been to Europe or anywhere else outside of North America. If Bill had been in her life when she was growing up, she would have had those experiences. She might be living a completely different life– for better or worse.

Last week, I posted about how Ex has been hinting that maybe her marriage is not working so well lately. She had tweeted to actors on a certain TV show that their on screen relationship might literally save her marriage:

A screenshot from my last post about Ex… Something’s got her perturbed.

Today, after hearing younger daughter express amazement at my simple and quite amateur videos with music and pictures of her dad, I went looking to see what Ex might be up to… and this is what I found:

Note the wording… On the other hand, maybe she is learning to “love herself”, which may not be a bad thing, if she manages to do it in a non-narcissistic way. But experience has taught us that the kind of “loving herself” she’s writing of will probably be the toxic kind.

She’s “unlearned” that someone besides her kids would someday love her. If I take off the “un”, I get “I’ve learned that someone would someday love me.” What does that tell us? Apparently, #3 might have expressed in some way that he doesn’t love her. Add that to what she wrote a few days earlier, when she tweeted to actors about how their relationship could “literally save [her] marriage.” This doesn’t sound good. But then, from what I’ve seen, Ex isn’t very good at returning love. Love is supposed to be reciprocal. It’s hard to keep pouring love and positive regard into someone who is incapable of returning it. It’s like investing in a losing stock. After awhile, it seems crazy to keep sending good money after bad, and you move on to another investment, right? I don’t know what Ex’s relationship with #3 is, but if it’s anything like what it was with Bill, it’s probably very unfulfilling and frustrating for #3.

The irony is, I think I’m actually living the lifestyle that Ex wanted. I got it because I truly love Bill back, appreciate him, and want him in my life because I have regard for him. She just wants men in her life to use– to help her with the children, take orders from her, and support her lifestyle. And this is not necessarily the lifestyle I had planned for myself, because I had planned to have a career and kids of my own. Things didn’t work out that way.

Also… I have it on good authority that her kids don’t necessarily unconditionally love her, either. At least two of them moved across the country and don’t have much to say to her anymore. And this is because she was abusive to them, and denied them an upbringing that prepared them for adulthood. Both of those kids were plunged into adulthood in a baptism by fire, and both were assisted by other benevolent adults who cared more about them than she did. Like it or not, everyone grows up, and the vast majority of people, sooner or later, move out on their own. It’s up to parents to teach their kids how to function. It sounds as if she failed to do that, and the kids were left to figure things out for themselves.

But kids are resourceful. Ex introduced her children to the LDS church, and for years, it served as a parental alienation tool. My husband left the church; therefore, he wasn’t “good enough” to be their father anymore. She replaced him with #3, and demanded that they call him dad, whether or not they actually felt that connection. They were required to forget about Bill, who was the father of two of them, and had served as substitute dad to her oldest son, as his father was out of the picture even sooner than Bill was. Ex took photos of him away from them, wouldn’t let them talk to him on the phone, threw away his gifts to them, and told them lies. The end result was that at age 18, former stepson visited us with his girlfriend, now wife. For awhile, they had a connection, until Ex manipulated former stepson into trying to put one over on Bill by using him for money. We discovered what he was up to, and there was a falling out that, 13 years later, still hasn’t been rectified.

And then, younger daughter finally broke down the barrier. Her curiosity got the better of her, and at age 23 (in 2017), she finally talked to her father. She gradually found out that she was told many lies. Five years later, she is now being exposed to a lot of stuff that is probably blowing her mind. A lot of it is actually good stuff… but even the good stuff will probably eventually make her sad, because she’s going to realize that she was cheated and used. Her childhood was wasted being a support to her mother, instead of her mother helping her learn how to function as an adult, facilitating new experiences, and encouraging her to get a good education. Now, she’s a married mom of three, and while I know she loves being a mom and is a very good one, she might soon realize that these are the years she could have spread her wings and done something really exciting… and just for her.

I can tell that younger daughter is a very bright and capable young woman. I hope and expect that she will eventually get the chance to see the world and try new things when her children are older. I’m glad she loved the videos– the music and the photos of her dad. Maybe I can teach her some things, if she’ll let me.

As for Ex, I think if #3 is finally done with her, she totally deserves it. However, I worry that if he leaves her, she will end up in a crisis. #3 doesn’t have the resources Bill has. #3 is older than Bill was when he and Ex divorced, and he’s not in the best health. He can’t bounce back financially the way Bill did. Moreover, Ex’s youngest daughter is already an adult, and her youngest child is disabled and will likely never be on his own. Now, I don’t care if Ex is in a crisis, but I do worry about the vulnerable people in her sphere that she will try to exploit. She’s already shown us earlier this year that she’s capable of stooping pretty low, preying on Bill’s stepmother. I wouldn’t be surprised if she hit up Bill’s stepmother or other people in his family for money. So I hope Bill’s family is aware. But maybe this is much ado about nothing.

Anyway… I hope you all have a Happy Halloween. Maybe I’ll play my Halloween mix, since this is the one day of the year it would be most appropriate.

Edited to add: Got tossed in Facebook jail again today, for sharing the video of the claymation guy who says “You can look at my butt.” Apparently, Facebook deems that “sexually suggestive” and “nudity” content. It’s a fucking cartoon, and contains lovely sentiments of acceptance and kindness, even if it is kind of weird and creepy for some. Anyway, it’s too bad Facebook no longer employs human beings, and it’s even worse that they allow some of the most vile insults and rudeness, but a video starring a claymation type dude being kind, comforting, and positive gets me banned from posting in my groups. And because I run two groups, that makes Facebook less useful and functional for me. I think these ridiculous and draconian censorship policies are going to cause their demise sometime very soon. They’ll be the new MySpace.

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music, narcissists, Neighbors, politicians, politics, reviews, YouTube

Lauren Boebert’s family are allegedly not good neighbors… and more!

Happy Sunday, y’all. Once again– lots I could be writing about today, and this post will probably diverge a bit, because I’m not sure I can fill a proper post with stuff about the ever disappointing Lauren Boebert and her raucous clan in Colorado. However, I feel impressed to share the below video by MeidasTouch, which I discovered on YouTube this morning and… sorry, it’s really not funny for the hapless 911 caller, but I did laugh a lot. He made it sound like a scene from any reality TV show. Pure madness!

OMG… Lauren’s husband and sons sound like a bunch of total howler monkeys. I particularly cracked up when the first caller called Jayson Boebert a jackass and told him to get the fuck out of there.

Neighbors from hell are one of life’s biggest nightmares, even if you live in a detached house and don’t have to share walls. The folks in this recording sound like they are at the ends of their proverbial ropes. It makes me appreciate cold passive aggression I have experienced from certain neighbors… and landladies. I’ve said it before– it’s NOT a punishment to be shunned by an asshole. Too bad the Boeberts aren’t the type to deliver the silent treatment. What makes it worse is that they’re heavily armed with weapons, and apparently Jayson Boebert is threatening everyone. We know Lauren is a fan of guns, so anything can happen.

Here’s hoping the Boeberts get what is coming to them, as their orange turd hero, Trump, goes down in flames. Or… so I pray for, as the world finds out that Trump stole highly classified documents and apparently thinks the law doesn’t apply to him. It sounds to me like the Boeberts are cut from the same ignorant, entitled, TACKY cloth.

Moving on…

Yesterday, I watched Fundie Fridays’ most recent video, which was a repost after she was forced to take down an older version. Lawson Bates– a country singer and one of Gil Bates’ many children– hit Jen’s channel with copyright strikes, which she says threatened its very existence. But common sense prevailed, and Jen didn’t lose her channel. Better yet, she was able to repost the below video, which I have to say, made me die laughing… especially at the end when she spoofs a country song, complete with pink cowboy hat, toy horse, and fake guitar playing.

You have to watch the end of this. HILARIOUS. I love Jen’s uninhibited sense of fun and sharp witted humor.

