5. Confused children: If the situation is confusing for fully grown friends to understand, it is obviously an alien language from another universe for your children. What’s worse, you can’t even tell your children the gory details in order to help them sort it out.
When your kids come to you with untrue or horribly twisted versions of something they were told you said or did, it can be enough to drive you mad. The good news is that children pay extremely close attention to their parents.
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No matter if they are toddlers or adults, children neither want, nor do they need, to hear the sordid stories about what either of you has done to the other. Emotional manipulators do not stop with adults, however. They prey on their children’s love and trust by attempting to color you as the one in the wrong.
When your kids come to you with untrue or horribly twisted versions of something they were told you said or did, it can be enough to drive you mad. The good news is that children pay extremely close attention to their parents.
As hard as it may be at times, casually shrugging it off with a statement like “I’m really confused, buddy. That isn’t at all what I remember happening. Your mom and I just have different perspectives about some things. This seems to be one of them,” can relieve the pressure for all of you.
6. Others who have been poisoned against you: Given that HCPs carry this type of drama throughout so many areas of their lives, they develop coping mechanisms for enabling themselves to retain allies.
Everyone getting divorced is told to document communications with their soon-to-be-ex. Manipulators take this advice to the extreme, documenting not only what occurs, but also things that have not actually occurred. They may share this documentation with you as a fear tactic, hoping to keep you on the defensive at all times.
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Keeping friends and family members segregated from each other while sharing droplets of lies and out-of-context snippets of the bigger picture keeps everyone believing different sets of bad information.
When you were together, your ex probably told you something someone did to them that made you think that person was so reprehensible that you chose to have nothing to do with them. Now you start to see that the story may not have presented be the whole, or even partial, truth.
When someone your ex still talks to suddenly throws you the cold shoulder, don’t be surprised, don’t be mad and don’t take it to heart. Place it within the context of your ex’s dysfunctional behavior and understand that there is no personal offense for you to take.
7. False documentation: It isn’t hard to believe your ex will lie to other people about you, but it’s understandably baffling when they lie to you about you. You were there, right? Why would anyone pull something like that?
When someone has anxiety to a pathological extent, “terrible and terrifying events are unremittingly anticipated – whether these are largely imagined or not is not the point: the problem is that the threats feel real. When something truly appalling is even remotely possible, in the mind of the individual experiencing obsessional anxiety, it feels inevitable.”
Emotional manipulators are so relentless in the need to convince themselves and others that they bare no blame that they literally begin to believe their own lies.
Everyone getting divorced is told to document communications with their soon-to-be-ex. Manipulators take this advice to the extreme, documenting not only what occurs, but also things that have not actually occurred. They may share this documentation with you as a fear tactic, hoping to keep you on the defensive at all times.
As hard as it is, don’t give into the fear. Keep a journal about the reality of the situation. Write only as much as necessary order to maintain a clear record, or you risk spinning yourself into your own post-traumatic cycle of obsession with logging details. Put the journal somewhere safe and only re-read if necessary for legal action.
8: Constant game of catch-up from it all: I don’t know how you feel after reading this, but my own head is spinning from writing it all down. These lessons and tips are a lot to take in, all while raising kids, holding down a job, trying to have a personal life and dealing regularly with your divorce.
The sheer volume of suggestions you receive — from me, your parents, your best friends, co-workers, attorney, etc. — is enough to shut anyone down. Not being able to put them into practice can lead you back into that defeating spiral of self-blame.
It’s just too much. I get it.
Here is the most important distinction I can make, so if you can only take away one thought from this piece today, take this:
HCPs do not consider themselves to be HCPs.
They do not read these articles while carefully considering if they are turning things back around someone else.
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If you did nothing other than open this page today and read it over with an eye for how you can grow and better yourself, you are already a giant leap ahead. Bookmark it, print it, save via whatever method or app you prefer and come back to see what else you can take away next time.
Accepting these distinctions and following the coordinating tips will increase your self-esteem and self-reliance, reduce your re-activity, foster recognition of your own role in codependent patterns, help manage your feelings of anger, and provide relief from past and on-going trauma.
In other words, go be who you are and believe yourself about it.
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Also by Arianna Jeret
An Open Letter to the Man I Want (A Woman’s View) |
How to Rebuild Self-Esteem After Divorcing a Manipulator |
8 Ways Porn Can Strengthen Your Relationship |
Sorry Dudes, Happy Endings Count as Cheating |
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock