liars – Sweat & Sparkle

There are less than two months left of this school year. After helping my husband raise four kids for so long, it seems unreal that monitoring grades, asking about missed assignments, emailing teachers, and following school calendars are rapidly drawing to a close.

My youngest stepchild is a senior this year. The kids have always been my husband’s ex-wife’s built-in mechanism for forcing contact with him, and she seems to be acutely aware that the sun is setting on her long-trusted gimmick.

Recently, out of the blue, my husband was invited to dinner with my youngest stepchild, and oddly, with Psycho. Mind you, for 17 years, Psycho has made a career out of militantly withholding information from my husband, coercing the kids to lie to him and hide things from him, requiring an act of Congress for the kids to spend any time with him, and badmouthing us like she gets paid for each ridiculous, jealous rumor she concocts, yet now we are to believe she has spontaneously sprouted basic thoughtfulness and manners…yeah, nope.

Could it be any more obvious? Her days of extorting contact by using the kids are dwindling, and she is desperately flinging out anything she can to beg for scraps of attention before that window slams shut.

I know my husband. He will go, to be with his daughter. He will joke around, put everyone at ease, make everyone laugh, include everyone, so no one feels left out.

And I know Psycho. If he smiles, laughs, or casts even one casual comment in her general direction, she will greedily lap it up like a stray dog slobbering over wayward crumbs. Her narcissistic delusions will ratchet up to full blast, convincing herself of covert meaning where there is none.

My husband is nice to everyone. But after being disappointed and disgusted by Psycho for so long, he interacts with her much the same way he does a stranger in a store or someone randomly passing by on the sidewalk: generic politeness. That is all she warrants (and more than she deserves), by her own choices and actions.

As the final day of the school year approaches, I anticipate there will be even more of these calculated and hopeful invitations, strategically presented as can’t-miss father-daughter moments, with Psycho just coincidentally and inexplicably tagging along, tail and tongue wagging with eager delight. She knows my husband will do anything for his kids, and she will shamelessly milk that dry to her own advantage.

My youngest stepdaughter was quite little when I first met my husband. Here she is, ready to graduate high school, and Psycho obstinately, absolutely refuses to move on and get a life.

The fact is, I realized, Psycho can’t move on. All these years later, and she has nothing to show for it but a string of annihilated relationships, a ratty borrowed trailer, even more desiccated furrows in her moth-eaten leather-flesh, and a pitiable existence, clinging to the kids’ achievements for attention because she doesn’t have any accomplishments of her own. Every breathing creature in the tri-state area is comically aware of her pestiferous reputation, her classlessness, and her attention-whoring instability, so she needs airfare and chloroform to rustle up any semblance of a viable dating pool. Where can she possibly sink from there, besides the grave or an asylum?

I can’t fault her for clinging to my husband, actually. He loves his children and is a tremendous father. He’s an adoring husband. For all of our many and indisputable differences, this is one thing that Psycho, despite herself, and I apparently agree upon: my husband is a damn good guy.

I suppose I can charitably spare a dinner or two. Let Psycho pretend what she pleases. I can graciously indulge her puerile games and adolescent fantasies. It’s sad that she still uses the kids this way, but let’s get real, she was never in danger of being mistaken for even a passably decent mother, and this is obviously the only way she can con anyone into passing time with her. Maybe she can manage to corral her crazy just enough for my husband and stepdaughter to at least enjoy some time together. While Psycho’s ego, delusions, and selfishness leave no room for consideration of anyone else, least of all the kids, my husband never forgets what truly matters. Can I blame her, then, for desperately–yet so futilely–missing him?

Flowers

Or…maybe just buy flowers and other gifts, shamelessly lie, and go to great lengths to pretend they are all from a wooing admirer, like Psycho did. Okay, I couldn’t resist. I still can’t believe she thought that preposterous ruse would actually work, or that she is so worried about what other people think that she planned that stunt for over a month.