In the above video, Jen talks a lot about the Bates family. Before Josh Duggar’s mighty fall from grace, the Bates were riding on the Duggar family’s coattails. They seemed poised to take over the realm, as Gil Bates comes across as somewhat more pleasant and friendly than Jim Bob does. But– I think Josh’s disgusting perversions and their long affiliations with the Duggars have made the Bates family somewhat more tarnished, so they have also lost their reality TV show(s). The Bates were actually on two networks– TLC and UpTV– and they had two shows, neither of which I ever watched. But I do remember them from the Duggars’ show, which I did watch for awhile, then got bored with, then watched again as the girls started “courting”.

Anyway, the Bates are only an aside to what I want to comment on next. In her video, Jen does a short snippet about purity culture and purity rings. Apparently, Gil presented one of his daughters with a purity ring and told her he wanted to wear it until she found herself a good Christ lovin’, Bible thumpin’, father obeying man to marry. As she was playing that clip, Jen played this schmaltzy sounding music, to which she sang along. She declared the song, which I later determined to be the 2015 song “Always Love You” by a singer-songwriter named Tyrone Wells, “disgusting”. I have to admit, the part she played was pretty cringeworthy. Below is the video, followed by the lyrics.

He has sort of a acoustic pop sound, with obviously Christian friendly lyrics.

In my eyes you’ll always be
Princess and the world to me
Wonderful than any twinkling star
I will guard your innocence
All I ask in recompense is that
You know the truth inside your father’s heart
I hope you remember
Don’t you dare forget
I will always love you
I will always love you

It’s just a simple truth
And what else could I do?
I will always love you

You will grow up way too fast
And leave me wishing for the past
Back when you were still a daddy’s girl
So I’ll hold onto the memories of
The little girl upon my knee that
Little girl that forever changed the world
I hope you remember
Don’t you dare forget
I will always love you
I will always love you

It’s just a simple truth
And what else could I do?
I will always love you

And when your heart breaks
My heart will break
When your dreams come true
My dreams do
It doesn’t matter what you’re going through
I will always love you
I will always love you
It’s just a simple truth
What else could I do?

I will always love you
Oh, I will always love you
Sometimes you will fly
Sometimes you will fall
And till the day I die
Daughter, through it all
I will always love you

I will always love you
I will always love you

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Tyrone Wells

The part Jen plays and sings to is this:

I will guard your innocence
All I ask in recompense is that
You know the truth inside your father’s heart

I agree, on the surface, it does sound gross– like the weird fundie father “purity ring” bullshit that gets pushed. But I listened to the whole song, and on the whole, I disagree that it’s “disgusting”. It has a nice melody, and Wells has a pleasant voice, even if it does sound like most of the other male pop singers out there today. Just as a quick aside– I really miss the days when we had more distinctive singers who didn’t sound so “perfect”. I don’t like autotune, and I hate that so many popular singers are indistinguishable from other singers, with so many electronic sleights of hand and wizardry to completely alter organic sound. But again, I don’t think “Always Love You” is a particularly gross or disgusting song. Just those three specific lines, when paired with video of a weepy Gil Bates giving his daughter a purity ring, are kind of yucky. I mean, I’m married to a man who has a huge, loving heart. No, he can’t sing, but I can see him expressing this kind of love to his daughters. Or, at least the one who speaks to him.

And finally, speaking of Ex…

Apparently, Ex is now an expert on what makes marriages work. I guess, when you’ve had three husbands, and your adoptive mother has been divorced seven times, you do get an education of sorts. I didn’t think this quip was enough to base a whole blog post on, but I did have a good chuckle at this comment she tweeted about married characters on her favorite TV show. Someone had asked if she thought a time traveling couple would have lasted in marriage. I don’t watch the show myself, so I have no idea… but Ex’s comment did make me pause for a guffaw.

I don’t, actually. Frank and Claire had different things driving them. Even if they had a good sex life, it would not have held their marriage together. It takes a deeper, truer love to make marriage work in the long term.

