hate – Sweat & Sparkle

Someone commented on yesterday’s post about how it would be understandable to think about revenge every now and then, after all the senseless and unnecessary stress and stupidity that my husband’s ex, Psycho, has deliberately hurled at us over the many years that he and I have been together. I am no saint, and I freely admit that sure, at one time, revenge definitely crossed my mind.

But the comment yesterday got me thinking. As time went by, my husband and I responded to the constant onslaught by drawing closer together, narrowing in on us and the kids. Eventually, without even realizing it, we blotted Psycho out.

That choice–to tune in to us, to love, to happiness–was monumental, and we didn’t even know it at the time.

I am a huge believer of this quote:

“What you choose to focus on becomes your reality.” ~ Jen Sincero

We had a choice. We could focus on anger, vengeance, negativity. Or we could rise above that and focus on our relationship, protecting the kids, building our lives together, and seeking happiness. We chose to focus on what truly mattered to us.

So did Psycho. But what mattered to her was radically different. She didn’t care about the kids, or moving on, or laying the groundwork for a positive future. She chose her true loves: bitterness, jealousy, lying, pettiness.

Fast forward to now, and the results of our different choices are stark opposites. My husband and I enjoy being together, have a peaceful home, love visits with the kids and grandkids, are excited about our future plans. We are best friends and take care of each other.

Psycho, on the other hand, is perpetually angry, alone, and foul. The closest she gets to being content is when she’s making everyone around her miserable, too. She repels everyone, from men to her own children, and she has been reduced to whining to her father to force the kids to talk to her when they wisely choose to avoid her negative energy.

So, do I still think about revenge? No. I don’t have to. Time and life have handled it for me. She has done it to herself. And she lacks the self-awareness, courage, or intelligence to ever change it, so this has become her self-imposed life sentence.

Sad? Sure. But it’s her own doing, her own responsibility, and her burden, not mine. She became what she focused on. Simple. And so did we–and I am joyfully thankful and grateful for that.

I’ve made a lot of flippant jokes about my husband’s ex-wife, Psycho, being obsessed with me and stalking me. In all honesty, though, it’s more disturbing than amusing.

This summer, my husband and I will be celebrating 20 years together. TWENTY YEARS. Two decades. And her bad-mouthing, snooping, driving by, and online stalking have never slowed down.

The easy explanation is that she’s crazy, jealous, has no life. All those things are true, but there is obviously more than that going on. Obsessing and stalking for twenty years takes more than just a few loose screws.

I find her pathological obsession puzzling. If I like someone, I seek them out. If I don’t like someone, I don’t pay attention to them. Simple. Claiming to hate me, yet rabidly seeking me out, doesn’t add up.

Dr. Karla McLaren, a psychotherapist, wrote, “… we attach ourselves to our hate targets with an intensely obsessive passion.” It becomes a distorted form of infatuation, or as psychiatrist Willard Gaylin calls it, a “quasi-delusional mental disease”.

Dr. Gaylin emphasized that the obsessive hater externalizes internal frustrations, conflicts, and shortcomings onto a scapegoat, and that the choice of victim is guided by the unconscious needs of the hater, not by actions of the victim.

Ah. That makes sense.

By all accounts, Psycho did not intend to follow through on their divorce all those years ago. It was a narcissistic stunt to demand sympathy and money from her father, to feed her parasitic ego by expecting my husband to beg her to come back to him, and to bask in commiseration and attention from that town of inbred tongue-waggers. Instead, my husband realized that he missed the kids like hell, but not Psycho. Then…he met me.

If Psycho is honest with herself, that is ground zero for all of her feelings about me. I didn’t even know her, or my husband, until long after they separated. Her game playing, selfishness, stupidity, and untreated mental defects destroyed her marriage, but it’s so much easier to point at me and say, “I hate her.” For 20 years.

Dr. Gaylin writes about pathological haters shifting blame to others for their unhappiness, deprivations, and misery. It’s easier than accepting responsibility for their own actions. I don’t believe that Psycho is even aware that she has done this, has trapped herself in this delusion, for decades.

Hateful fixation, like Psycho’s with me, shares serotonin and dopamine profiles similar to obsessive-compulsive disorder. She has obsessed over me for so long that it is a compulsion now, intrusive, embedded in her neural circuitry.

I already knew it was a disturbance solely in her head, and I am just the one she conveniently blames for her failures as a person, as a wife, as a mother. These psychiatrists’ research and writings only affirmed what I already understood.

A co-worker of mine is now going through a contentious divorce. We talked for hours the other day. I thought about what I wish I knew nearly 20 years ago, and I told her that the best advice I could give, besides document everything, is to learn to tune out the bad-mouthing, the accusations, the insults, the provocations. I told her to let her ex drown in bitterness, anger, and a toxic stew of hateful emotions, but for herself and her child, choose better.

My husband and I made a conscious decision to focus on us and the kids, our future together, our happiness. Psycho made a decision to focus on her jealousy and her spite. Her venomous thoughts and behaviors fed on each other, until they blotted out all reason or potential for growth.

It’s sad. But avoidable. And all her own fault. Hell, we even tried to warn her, but she was swiftly past the point of logic, if she was ever there at all.

Twenty more years from now, Psycho will still be obsessed with me. She can’t help it. It’s become part of who she is. She has entwined her very being and identity with her fascination with me. The alternative is honestly evaluating her life and how she spawned its downward spiral, but she lacks the strength, honor, and integrity to ever do that.

So she will continue to stalk me online, to interrogate others about me, to drive by our house and anywhere else she can find me, to think about me more than she wants to admit. It’s not healthy, it’s not sane, and it’s sad and pathetic, but it simply is what it is.

She is beyond help, and has been for years. And, cold as it sounds, I don’t care. She has done this to herself, day by day, choice by choice.

Just as I decided nearly 20 years ago, I am going to focus on me, my marriage, my family, my happiness. I am proud and grateful that my choices have led to a life filled with love. Can I really blame Psycho for coveting what we have?