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.
No comments:
Post a Comment