It's All Broken

We are nearing the end. Really. I know I've said that before - repeatedly, even - but this time I swear it's for real. Eben interpreted some of my rantings last night this way: "It sounds to me like you're saying there's this mark on the conveyor belt that's getting closer, and that mark is the end. And you want to tell them, Hey, this is happening." Yes. That mark is approaching, and approaching fast. When I hit a tipping point, I don't waste time. I jump right off the cliff.

Last week, Shelby told me that she was done with Aiden and was going to kick him out. Her tone of voice was different than usual; she was calmer, sounding resigned instead of angry. My first thought was, Thank god. Finally. It took me a day or so to fully accept my own reaction. Then I started preparing for the new future, visualizing different scenarios and how it might all play out.

Some hours into that, it occurred to me that even though she had sounded different this time, she might still go back on her word, like all the other times she's issued threats and not seen them through. Suddenly I no longer knew what I was even preparing for, but the realization that I might have just fallen for one more empty threat upset me. Not knowing what I might come home to or how to prepare for it threw me off balance.

In desperate need of a friend, I went to dinner with Eben and told him what was going on. When I shared with him some of the things that Shelby has said, he was horrified. One that particularly stuck out was when she said to Aiden, "I need my feelings validated," and five minutes later, when he tried to express his side of the story, cut him off and told him, "Your feelings don't count. I don't care what you think."

Those behaviors are unfortunately nothing new to me, and it started to dawn on me how bad that was when I responded to Eben with a shrug and the comment, "That's standard-issue Shelby."

On Friday morning, I finally found the words to tell Aiden that Shelby is emotionally abusive toward him. I pointed out some of the things that she says and does, and how those are unsupportive and nasty, and are things that no human being should have to put up with. He said he has a hard time seeing them, because in comparison to his ex-wife Lily, Shelby is better. I think that's the only comparison he ever makes. But when I compare Shelby to anyone else I've ever known, the comparison isn't favorable. She tears him down, she insults him, she orders him around, she treats him like a child, she tells him he's incapable and unworthy and a mess. She's done these things as long as I've been around. After Friday's conversation, he resolved to stand up to her more. He said he was looking forward to learning some tools to use on her.

When I showed up in the relationship, her behavior made me uncomfortable, but I didn't feel it was my place to say or do anything. I was afraid to be seen as trying to steal him away from her. Eventually they gave me explicit permission to opine on their disagreements, and I started throwing in my two cents here and there. I stood up to Shelby on my own behalf, but seldom on Aiden's, thinking that was his job and it wasn't really my business. I did try to coach him in standing up for himself, but he didn't seem to take most of it to heart, whether because he didn't see a need for it or for some other reason, I'm not sure.

I've taken a couple of opportunities to tell her that I don't like the way she treats him. She's agreed to be kinder, but it hasn't happened. Over the last two and a half years, things have gone from bad to worse. She's unstable, inconsistent, and determined to blame her perceived problems on everyone but herself. One of my own struggles has been to accept that since it's my home too, I get to have an opinion about what it's like there. The truth is, it's a war zone. I don't feel safe or relaxed there. It's not a place I can return to recharge my mental batteries or regain my equilibrium. It's a place for which I have to be fully prepared before I can enter, or I might be caught off-guard by whatever today's fresh new hell is. I tried to tell Shelby that's how it was, and she was confused.

I read an article last night that listed 30 signs of emotional abusers. Shelby demonstrates 29 of them, mostly toward Aiden and his kid. Then I read an article on emotional manipulation, and was startled to realize that those behaviors she actually uses against me: she says things and denies them later, and makes me feel guilty when I try to hold her to her word.

I have a good skill for remembering conversations with accuracy. I can quote many things that are said to me verbatim several hours, days, or even weeks later. I've used that ability to try to hold her to her word on many occasions, and her responses have varied from "I didn't say that" to "Why do you care so much what I said?" to "Do you want to be held accountable for something you said a long time ago?" I wouldn't say that it's worked exactly, because I see the difference between what she said and what she did, and she doesn't change my mind; but it has confused me greatly and made me feel unstable, because I never know what's going on or whether I can trust anything she says.

Shelby tries to force her reality on us. Aiden generally accepts it, and I generally don't. For example, when she's upset about something and he tries to state his own side, she either talks over him or accuses him of yelling. The conversation usually goes something like this:

Shelby: I can't believe you would do that.

Aiden: I didn't mean to make you feel ignored. I did what I did because -

Shelby: I don't care why. You're an idiot.

Aiden: Maybe I am. The reason I did what I did is that I didn't think about what your response might be.

Shelby: That's right, you never think! You don't care about me.

Aiden: (In a level tone of voice.) That's not true. I care about you very much. But I want you to see -

Shelby: (Yelling.) Stop yelling at me! If you're just going to yell, I'm not going to bother talking to you.

I've watched this scene play out what feels like a million times since I became part of that relationship. I've tried pointing out that Aiden isn't yelling, and Shelby usually responds by rolling her eyes and walking away.

The article on manipulation listed 8 behaviors commonly exhibited by manipulators:

1. They turn your words to benefit them. ("A manipulator has trouble accepting responsibility for their behavior, and often if you call them on it, they’ll find a way to turn it around to make you feel bad or guilty.")
2. They say something and later deny it.
3. They use guilt trips to control you.
4. They diminish your problems or difficulties.
5. They use the emotional back door.
6. They suck the energy in a room. ("They want the attention and focus to be on them, and they want to make sure everyone in the room notices if they are angry, unhappy, or discontented in some way.")
7. They use aggression or anger. ("Manipulators often try to intimidate others with aggressive language, subtle threats, or outright anger. Especially if they see you’re uncomfortable with confrontation, they will use it to quickly control you and get their way.")
8. They seek out the sensitive, insecure, or overly trusting.

