Tag Archives: white knight

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.

and

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.

Standard
narcissists, YouTube

How to effectively handle the “creators of misery” in the world…

This morning, I was watching Les Carter’s most recent video, and I had a flash of insight. Les Carter, for those who don’t know, is a psychologist in Texas who makes excellent videos about narcissists. And in the video I posted below, he describes narcissists as “creators of misery”. He says upfront that narcissists are not healthy people, and they don’t function on a rational plane. And unfortunately, narcissists “create misery” with maddening efficiency. They don’t seem to care at all about how awful they are. I think the worst thing about narcissists is that their behavior can be contagious. They infect people with their miserable behavior, and that makes people want to react in kind. Pretty soon, non-narcissistic people find themselves being dragged down to the narcissist’s level.

Once again, Les Carter shares wise counsel to those of us who are confronted by “creators of misery”…

Dr. Carter rationally explains why it’s best not to try to get “revenge” on the narcissist. They don’t care about your misery, and if you treat them the way they treat you, they’ll just ratchet up their usual tactics and continue to smear you. The best thing to do is to go “no contact”, or if that’s not possible, “grey rock” them– that is, be totally bland and boring, like a rock. It doesn’t seem fair to have to do that, though. I know that I, for one, don’t have the personality of a “grey rock”. It’s really hard for me to act like one.

Fortunately, the narcissist in my life doesn’t affect me personally. Instead, Ex visits her misery on people Bill and I care about. We are legitimately worried about people in Bill’s family who may fall prey to Ex and her usual grifting tactics. She’s grifting for money, sure, but she’s also looking for supply. It would be bad enough if she was just after money, but she also spreads misery and toxicity when she comes around. She causes pain. So this time, something does need to be done, rather than just ignoring her. But how can we effectively handle the “creator of misery” that is Ex?

I’ve mentioned more than once that my husband is a bit of a “white knight”. He tends to take responsibility for things that aren’t his responsibility. He tries to save people who don’t appreciate or deserve his efforts to save them. When he was married to Ex, he got dragged down to her level, not in terms of behaving like her, but in terms of enabling her toxicity. When she decided she wanted to conduct “ye olde surprise visit”, he went along with it. When she demanded that he allow her to handle the bills and manage the money, he let her do it, even though she created a huge financial hole that took him years to recover from. When she alienated the children and tried to sever his ties with his family of origin, he protested only slightly more. He didn’t avail himself of the law, or document her abuse. He simply sucked it up and drove on, which left her free to continue her misery creating fuckery with other innocent people.

While I can see that stooping to the narcissist’s level is ineffective and pointless, I do think there’s a difference between getting even with someone and holding them accountable when they do harm. Ex has done a LOT of harm over the years, not just to Bill, but to people connected to him. In fact, I have mentioned before that some of the things she does have “ripple effects”. I even wrote a blog post about that– calling it “Ripple eff-Ex” (see what I did there?). I don’t think I reposted the original blog post, but I did write a sequel. Since today is a light chore day, I think I’ll repost the original incarnation of that post. I think it was a pretty juicy one.

Les Carter’s video is the second one I’ve seen this week about how it’s important not to try to “get revenge” on a narcissist. The video directly below was done about a month ago by Jess Stanley, who has a great channel that is based on her experiences dating a narcissist. Jess reminded her viewers that narcissists don’t care about your feelings, and they don’t “learn lessons” when you try to “show them”. Really, all trying to get revenge does is bring you down to their level and give them narcissistic supply/attention. Always remember that attention– good or bad– is what the narcissist needs for survival.

To a narcissist, you are just a list of goods and services. No form of revenge is effective against a narcissist.

Basically, Jess says that in order to hurt a narcissist, you have to just go on with your life. And even that isn’t going to hurt them much, because they can always find someone to replace whatever you brought to them. And she’s right about that… however, I don’t think that should mean not holding them accountable when they do things that are illegal or egregiously outside the boundaries of morality.

I think there’s a big difference between holding someone accountable and exacting revenge. There’s a difference between aggressively fighting against someone or something, trying to “smear” them the way they smeared you, and being assertive and setting boundaries. We think it’s time Ex left Bill’s family alone. She has her own family, as well as her own in-laws. She should focus on them. And while Bill’s older daughter does have a legitimate claim to Bill’s family, she’s only a family member because of Bill.

Of course, just because we have these feelings, that doesn’t mean other people agree with us. And as they are supposedly competent adults, there’s nothing we can do to force Ex to leave them alone, or stop them from talking. The only thing we can control about this situation is how we react to it. So what do we do?