I dunno… from what I’ve heard, she and #3 don’t have a marriage like that. They HAVE been together for 20 years, but it’s probably because #3 knows Ex alienates her children from their fathers; he can’t afford to pay her child support; and she may have actually convinced him that he can’t do better. She almost convinced Bill of that, even though it’s preposterous! As for sex… it’s true that she is adventurous, but it comes at a huge price that can potentially leave literal scars. My guess is that nowadays, she’s too busy watching TV and fantasizing about celebrities to do much rational thinking. As we know, narcissists aren’t really capable of true love, so I think she may be speaking out of her ass again. I remain grateful to her, though, because by divorcing Bill, she gave me the chance to find a deep, true love. <3 And we’ve managed to have that, even without a “great sex life”.

Even if what she says is technically true, in her case, it’s pure book smarts. Because I am convinced that she’s never experienced deep, true love. She has experienced infatuation, lust, and maybe attachment related to narcissism, which switches on and off at the drop of a hat. But she doesn’t know love… and she doesn’t give love. She’s about possession and loyalty binds, and if a person dares think for themselves, they will be cast aside, ostracized, and smeared. Not very loving, is it.

So ends today’s post. Bill is bottling beer today. I feel better than I did yesterday, so maybe we’ll do something. Or maybe not. We’ll see.

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narcissists

The big, stinking, rotten onion…

This is another very personal and possibly distasteful rant. The title should give you a hint. If you don’t want to read negativity, you might want to move on to your next Internet station.

Onions have layers. When you cut into an onion, there are rings that easily peel off to a deeper layer. If the onion is good, you have a savory herb that can enhance the flavors in your favorite dishes. That is, of course, if you like onions. Not everyone does. Onions can also be rotten, though, and when they rot, they STINK to high heaven. They turn all mushy and moldy, and they make a big mess. Lately, I feel like there’s a big stinking, rotten onion in my life.

If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you might have noticed that I sometimes write about my husband’s ex wife. I write about her for a lot of reasons, but the main one is that writing about this stuff helps me process some of the layers of shit she creates by being such a toxic person. Every time I think I’ve discovered the grossest and rottenest layer of yuck when it comes to her, another layer appears. Such is the case right now.

I’ve been married to Bill for almost 20 years. I have never met his ex wife in person. And yet, I feel like I constantly uncover layers of stinking rot from his first marriage. Now… it’s okay that there’s rot, because Bill is worth it. He’s the ripest peach in the bushel. But I am continually shocked by the stench of rotten that comes from his ex wife. We know about it because Bill finally has contact with one of his two daughters, both of whom were estranged from him for many years.

I remember being frequently outraged by Ex’s antics back in the early 00s. I was furious at her sense of entitlement, the totally cruel and disrespectful way she treated Bill, and the assumption that I would be dancing to her tune. This is a woman who expects people to treat her with kid gloves, because if they don’t, she’ll make them pay dearly. She has a very twisted way of taking any confrontation someone directs at her, and turning it into some kind of sick punishment. Her punishments always cause collateral damage.

In 2006, Ex sent Bill adoption papers, demanding that he give up his parental rights so that his daughters could be adopted by their current stepfather (Ex’s third husband). She got their daughters to send him hateful letters disowning them. They arrived just in time for Bill’s birthday. Bill refused to give the girls up, but when they turned 18, Ex got them to legally change their surnames to their stepfather’s last name. Younger daughter later confessed that the letters were dictated and forced, and she had finally succumbed to extreme pressure to change her name. She went along with it, knowing that she would be getting married and changing her name, anyway.

In 2009, I accidentally discovered that Bill’s ex stepson, who had been using Bill’s last name, was going to change his name to what it was originally. Bill never heard about these plans, even though he was paying the then 21 year old $850 in child support. Ex had apparently talked him into reclaiming his original last name, because we pointed out to her that she has a habit of denying the fathers of her children access to their dads. Her response was to reunite former stepson with his father, who hadn’t spoken to him in many years, and never paid child support beyond the boy’s early childhood years.

She had expected Bill to be very angry and hurt. But Bill felt that his former stepson should never have been distanced from his father. I felt that his father should have been paying child support, instead of Bill… but Bill made more money than “dad” did. In any case, when Bill wasn’t upset at the reunification, a further step was taken, and former stepson filed paperwork to change his last name. And that was fine… except he never said a word about it to Bill, and he kept demanding money from him.

Again, I think Ex was expecting Bill to be very hurt… and he was. But instead of begging for a relationship with former stepson, Bill told him that this decision meant he was an adult, and no longer needed Bill’s “child support”. He stopped paying him, and sure enough, that meant the end of their relationship. I was very angry with former stepson. I felt this action was very telling about his character. It was a pretty terrible time of “onion rot”.

A few years later, Bill was having some medical issues that required seeing a urologist. The doctor noticed signs of abuse in an intimate area and asked him about it. Bill let me know that his former wife had sexually assaulted him in a way that, had he been a woman and reported it, she absolutely would have been arrested and gone to jail. I was devastated by that revelation. It was probably the worst and stinkiest of the onion rot. It took a long time to process it and stop being outraged. It had taken him fifteen years to tell me, and I was absolutely livid when he told me about it. I wanted to kill her. I didn’t think it could get worse.

And now… dear friends, we have discovered another deep layer of rot in Ex’s stinking onion. I don’t want to get too far into specific and sensitive details, except that it involves another sexual violation, and Ex’s completely inappropriate response to it that focuses only on her, and not on the actual victims. Years later, when it seemed like the outrage over the violation had passed, she randomly brought it up again… probably to keep the people involved in line, and shame them into doing her bidding. Of course, Bill was never told about any of this. He wasn’t able to help, because she wouldn’t include him. She probably figured I would call CPS. I sure the fuck wish I had. It was absolutely warranted. But sadly, I didn’t, because I didn’t know. I only had suspicions of what might be happening.

Ex is the kind of person who makes other people work for her, especially her children. We already knew that she basically used her eldest children as indentured servants of sorts, as well as sources of college loan money, which she makes them repay. Meanwhile, any time her money was needed to pay for something her children needed or wanted, she would either use it as a carrot on a stick, or she would complain about having to spend the money. We’re talking about things like equipment to correct medical problems. Younger daughter once told us that she had to use her birthday money to buy diapers for her little sister, because her mother didn’t have any money to buy them. This, even though Bill was sending her $2550 a month, which was a significant portion of his income at the time.

We discovered the other day that Ex also used one of her daughters to fix her relationship with #3. One time, #3 had a fight with Ex, and he decided he’d had enough of her abuse. He packed a bag and called a friend to come get him. One of the children was very upset about the fight. Ex asked her what she thought she ought to do. The child begged her to give #3 another chance. Ex told her to go out and beg her stepfather not to go. The funny thing is, the kid is not on good terms with #3 now.

Ex also had a bad habit of berating her children when they didn’t know things. She’d tell them to go figure it out for themselves. Younger daughter learned to become very self-sufficient, resourceful, and resilient. But when she turned 18 and decided to go her own way, Ex’s response was to become pathetic and “attempt” suicide. More onion rot. That must have been very confusing, given how Ex treated her children like they were impositions to her. They were obviously useful to her, though. She didn’t want them, yet she did. They can be used, as long as they stay under her power and don’t make any waves.

It’s tragic that this woman is a mother of five, and they have to live with the fact that whenever something bad happens, as they always do in anyone’s life experiences, she’s going to weaponize it. These children have grown up with a mother they can’t count on or trust. She uses them for her own means, and employs shame to keep them in line. The only cure is to cut her out of their lives, as they might a rotten onion. But she’s their mother… and that’s hard to do.

