Peter Pan

"Peter" isn't his real name; it's an alias, should this blog ever end up in the wrong hands, however I find it apt that my Dad refers to him as "Peter Pan." Although my Dad also is a bit of a hypocrit considering his own history of fathering. 

But, I can't help but agree with my Dad, Peter really is the boy who never grew up.

The man who can not separate himself from his family of origin, who feels personal insult when their hurtful, toxic behaviour is flagged up. I imagine I'd have felt the same way up until my late teens, should someone have flagged up my own parents' crappy behaviour. But as adults, we are supposed to evolve, see things at a distance; detach. Acknowledge short comings. Peter can't do it. He's so personally insulted by any form of criticism towards any of his FOO. He is emotionally enmeshed.

This is a man who calls his Dad, not for advice on what to spend his money on, but instruction. A man who could not erect boundaries around his mother's interferences in our finances- "she means well," too frightened to tell her no. Scrambling for excuses. Allowing her to reek havoc over his new family, the young mother of his child. Too scared to speak up.

Interesting that any well meaning intentions I have are lost on him because he doesn't have the same innate loyalty to me. And this is the problem, his loyalty to the FOO is innate, like a child's loyalty to their parents before they've developed a wider view of the world. 

I kicked Peter out, he moved in with his parents in November and I have asked for us to work through our issues atleast twice now with a view to him coming home. He says "ok" but isn't doing any work at all. He tells me that he feels he could continue living with his parents indefinitely should he need to, being a part-time Disney Dad to our own kids, but I shouldn't confuse that with the idea that he may be finding life easier... because it's hard for him apparently!! Whilst his parents have in no way supported us to stay together, only driven wedges between us, they have happily supported him to leave his family and live with them. His mother irons his work shirts, he uses his Dad's boot polish to clean his work shoes, he lives there rent free, he keeps his racing car in their garage and he can potter around with engines to his heart's desire. He can go running along the bridle path which runs alongside their house whenever he wishes, sit in their palatial garden in the sunshine and not have to worry about any emerging weeds or overgrown lawns. He doesn't have to battle dressing little children, teeth brushing, meal times, reading, spellings on a daily basis. He is able to revert back to his teenage self and his parents enable it happily. 

 He's happier now that he can dip in and out of responsibility and enjoy the fun of parenting, without the daily stress, worry or demand. His defence is "well you kicked me out," similar to how a child might respond. He takes zero responsibility and throws all blame at my door. His vibe has changed, he's free, lighter, more energetic and a much better Dad at a distance than a fully invested one. My Life Coach compared him to a helpful grandparent "at best" during our last appointment. 

I often wonder if he lies awake at night thinking of our children tucked up in their beds with him unable to protect them at night, then I remind myself, probably not. 

He tries to justify his negative feelings towards things I've said and done by quoting his friends a lot, " even two of my friends are shocked that you said X." A bit like a child might say to a friend on the school playground "I told my mummy what you said and she thinks you're mean!" He values male opinion above mine always. He has an innate arrogance and mysoginy as he tries to blindly fit in with anyone he perceives as popular or of a higher social status. Challenging the status quo would always be beneath him, because he strives only to fit in.

I see him doing the "pick me" dance in an effort to be liked and selected by his group of friends. Mr agreeable. Him apologising profusely to strangers for merely taking up space in shops and in busy places, desperate to be liked by anyone. 

The sulking and silent treatment he would give me for robbing him of his fun should I have inconvenienced him by falling ill, preventing him from hobbying in return for childcare. The way he used to whisper the word "sex" as if he'd said something naughty. His ongoing virginity until the age of 32. Sex for him is observing other people do it, as if he hadn't matured enough to partake in adult enjoyment. 

A child in a man's body. 

He did a good job at pretending though, I even remember a mutual colleague once saying to me "I wish my husband was as manly as Peter, at times he acts like a child, Peter is so much more mature."

Peter was not more mature than her husband, he was less so. Peter has fooled people into thinking he's a mature handy man because he can fix physical objects, we seem to think that only mature men fix stuff (how bizarre) but emotionally, Peter is a child. Incapacitated by something, whether it be ASD, trauma or covert narcissism, there is a "disconnection" as a relationship counsellor once described to us, that I'm not sure can ever be fixed. 

I can see that part of Peter wants to return home to us, but I watch him now enjoying his freedom and I know he wouldn't ever come back before he's had the opportunity to enjoy a free summer. A summer holiday free of parenting, free of expectation, free of unnecessary, unwanted intimate connection. A summer full of hobbies, nights out with friends and the odd day of playing Disney Dad to his beautiful children who deserve so much more. And a summer free of a demanding Me, a committed, sensual, warm, loving woman, who I'm slowly realising, deserves much more than a lousy Peter Pan character of a man. 