I’m not going to be specific about what our plans are, because I’m not stupid. I know Ex has stalked me online, and she probably still looks in. That’s kind of why I’m unabashedly writing about her now. I hope she reads this and gets super upset and …miserable. But we do have a plan, and what I’ll say about it is that the plan involves making Bill feel better about himself. He does have an action planned, but it’s not meant to hurt Ex or even protect anyone against Ex’s shenanigans. Ultimately, we accept that whatever happens will depend on what the other adults decide to do. We will simply do what we can to avoid the fallout and the guilt associated with her continual attacks.

Like I said… she’s like a bad case of herpes. Just like herpes, she pops up whenever she senses weakness in the immune system. In this case, it’s Bill’s dad’s death, the COVID nightmare, and perhaps feeling isolated and lonely for reasons other than the pandemic. Ex obviously smelled blood and came running.

Elton John has a really good song about this… Given Ex’s love of movies, I think the lyrics are especially appropriate.

“Keep your auditions for somebody who hasn’t got so much to lose…”

Lyrics

I can see by your eyes you must be lying
When you think I don’t have a clue
Baby, you’re crazy
If you think that you can fool me
Because I’ve seen that movie too

The one where the players are acting surprised
Saying love’s just a four letter word
Between forcing smiles, with the knives in their eyes
Well their actions become so absurd

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

It’s a habit I have, I don’t get pushed around
Stop twinkling your star like you do
I’m not the blueprint
For all of your B films
Because I’ve seen that movie too

The one where the players are acting surprised
Saying love’s just a four letter word
Between forcing smiles, with the knives in their eyes
Well their actions become so absurd

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

Standard
Uncategorized

Love bombing 101… lather, rinse, repeat…

Happy April Fool’s Day, y’all… In honor of the day, I’m about to write about a real fool. I know some people won’t understand why I’m writing this. Some might even think I’m a terrible person for writing this. I don’t care. I’m going to write it anyway, because I feel like I’m watching a train wreck in progress, and I need to process it.

Some readers might know the backstory, which is easily found here on this blog. Other people don’t know the backstory, and maybe they don’t care. As my friend Weird Wilbur says, “that’s very fine.” And some clueless people might want to tell me this is none of my business. And, in fact, they would be right. It isn’t my business, really… other than the effect it has on people in my husband’s family and, to a lesser extent, my husband himself.

For those who need a backstory primer, click here and here. Really, this is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the history of this sad tale of woe. It’s just the most recent, heartbreaking chapter of a very long, dramatic, poorly written novel of toxic, narcissistic abuse. This story began in the early 1980s and it continues to this day.

So anyway, about a month ago, I wrote a post called “The seaglasshole is at it again”. In that post, I noted that my husband’s ex wife had started a crowdfund. Below are some screenshots. You can easily see how the crowdfunding effort went.

Ex donated $500 to her own campaign.

You can see that no one, besides Ex, contributed any money to her fence building campaign. Ex also had a birthday last month, and it came to our attention that she, my husband’s estranged older daughter, and her daughter with #3 (her current husband) all took a trip down to Tennessee to see my husband’s stepmother. Ex lives in New Hampshire, and gas prices are at an all time high. I suppose it’s possible that she and the girls took a flight, but knowing Ex, I’m guessing they took a road trip. I find that to be an interesting decision on many levels. She needs $5500 for a fence, but she has enough money to donate $500 to her own campaign, and she has the money to go to Tennessee, along with two of her daughters. Either way, it’s telling. Obviously, she didn’t need the money that badly.

I noticed that after her “visit” with my husband’s stepmother, Ex quietly removed the link to her crowdfunding campaign from her very public social media accounts. I have a feeling she did that because she talked my husband’s bereaved stepmother, whose beloved husband died in November 2020, into giving her some money. And you know… I don’t think that is a wise decision on SMIL’s part, especially since SMIL has, on more than one occasion, told us sad stories about how she’s given Ex money or gifts that were never appreciated. But I don’t know what SMIL’s situation is right now. I suspect she’s lonely and needs attention. And Ex is all too happy to give it to her in the form of a love bomb.

Well… last night, Bill took a look at Facebook, which he doesn’t do very often, because he can’t seem to log into it on his iPad. He’s only able to see Facebook on his phone. He noticed that his SM had unfriended him. And then I found the below tweets on Ex’s public Twitter account.

Oh Ex… how low have you sunk this time?

Notice the very first tweet. She refers to her “mum”, who is 71 and just crossed an item off her bucket list. SMIL, who is 71 years old, just went to California, where I suspect she saw the Golden Gate Bridge. The photo Ex was reacting to was of the Golden Gate Bridge. Also… Ex is 55 years old, and we know that her adoptive mother is dead, and her bio mom was a married woman who had an affair. So, I can assume that Ex is now claiming Bill’s very Italian stepmother as her “mum” (Ex fancies herself a Scot).

Now… I don’t actually give a shit if Ex and SMIL have become “chums”. I can’t control who SMIL invites into her home, and she’s supposedly a functioning adult. She does have an adopted daughter who is a very good person, though, and I am worried that Ex will do her best to take advantage of SMIL. And then, SMIL could potentially end up in a situation that might make her a burden to other people.

Think this is a far fetched theory? Consider that Ex compelled Bill’s daughters to drop out of school when they were teenagers and get G.E.Ds. Then she got them to enroll in college and take out massive student loans, which she then proceeded to skim money from. My husband’s younger daughter has only just recently managed to pay off the debt, and she does NOT have a degree to show for it. Older daughter, we’re told, went to a very expensive private school, but she’s 30 years old, still lives with her mother, and takes care of her brother… the one Ex claims they need to erect a fence for. We’ve also heard that #3’s mom also lives with Ex and probably serves in an “Aunt Edna” capacity (reference National Lampoon’s Vacation). Maybe she looked after the boy while Ex and her adult daughters were visiting Bill’s stepmother.

My husband’s former wife has a very long history of being a parasite. She uses people for money and narcissistic supply, and anyone who figures out who she is and what she does gets cast out. But she never completely lets go of anyone. She’s still engaging with Bill’s family, even though she’s made false accusations about Bill, and they have been divorced for 22 years. I think if I weren’t around, she’d try to engage with Bill. Again, she never totally burns bridges.

Ex kept in contact with her first ex husband’s family, too. She used them to try to hurt Bill in 2009, when we busted her then 21 year old son trying to change his last name in secret, as he was also being paid child support by Bill. Bill never legally adopted his former stepson, but Ex somehow changed his name to Bill’s and convinced Bill to pay child support for him. She alienated her son from his bio dad and he didn’t pay child support for his son; that was up to Bill, who legally, was never more than his stepdad and, at this point, is now just an acquaintance. Bill loved that boy as his own and didn’t mind paying support for him. But he did feel that since he was paying support and the lad was calling him “Dad”, he should have been informed of his decision to reclaim his original last name.

SMIL knows all about this. She knows that Ex is capable of incredibly low depths. Apparently, she doesn’t care. Either that, or she has dementia. I don’t think she has dementia, though. I think she’s feeling angry and abandoned, and engaging with Ex is her self-destructive way of lashing out at her family– Bill and, perhaps, her daughter, who I know has recently connected with her bio mom. But, I’m afraid she’s only hurting herself, and perhaps her daughter.

Now, there’s really nothing we can do about SMIL’s decision to be Ex’s “flying monkey”/ally. That’s her decision, and her business. My only concern is that SMIL is going to wind up burdening innocent people.

I don’t like to see people being victimized and manipulated… and I have seen the abuse cycle enough times to know what’s going on here. If things go as usual, eventually SMIL and Ex will have a falling out. She will be discarded AGAIN, and her family will be left to pick up the pieces in the wake of Ex’s latest campaign. You can bet on it.

I’ve seen this before. Photo is public domain.

It’s at times like these that I’m so glad we live on another continent. But, I have to give props to Bill, who has told me that this time, he is disinclined to be a “white knight”. He won’t be climbing up on his figurative horse, riding in, and saving the day this time. This time, he’s going to detach. So I hope SMIL knows what she’s doing. And I hope her daughter does what she can to protect herself from the fallout from Hurricane Sabrina.

I am watching an old episode of Dr. Phil this morning. I don’t really like Dr. Phil per se, but I do think this episode is an interesting one, mainly because the dynamic between the guests is somewhat like what we’ve dealt with. Bill was never in arrears with his child support obligations, though. In fact, he went above and beyond. And Ex is still trying to exploit his resources by glomming on to his family. Shame on her.

I relate to the guy in this story. To Bill’s credit, he never went as far as this guy has. But his anger is understandable.
When will the next phase in the cycle of abuse begin…

Standard