Good people who are close to her invariably feel responsible for the fact that she does what she does. She’s surrounded by hyper-responsible people who have been conditioned to take care of her endless wants and needs. Meanwhile, she hangs out on Twitter, and acts like she’s the biggest fucking humanitarian in the world. See these recent tweets:

I dare say my week will be filled with physical therapy & Gardening in my flower beds, this takes a lot of time and patience to create new beds. Re-watching @MenInKiltsSTARZ … because anything that takes me to my homeland is a treasured moment. (Scotland is NOT your homeland, Ex.)

The teen years are difficult. It does get better… but by then you must learn to let them fly on their own and your heart will cry with sadness, joy, and pride! (Please. She doesn’t let her children “fly”. Older daughter is 31 and still lives with her.)

…the only place I’ve found where I can get a signed copy of your book won’t ship to the USA. I’m of Highlander descent myself (Frasers du Lovat) and I await your journey there with great anticipation. Could you (or anyone) PLEASE help me get a signed copy? (What about that fence for your son, Ex?)

I think Ex uses Twitter to get supply, because the people who respond to her are strangers. They can only judge her by what they see. It’s a very superficial connection, and most of the people don’t confront her with the truth about what a reprehensible person she is.

Lately, I’ve been watching H.G. Tudor’s interpretation of Tom Bower’s brand new book, Revenge, which is mostly about Meghan Markle. H.G. Tudor claims to be a narcissistic sociopath. I’m not sure if he is or not, as being a narcissistic sociopath would not make him the best narrator about facts. I will state, however, that I’ve found his analysis of Markle is very interesting and astute. I’ve heard a lot that reminds me of Ex’s behaviors, especially when he speaks of Markle attributing other people’s interests, characteristics, and abilities. There is no doubt in my mind that my husband’s former wife is a textbook narcissist. It’s like she follows the playbook.

I love Bill with all my heart, so I will certainly stay with him, in spite of the rotting onion. He’s the very best kind of person, and worth all of the stench that comes from his time with his former wife. I don’t know how it is that people like Ex are able to find the best people. I will keep writing about her, because people like her thrive on people who don’t want to expose the rot. I made it clear early on, that I don’t dance to her tune, and I’m not going to keep her secrets.

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communication, family, narcissists, psychology

“Don’t lose touch with the important people in your life…”

Good morning, everybody. I had quite an interesting dream in the wee hours of the morning, just after Arran woke us up to be fed, at about 4:00 AM. Somehow, I managed to get back to sleep, and I soon found myself in a weird place in Asia, with Bill. I dreamt that we both got COVID, but it wasn’t a very bad case. We were over it quickly, and soon entering a familiar building, as in I felt like I’d been there before, or seen it before. It was deja vu in a dream. I don’t remember much else, except that I do know that the actor/musician/Facebooker Robbie Rist was also in the dream. He had bought a portable storefront building, which he’d had delivered to Key West, Florida. This is some random stuff, I know. I’m not sure where it came from. Maybe it was the tequila I drank last night.

It’s Thursday, which means I have to vacuum. I did some furniture rearranging yesterday, too. I moved our new wine/riddling rack into our dining room, and rolled away a kitchen cart that had served a purpose in our previous house. It’s now sitting in our foyer, next to another kitchen cart I bought for that house. In the old house, the two carts fit. In this house, they don’t fit so well and look out of place, although we do need the cabinet space and drawers they offer. We don’t have enough dedicated storage space in this house. German homes don’t usually have closets, which is a real pain.

I’ve always hoped to have my own house that I might make my own somehow, but we’ve moved so many times over the past twenty years, that it’s really hard to arrange that. So I have a hodgepodge of stuff, some of which has been in storage in Texas since 2014 and is probably in bad shape, thanks to the intensity of Texas heat. The storage facility is supposed to be temperature controlled, but that might not mean anything in a state with the power grid Texas has.