From Special Interest to Sinister Interest

Peter and I attended relationship counselling this week, which was awful. 

I tried explaining how I felt Peter had allowed his family to contribute to the demise of our relationship through interferences, calculative behaviour and through their endeavour to cause me continued discomfort. Peter mocked, scorned and belittled all my feelings and experiences, refusing to see any issues in anyone's behaviour other than mine.

It has been very clear that his mother has discarded me in the last 2 years as she has repeatedly blanked me; brought individual meals for Peter and nothing for myself and the children and rudely refused to listen to anything I had to say. Interestingly, she continued to boast about herself endlessly and tell me how "inspirational" she is, creating the impression that I ought to think she is too. Happy to speak to me only if the topic of conversation was about her perceived achievements. She is a classic narcissist, ticking every single box. 

This blanking behaviour followed several years of intense interferences and interests in myself and my own family of origin. She was particularly interested in my parents' property following their divorce and in their division of finances. 

In the beginning of our relationship she was obsessed in our finances, even rearranging our mortgage appointment without our permission to a day that she could attend also! I was furious. She wanted to control the way our first child was raised and Peter wanted to allow it as if he felt some strange obligation to her. He never once questioned her behaviour.  She would regularly suggest I tie my hair up, complain about me waking the baby for feeds with passive aggressive remarks to my baby "isn't mummy naughty, waking you again..." she complained she was cold, she was dehydrated, she needed a break from baby groups, she wasn't seeing her enough, messages at night and once, a very unexpected phone call in the middle of the night.  It was harassment; myself and my baby were her special interest and it was draining. 

It's clear that I became a sinister interest towards the end- a target to be made to feel unwelcomed and uncomfortable. I'd upset her by erecting boundaries and she didn't like it; she became snidey in her approach towards me. Peter's sister then joined in too. It's difficult not to find it a coincidence when both women fail to wish you a happy birthday on the same year. Peter's sister had alway seemed a little hyper-focused on me at first. I was highly independent, I'd had to be growing up with a difficult, angry father, she was the opposite- hopelessly dependent on her mother and father and even Peter. Even now, at almost 40 years old, she has not detached emotionally from them at all and seems to call on their father continually for practical help.

She was amazed that I could cook and bake and make things, garden, paint... She made a big deal of it all through extravagant compliments. She was hyper-focused on me and particularly my weight; always telling me I'd lost weight whilst looking me up and down, even when I hadn't. Her behaviour was creepy. I just thought she was overly friendly- although I felt from the very beginning that this was insincere and for whatever reason, it made me feel uncomfortable. 

Then something changed. 

She began contradiciting me a lot, disagreeing for the sake of it. I remember her disagreeing that single mothers found it tough financially- her asserting that they had lots of money through benefits and maintenance payments- she KNEW all about this apparently.

I stopped posting anything at all in the family whatsapp group because if I said black, she said white. Anything as simple as "doesn't daughter 1 look grown up today." 

"Oh no she's still got her baby face."

It was constant little things. 

Peter allowed it to play out without saying anything.

 Another time, we were discussing my brother's ex wife who (I now know) she had been meeting up with secretly, and she disagreed with my observation that she had mental health concerns at the time. When Peter entered the room and clarified my observations to his sister, her demeanour changed immediately "oh, really Peter! What a shame!" Why was my reality being persistently denied? Peter's wasn't. Why did she keep challenging me the way she did?

I began to shrink.

His mother was blanking my presence. Even on mother's day and special occasions, infact particularly on these occasions. His sister was now antagonising me with contradictions at every opportunity so I decided it safer to say nothing. But this was seemingly what they wanted- me to be smaller, I distanced myself more and more and only attended events that other, wider family members were attending.

Then one day, I got a notification of a comment on my feminism blog. Someone had anonymously posted a long rant about how mothers shouldn't complain about the difficulties of working part time and mothering after having children. They "chose" to work part-time to raise their babies and should be grateful! It was naive, judgemental and ignorant. I knew immediately who it was. She'd made comments to a similar effect a few weeks previously. I didn't respond but decided to write another blog post.

I posted again, but limited the viewers when sharing it on social media to her and a few of my most supportive friends who are othe same mindset. The rant came again so I knew it was her. 

