The Gaslighter and the Bee-Word

gaslighter / ˈ ɡas ˌ līdər / a person who uses psychological methods to manipulate someone into questioning their own sanity or powers of reasoning

bitch [ bich ] a malicious, unpleasant, selfish person, especially a woman

I used to date a guy who gaslighted the hell out of me. When we first met, I thought that I had hit the boyfriend jackpot. He was good-looking and had a job that he was passionate about. My daughter and my dog equally adored him (and my dog doesn’t like anyone). I lost all concept of gravity and fell in love with him faster than a spacecraft blasting into orbit. But within a short period of time (and after the most epic love bombing of the century), things went south very quickly. I was an independent girl who suddenly had a man under my feet constantly. He lost his mind if it took too long for me to respond to a text message, convinced that I was texting some other guy. If I had a differing opinion about something that he really wanted to do, I suddenly did not love him. If I did not want to spend every single second of every single day with him, he made me feel guilty. The final straw was when he accused me of having fun without him while having dinner with a friend on a work trip. At first I blew it off, but when my friend looked at me from across the table as though she could not believe that I was allowing him to speak to me as he was, I knew it was time to be done. The relationship ended when he refused to leave my house and I had to have him escorted out by the police.

I sure do know how to pick ’em, don’t I?

As horrible as it is to inflict emotional abuse on another adult, it takes a really small-minded human being to gaslight a child.

I stumbled across a Tik Tok video a few days ago where the creator (a man) spoke to women about the difficulties in co-parenting with a narcissistic abuser. He talked about how in this circumstance, the father constantly plays the victim (check!) and is surrounded by enablers who validate his ridiculous actions and thoughts (check, check!). The video hit home so much that I saved it as a constant reminder of the fact that I am not responsible for the behavior of The Captain or his wife. I will always be the bad guy in his story because he is incapable of accepting responsibility for his own decisions and actions. Thankfully, my girls are reaching an age where they are beginning to see the manipulation for themselves.

Last week, The Captain became really upset with the girls because Bella texted their group chat and asked if they could have crocs for Christmas. He reminded them that the Disney trip was their Christmas present. His wife even sent photos of them unwrapping their new Disney outfits for the trip, likely taken and saved just in case the girls ever forgot that Christmas had already happened on their end. For the record, seven-year olds do not want a vacation for Christmas. They want to unwrap toys and stuffed animals and spend the day admiring their new goodies. That trip wasn’t for the girls. It was planned and executed so that The Captain and his wife could take a picture with the twins in front of Cinderella’s castle and post it to social media so all of their friends and family would know what great parents they are. Look at us taking our girls to Disney! Aren’t we fun? He needed an excuse to sport a “Best Dad Ever” Mickey Mouse t-shirt so that no one in Orlando would have any idea that he was a non-existent presence for the girls’ formative years. Oh, the sheer irony….

Anyway, after Bella asked for crocs, The Captain replied and accused them of being mean to him on the trip, which was further reiterated by his wife in a following message. She also stated that the girls had told their dad that they didn’t love him. This stemmed from a FaceTime call that Bella had with The Captain last month where she showed him drawings that she had made for me at school. She said to him, “If you see it says ‘I love you’ on there, just know that it’s not to you.” As a parent who is present in the lives of my children, I understand that seven-year olds are very literal in the words that they use. They do not understand that words and expressions can be perceived in many different ways. Bella did not give this statement a second thought, only considering that she had drawn pictures for me, and the words written on them were not meant for anyone else in that instance. The Captain, however, took that to mean that she was saying to him that she did not love him at all. He sent me a message later that day and said that it was “unacceptable” for her to say that to him. I explained to him that it was not her intent to imply such a thing, but it fell on deaf ears. And there he was, exactly 34 days later, allowing his wife to shame our child via text message for something that Bella had long forgotten about.

I overheard the girls talking about the conversation from the next room, so I came in to read the messages that were being exchanged. They were both confused as to what his wife was accusing them of. It pissed me off to no end that these two grown-assed adults were shaming the girls, then immediately asking them why they never wanted to FaceTime with them anymore. (Gosh, I can’t imagine why.) I immediately called The Captain. I’m not really sure why I bothered since talking to him is as productive as speaking to a wax figure. Like my boyfriend of all those years ago, The Captain is incapable of entertaining thoughts that do not coincide with what he has already decided is truth. During our conversation, The Captain said to me that if the girls don’t want a relationship with him when they are older, it was fine with him because at least he knows that he has done everything that he can to foster their relationship (has he???). I suggested to him that he needs to focus on his relationship with the girls and ask his wife to take a step back. She has to have her fingers in everything, seconding every thought that he has, jumping into every conversation with her two cents. She is so eager to be the alpha that she has absolutely suffocated any chance that he has to be a parent, and his response is to sit behind her and whine about how the girls don’t want to talk to him.

After we hung up, I recognized that nothing was going to change. Round and round we would go for years to come, with The Captain choosing to blather on about how mean and unfair everyone is to him, while his wife coddles him and then denounces my children for behaving like (gasp!) children. And so I decided to block her from having the privilege of texting my girls. If her messages are going to make them sad and question things that they had said or done in complete innocence, she should no longer be given access to them. Our court order grants her absolutely zero rights to communication. She is nothing. Almost immediately after blocking her, their group chat became nearly silent, and it took them days to even notice. Clearly The Captain wasn’t that involved in it after all.

Wanting to protect my kids from a couple of narcissists probably makes me quite the raging bitch, doesn’t it? I’m sure it’s only one of the many terms that those clowns use to describe me. I can think of much worse things to be called, I suppose.