Somehow, I always figured I’d be living differently than I do, with connections to people and maybe a connection to one or two places. But I finally got the military nomadic lifestyle I missed out on by being born so late in my dad’s Air Force career. It’s not always a bad thing. It gives me a chance to see a lot. Like, for instance, sketchy tweets by a certain ex…

This week, I noticed that Ex posted a tweet with some surface wisdom in it. Part of it serves as today’s post title. She was having an exchange on Twitter with someone… I don’t know if this is a person she knows offline. Knowing her, it’s probably a stranger to whom she’s ingratiated herself. It looks like they have a love of a certain television show as their common thread. The person Ex was tweeting to is not a native English speaker, and a couple of weeks ago, she wrote that she had just said goodbye to someone. Ex had responded at the time, writing that her “best friend” had died a year ago, and she “[doesn’t] yet know how to live without her”.

Then she added another comment that gave me pause: “Be brave; everything will be ok. If you are more than friends… chase him down and pounce on him like a Tigger, though!!!!”

Yikes… for one thing, I cringe at the name, Tigger. You see, I once had a college roommate who went by that nickname. She was extremely loud, dramatic, and obnoxious– even worse than I am. She had super long, thick hair, and she used to swing it back and forth everywhere, dropping long strands of hair all over our dorm room. She was very much an attention seeker who was kind of fake. She also wasn’t much for showering, for some reason. Mary Beth, if you’re reading this, you know exactly of whom I write.

My ex roommate, Tigger, and I didn’t get along, and I’m sorry to say that my experience with her left me a bit traumatized, to the point of being kind of put off by a different woman I met a few years later who really reminded me of her. I wasn’t very nice to Tigger, or the other woman who reminded me of her. I did eventually apologize to the other woman… which was a shock to her. I genuinely felt badly about my annoyance, since it really wasn’t her fault that she bore such a strong resemblance to my ex roommate. And yet, I was also left legitimately scarred by my living experience with Tigger in college. In fairness, I probably traumatized Tigger, too. We just didn’t mesh at all. I do try to do better now. I don’t spend much time with people anymore. Anyway, that has nothing to do with Ex, except that it’s kind of strange that Ex would use that character– Tigger– to advise her online friend… It’s very cringey.

Oh my GOD. I’m more like Eeyore, myself. That’s probably why “Tigger” and I didn’t mesh.

For another thing, Ex kind of did what she advises her “friend” to do. She tracked down Bill in the late 80s, after her first husband ran into him on a military flight from Germany to the States. Ex, #1, and Bill all went to high school together, so they knew each other before the Army. When #1 told Ex that he’d run into Bill, she found out where he was in Germany and showed up on his doorstep with ex stepson, who was a toddler at the time.

Ex gave Bill the rush– pouncing on him, and taking advantage of his kind nature, inexperience with women, and vulnerability. She bowled him over with positive regard, attention, and manic energy. Next, she convinced Bill that #1 was an abusive asshole. Bill believed her, and decided to become a “white knight”. It didn’t occur to him, back then, that one day, she’d falsely tell #3 that Bill had abused her, too. We’re still dealing with the aftermath of Ex’s decision to chase down Bill and “pounce” on him like Tigger. (eeeew)

Anyway, Ex’s online friend thanked her, then praised her for being “so sweet”. Then she offered Ex her friendship, since Ex’s bestie had died, adding that her friend who had said goodbye was more like a brother to her. He left to make a better life for himself, so she accepted that he needed to do for himself.

It took Ex over two weeks to respond to her new online “friend”. But, when she finally did, this is what she wrote:

I understand that… you can still stay in touch! Don’t lose contact with the important people in your life, even if you only talk to them once in a #StrawberryMoon.

This advice doesn’t seem unreasonable. But then I ponder what Ex has actually done in her life. She’s divorced two men, having falsely accused both of them of horrific abuse. She’s forced her children to change their surnames and denied them access to their natural fathers. Two of her children have moved far away from her and actively avoid talking to her. One of her children doesn’t even call her “mom” in front of her kids, because she doesn’t want her mother to influence her children. And, based on Ex’s Twitter handle, it looks like she doesn’t even know that her latest grandchild has been born.