I deleted her comments and pretended I didn't know it was her. I knew what I was dealing with. She was targeting me and my blog. Why? I don't know. I'd gone from a special interest to a sinister interest over night. The fact that she was yet to even experience having children and she was casting these assertions felt highly personal. I'd dedicated my life to becoming a mum. How dare she challenge my experience of it? No wonder she'd had to do so under a crafty alias.

Then, a year or so later, she openly posted a long ranty essay on my FB page for all to see, which further confirmed that she was my anonymous poster. This was following a post I shared which was linked to an article about women's professional sports and supporting mothers to continue their sporting careers post- children. I hadn't read the article fully- I was just interested in this part of the post here:

It was a light hearted share, I never even commented or shared an opinion on it on posting. She then went to town on all the reasons mothers can not partake in professional sports post-children and all her issues with the article which was attached to this post by Pregnant and Screwed. 

I responded that the above paragraph is why I'd shared the post. "You're missing the point" she wrote...all on my social media page for all to see. "I love a good debate" she said. I didn't. I'd just lightheartedly shared a positive post about supporting mums better and here I was feeling attacked and targeted yet again by needless contradiction and what felt like, antagonistic needling. 

I pointed her in the direction of a feminist support group which I'd been part of as I felt she needed to begin seeing things from a more feminist perspective. I had previously posted in the group myself about issues around Peter and there were historical posts about his mother's innate mysoginy. There was nothing for her to see initially though- she would have had to do a quick search to find anything I'd written within the group. I did look over my posts prior to her joining the group and decided that although she might have felt a bit irritated if she'd read them by searching my name, they were factual atleast and she could just confront me about them if needs be.

However, she didn't confront me when she decided to search my name in the group to scoop dirt on me within minutes of joining, she screenshot my posts and shared them with her parents. She knew very well that Peter's mum and I had a rocky relationship and she chose to fan the flames. Not only this, but she obsessively proceeded to screenshot anonymous posts which had not been written by me, claiming them to be mine and continued to share them. They were all in on it. All of them believed her; even Peter. They weren't my posts!! If you ever needed an example of a flying monkey, it's right here.

This led to me kicking Peter out the night he confronted me about these screenshotted posts, which had been discussed for weeks. He didn't want to question his sister's motives; he didn't care that she'd targeted me yet again- or didn't believe it. I was to blame for everything.

And that's how I went from being a special interest of an ASD family to a sinister interest. In the very beginning I saw red flags- I found them creepy, nosey, too interested, too invested in me somehow. 

The first time I met his mother, I questioned ending my relationship with Peter as she talked about how a previous ex boyfriend of Peter's sister had obtained 50% of the deposit that SHE had put down on their house when they separated and sold it. She was reeling from it and proceeded to tell me how she'd invested the same deposit in Peter's house, followed by a long, hard stare. A warning! There were high expectations of family holidays (which I thankfully never agreed to), visits, calls, lowered boundaries. I felt closely observed, watched and interrogated. His parents even holidayed out of season, at the exact spanish location that I'd lived in two years previously within weeks of meeting them.

I felt like I was on trial. That's how you feel when you're surrounded by this dynamic. An interloper who entered the family fold and studied like some sort of rare, foreign species and then discarded and tormented for a twisted pleasure or just to make them feel better for their own short comings. 

And Peter has allowed it all to happen. 

Of course he has.

Because he's one of them. He is a product of that dysfunction; why do I expect him to be any different?

It hurts a lot that Peter has never seen my side of things, or wanted to. For someone who supposedly has very little empathy, he's able to empathise with and excuse his mother and sister's behaviour on a regular basis. It makes me wonder, why me? My confidence and self esteem is knocked by the feeling of being the bad guy, because he CAN do empathy... I've seen it. 

But, I know deep down, to my distress and disappointment, it's because he's one of them. And I will always be the interloper who held up far too many mirrors. 

I wish he'd just hit me

This is the line I said to my counsellor yesterday.

Last week I had a full-blown mental health crisis following a conversation with Peter, whereby the mutual agenda of the conversation was completely over-thrown by his own uncommunicated purpose.

I was then met with pedantics, accusations, gaslighting, had the tables turned on me and I was completely and utterly confused at the direction that the conversation took. We should literally have been talking about a way forward with regards to the separation and instead, another agenda was brought into play and decisions given to me, then taken away from me, then denial that he had taken them away from me.

Afterwards, I brought the pre-agreed mutual agenda back into play and I was left heart broken by his response, which he then revoked and denied saying yet again. 