I don't see #5 in Shelby - she's very forthright - and I only see subtle occurrences of #3 and #6, of a level that I would be inclined to call normal if it weren't for the very strong occurrences of the other items.

She very rarely accepts responsibility for her own behavior, and when she does, it's often with a caveat. ("Well maybe I acted a little crazy, but that's what happens when you do something like that to me.") She constantly tells Aiden that he has no problems and doesn't have a right to complain, be angry, or have feelings. He actually expressed that to me a few months ago; he felt like he was never allowed to express his feelings because he wasn't supposed to have any.

She defaults to using anger in almost every circumstance, and disrespects anyone who can't "take it." We've had a long-running argument about how we argue (oh the irony), in which I've said that I prefer to take space and think my words through and then re-approach, and she prefers to just scream about everything that's on her mind at the moment and apologize for any hurtfulness later. I've made some steps in her direction, managing not to run away when we're fighting and to say what's on my mind. But I've never been able to agree that screaming and name-calling and taking no responsibility for your words just because you're mad is an okay thing to do. It's toddler behavior, something that emotionally mature adults should have outgrown.

On Monday, the small Aiden got suspended from school for fighting. Tuesday he spent the day at home, shoveling rocks in the back yard as punishment. Aiden was home overseeing him and I was home working. Shelby was at work. When she arrived home around 5:15, it was with a nasty vengeance and a cloud of anger that she immediately spewed all over Aiden, telling him that he had punished his child wrong and that all his interactions with the school and the kid were wrong and that he was a terrible parent and a hopeless person, and it was his responsibility to control his child's behavior. She referred to small Aiden as "that THING" and demanded that he be removed from her house.

I stepped in and asked if she really thought he was capable of controlling every aspect of his 14-year-old son's behavior. I asked what she expected him to do, what he should be telling the school, how he should be interacting differently with the kid. She had very little to say beyond, "I don't know," coming closest to a useful answer with the statement, "You're inconsistent in how you treat him." Other statements included, "If he's going to act like an asshole, he should be hospitalized."

I don't deny that Aiden is a bit inconsistent sometimes. He has moods just like everyone else, and sometimes he can be forgetful. But when it comes to the reactions that an adult has to the child's behavior, I haven't seen anyone act more unpredictably than Shelby herself. Some days she's in a good mood and everything is fine, and she'll chat with the kid and play games with him and just roll her eyes when he talks too much. And then there are the other days, when she's in a bad mood for whatever reason, and she will lose her mind and scream at the kid for having the temerity to even enter a room. She has demanded several times that Aiden lock the kid into his room, and when I point out that that's abusive behavior, she says thing like, "What else am I supposed to do? If he won't control his kid, he can't live here."

Don't get me wrong, the kid is not easy to get along with. I'm not exactly his best friend myself, or a particularly good parental figure. My approach is mostly avoidant, and I have a long way to go if I'm going to be anything like a useful role model to him. But my strengths are patience and my ability to control my emotions, and I try very hard to be consistent. I'm mystified enough by Shelby's treatment of him and how it varies from day to day. I can't even imagine what it's like to be him, to have the lack of understanding that he already has about social situations because of his mental disability and then to have her alternating friendliness or stream of bile directed at him, with no way to ever know which one is coming. Kids with regulation disorders need consistency, and she gives him exactly the opposite, and then demands to know why he isn't fixed yet.

She eventually walked away from the conversation and went to do some gardening. Aiden curled up on me and looked sad, and I asked what he was thinking.

"I felt like I did okay today," he said. "Until she came home. And now I feel like I did everything wrong."

"If you feel like you did it right," I asked, "Why should she be able to come in here and tear you down?"

"Because I know there's room for improvement," he said. "And now all I can focus on is the twenty percent I need to improve."

He asked for feedback on how he had stood up for himself in the conversation. I said that I could see progress. He said that he was looking forward to fixing Shelby by standing up for himself. I had no response to that, but having since read the articles I mentioned above and discussed the issue with Bruce, who's a mental health worker, I have some more insight.

Abusiveness is a personality trait. There is no excuse - not stress, not provocation, not childhood, not anything - to treat another human being like Shelby treats Aiden. Abusers can improve their behavior, but it takes not only a lot of time, but a genuine recognition and acknowledgment of their wrongdoing, a deep desire to change, and individual therapy. Aiden just deciding that he's going to argue with her is not going to change how she sees him or how she behaves towards him and his child.

So this is how we've reached my breaking point. I have a right to a house in which I feel safe. I have a right to a relationship that's supportive and loving, not destructive and stressful. I can't abide the status quo anymore and I will exercise those rights.

If you're asking why I don't just walk already, here's the catch. I want to help the boys. I'm better equipped in both offensive and defensive weaponry. Their shields are not nearly as strong as mine, and if I just disappear and leave them in this situation, I will feel like I failed in my duty to take care of the people close to me. I'm past the point where I could support Shelby in an attempt to change; as far as I'm concerned, she's been given a huge number of chances to change and has passed them all up. I'm out of energy to live under her emotional cloud or even to care much about her at all, except for the well of anger that I'm harboring about how she has treated one of the men I care most about in the world. That anger, however, can fuel quite a lot of protective energy to put between her and the boys. I'm perfectly willing to walk into the fire and take the burns for them.