Once again, I caveat that, technically, none of this is any of my business, and I probably shouldn’t be looking at this stuff… Except I do, because Ex really doesn’t lose contact with “the important people” in her life. And by that, I mean she stays in contact with the families of her exes, even if she doesn’t talk to the exes themselves. However, when she “hoovers”, it’s not because she genuinely wants to be friends or family. It’s because she wants or “needs” something. Because I pay attention to what she does, I often catch her doing stuff she shouldn’t be doing, especially to people in Bill’s family.

For instance, Ex got in touch with #1’s family in 2009, when she decided to get ex stepson back in touch with his “abusive” father. She did that, not for generous or altruistic reasons, but to get back at Bill for allowing me to write her an email that gave her a severe narcissistic injury. In that email, I pointed out that she regularly emotionally abuses her children by forcing them to divorce their fathers. So, she retaliated by talking ex stepson into secretly changing his last name to what it was originally, and getting him in touch with his “real” dad, who never paid child support after Bill “replaced” him. Ex stepson was found out, and that resulted in his losing out on most of the last year of “child support” (for a 21 year old), and destroying the relationship with Bill. Actually, that was his choice. Bill would happily talk to his ex stepson anytime. Also, I suspect that the relationship would have been ruined, anyway, since it appears that ex stepson was only interested in money.

More recently, she got back in touch with Bill’s bereaved stepmother, showing up at her house with Bill’s long lost older daughter in tow, as well as her daughter with #3. She wasn’t there just to visit, though. She was there because she wanted money and “stuff”, even going as far as giving SMIL packaging materials so she could box up things to send to Ex– “to pass down” (or sell on eBay). Ex doesn’t have any shame, and she never forgets a previous source of supply. So she always shows up again, somehow. I feel pretty certain that if I were to divorce Bill or die, she would try to make nice with him. She is very practiced at trying to get back into people’s good graces, even when she’s practically blown up proverbial bridges with dynamite!

I know I shouldn’t be surprised that Ex knows what the “right” thing to say or write is. She’s always willing to “make amends”. It sounds wise not to lose touch with the “important” people in one’s life. And her two ex husbands, no doubt, were important people in her life, so she doesn’t lose touch… even if she doesn’t actually speak to them. Like most narcissists, she uses other people to do the dirty work. She stayed in touch with people in #1’s family and used him to hurt Bill when he dared to defy her orders. And she’s stayed in contact with Bill’s stepmother, so she can keep tabs on Bill and exploit her for money, material goods, and narcissistic supply. You can bet it will happen again, as long as these folks allow her any contact.

I could ignore her, like I did for years… but either way, she really won’t be ignored. As long as younger daughter is talking to Bill, she will be around… So like it or not, we will have to stay vigilant. Kind of like June in The Handmaid’s Tale.

“You will never be free of me.”
“You don’t deserve to make amends to anyone.”

But she also stays in touch with celebrities… and she has no shame about asking them for stuff, too…

…could you please share with anyone you think might be interested in helping us. Our next expenditure will be a service puppy’s training. I found a place to get a puppy (I hope), but need to pay $12k for the training! Och aye!!!! Our needs are great & friends few.

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Can you help Autistic wanderer NEEDS fence on the Generosity Network? Every little bit helps!

and

Congratulations on this honor! Coach Sam, could you please, please, please, recommend a point of contact at the conservatory for my daughter who wants to do a study abroad in acting and learning to do more types of voices?

and

Puppy breath is the BEST!!! I cannot wait until we can afford to get a service puppy for my autistic son!!! I know it will be life changing. I just know it!

I really hope she doesn’t get a puppy. I know what happens to living beings who are under her care. They all end up abused and eventually discarded… then hoovered. Fortunately, I also know that most of her big ideas are either overcome by events, or usurped by other shiny passions and whims. That gives me some comfort about the puppy, but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s sketchy as hell. When she tries to “stay in touch” or “make amends”, it’s never for friendship or familial love. It’s because people are tools for her agenda. It’s a chilling thought, isn’t it? Makes me cringe.

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