Our relationship has been hanging in the balance following on from discussions around whether or not we had anything to salvage after we spent two nights together recently. He did not want to discuss this and instead, his agenda had been forced upon him and us by his family of origin and their pressurised expectations. However, I could not give him a decision until we had discussed the future of our relationship; it would be impossible even, but he had pigeon holed the two agendas and demanded my response first, proclaiming them to be completely unrelated. Amazing how assertive he can be when under the pressure and influence of The FOO.

I was given the option of attending a family wedding three hours away, then not given the option, then given it again with conditions to accompany the children with him. The conditions were to go but remain invisible in the hotel room during the wedding itself, to go unnoticed so not to upset his narcissistic mother and deranged sister. 

It all made perfect sense to Peter. 

He was amazed at my upset reaction. 

"I have no idea why you're so upset" he retaliated with an exasperated huff. I explained until I was blue in the face but Peter didn't WANT to understand and this is key with these men. They don't seek to understand anything which they perceive as an inconvenience to them personally. Like toddlers, they have to get their own way.

He left after asking me for a hug and me telling him absolutely not and there had been no solutions, no discussion really, no understandings. Nothing. I sat in silence for around 30 minutes after he left, just staring into space in disbelief at this man who clearly feels no emotional responsibility to me whatsoever. The conversational tactics that I had been at the receiving end of were also, undoubtedly narcissistic tools. 

My head felt like mush.

And when I went to bed, I lay awake stressing over a single word that he had used which he said I'd repeated wrongly during our discussion. He accused me of "initiating" our rekindled relationship over recent weeks and I had used "instigated" instead when I repeated his words back to him. This gave him a foundation for factual denial at ever having accused me of being the instigator of our rekindled feelings for each other. And yet, this man had been reaching out to me for weeks: touching me, saying nice things, cups of tea, hugs. But because I gave in and allowed him to stay over, he was now blaming me and basically implying that any confusing feelings we both have now are my fault. It was awful. He obviously realised that this was wrong half way through his horrendous accusation and was able to backtrack and deny based on me using the wrong word very slightly when repeated back to him. Like mental monopoly.

What happened next was a huge dip in my state of wellbeing and mental health. Two days later, I was unable to function, unable to leave my bed, unable to tend to my children and in a very low, depressed and volatile state. Peter came over to make breakfast for the children and I alluded to him that I did not wish to be here anymore. He said nothing, seemed inconvenienced by my dysfunctional state and called his dad to take the children to school before going in to work as normal. I went back to bed. He never messaged to check in on me during the day; he showed zero concern. I imagine he worked with very little thought for me that day, probably had his usual coffee break in the tea room with his usual crowd, laughing at the usual jokes. Great guy, Peter. Always likes a laugh. Poor guy though, his missus, chucking him out like that. What a bitch. The crazy bitch wh was off sick from work with a broken heart and depression whilst he carried on as normal.

After calling my mum for help, I was seen by the mental health team. They advised space from Peter to enable the confusing thoughts in my mind to calm. I called Peter to tell him that he was not to enter my space anymore to see the children, that he is only to see the children at his parents' house. I've wanted to avoid this outcome because of his mother's nasty influence on my daughter, but I reached a point where I didn't really have a choice. 

He has since mocked the words of the professionals "well you need space from me don't you, the PROFESSIONALS said, didn't they?" He repeats to me in a condescending tone. My counsellor told me he's doing that through anger and she said to me. 

"From the behaviour you describe in him, his reactions towards you, he's a very, very angry man."

This hadn't occurred to me and yet it made perfect sense. Of course he is. That's his whole fucking problem isn't it?

He's an angry man. 

Angry for all the wrong reasons which is why he uses passive aggressive behaviour instead: mocking, condescending, gaslighting. He is angry when things don't go his way. 

And that's when I said to her:

"I wish he'd just hit me."

She nodded and said "yeh, I completely understand." Because instead we're dealing with secretive, vindictive, snidey, underhand, manipulative abuse which is silent and hides beneath the kind, gentle exterior that they present to everyone else. 

I wish he'd leave a mark on my skin, so that I can see the abuse, because then, what is there to question? 

I'm feeling much better after a week of space from him and his mind fuckery. I have been able to enjoy the simple things in life over the last few days: walks, a swim, music, TV. So I know I'm on the mend. But I also know that there are still conversations to be had and I dread them. When communication is used as a foundation for mental and emotional abuse, it leaves us extremely limited and nothing is able to move forward without further risk to our sense of wellbeing. We mustn't ever underestimate the impact of this abuse.