Today marks the date of my mother’s birth and the continuing birthday – holiday season.
I have been reflecting on my mother’s financially heroic rescue of me (even while she and I were in our own state of brokenness) – When the boys’ father could not force me into foreclosure via withholding support, he demanded his name removed from the mortgage. My mother co-signed a refinance.
He had insisted we sell my condo to purchase OUR home with his name on it (with zero dollars of his own to offer) while also requiring a wedding and a ring which cost more than I was comfortable with and which he had no money to contribute. But the only actual issue was my failure to lighten up and go with the flow. You know, be grateful. After a lifetime of being devalued, to be used was the most I dare hope for.
My entanglement with him never not hurt or felt scary, ever. It was familiar “home”. It was the love I was raised on.
My mother’s ongoing aid during our divorce disturbed his efforts to defeat of me (his need to win and put me in my place) while also pulling from her estate (my sister’s due).
My sibling and the boys’ father had a vested interest in dividing me again from my mother, fueled by the mutual inability to effectively gain dominion, respect, fear, or dependence from me.
True, I am the common variable in those failed relations. I get that. Like a moth to a flame, I sought the precise dynamic I was groomed for.
Imagining my female progenitor and sibling high-fiving over my well-earned ongoing anguish is devastating. See, they along with father of my sons, demonstrated a shared drive to be in charge of my suffering- either the cause or the solution.
While they must remain emphatic that I was “not abused”; choosing words and behaviors which are righteously diminishing and knowingly damaging, is in fact abuse. Covert abuse is a means to control, demean, or harm another person without direct confrontation or physical violence. Covert abusers use strategies such as gaslighting, silent treatment, triangulation, evasion, blame shifting, word twisting and partial incomplete truths – triggering feelings of fear, confusion, doubt, shame thereby targeting a victim’s sense self-esteem, autonomy, connection, security, and well-being.
As always, I qualify- The poor treatment and handling of me – I contmplate and share about this in order that I may process and heal as I do the work to retrieve my spirit. Sharing is in no way an attempt to excuse or justify harmful choices. There is not a malevolent choice by me, which I would stand by or defend- or deny. Unpopular choice, yes. Upsetting, yes. Ruinous/black-hearted, no. ***Disclosing the particulars of my experience, is not an act of blackheartedness.