When you fill your days with lying, manipulating, and using others, it’s not much of surprise that the number of people willing to spend time with you rapidly dwindles. When you are equally as distasteful and undesirable on the inside as you are on the outside, what should you really expect? It’s no one’s fault but hers.

But aside from that pitiable comedy side show, I really like this quote. I don’t believe relationships of any kind can work if you are looking to someone else to bring you happiness, peace, adventure, or anything else that is missing in your life. Planting, tending to, and thriving in your own garden is a non-negotiable step before even attempting to develop or maintain any relationship. No one can make you happy if you are incapable of being truly happy on your own.

If you are an insufferable asshole on your own, guess what? You’re going to be an insufferable asshole in a relationship. Pretty simple concept, but so many people are unwilling to hang out with themselves, really examine themselves, and work on themselves. It’s always a rush to the next relationship to feel vindicated or validated or prove they are attractive, but it’s just immature and selfish to expect someone else to clean up the mess in yourself that you don’t even want to touch yourself.

One reason that my husband and I get along as well as we do and have such a strong marriage is that neither of us is timid about being on our own, doing things on our own, or taking care of ourselves. We would both rather be alone than with someone who is not adding something positive to our lives. We are together because we genuinely want to be with each other, not because we simply can’t stand being single. We want each other in our lives, and that makes a huge difference.

A friend of mine commented recently that my husband and I act like we are still dating, not married. I told her we had to battle like hell to be together, combating a toxic and jealous person who couldn’t stand to see him so happy with someone else. When you have to fight to be together, you appreciate your relationship and your love even more.

So in a way, the bitch did us a favor. While attempting to destroy our love, she only bolstered and solidified it. She helped to forge it in steel and drive us closer together. It’s a bit amusing, really: the only relationship success she has ever experienced is her woefully failed, backfired attempt to sabotage someone else’s.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Psycho!

I laughed at this meme, because I have never actually known anyone who sent themselves a Valentine’s Day gift and pretended it was from someone else.

Until yesterday.

Over a month ago, Psycho (my stalker) ordered a gift box of wine, strawberries, and roses from a seller on Facebook. Yesterday, Psycho happily posted a photo on her Facebook page, with a gift box proudly arranged just-so on her cluttered dining room table, consisting of exactly the same wine, strawberries, and roses that she ordered herself back in January. It was conspicuously staged next to a small, heart-spattered gift bag, obviously to look like someone else had given it to her.

I am not the only one who knows it was a fake gift purchased by herself, for herself. Many people know. How do I know that? Because they told me. Because they laughed, or made jokes, or just felt sorry for her. It’s a small town, and she has lied so much, been caught lying so many times, that only the most imbecilic twits still believe her absurd theatrics and bizarre fairy tales.

It says a lot that over a month before Valentine’s Day, Psycho knew she had to set the stage for having no one with which to share the day, no one willing to be by her side. It’s not a crime to be single on Valentine’s Day. That’s not what I’m saying. But somewhere, even in the cobwebs of her self-deception and masks and lies she chants to herself, she already knew no one wants to be with her. And she had to start planning her fake Valentine gift.

Sad? Sure. But also deserved. Someone who hatefully uses her own children, accuses innocent people, and harasses people who wish she would just scurry back to her roach hotel deserves nothing less than a fake Valentine gift, pity likes on social media, and a bed as empty and dark as her fetid heart.

I felt a brief twinge of pity. It didn’t last long. She has never shown me any sign of being even a somewhat good person. All I have seen is her raging, seething, pathologic jealousy of me and my husband finding so much happiness together. It’s a never-ending cycle for her: she is always angry that we have what we have, and she remains fixated, obsessed, because it is something she will never have. She can’t make herself stop wanting it for herself, but she is incapable of loving anyone but her own loathsome self.

My advice for Psycho would be: go ahead and start planning now for your fake Valentine gift for next year. Because even if she manages to deceive and manipulate some hapless victim into dating her by then, it will still only be a sham, a shallow, bogus relationship with who he thinks she is, who she pretends to be, which can only last so long. Everyone who finally sees her true self walks away. Far, far away. There’s a damn good reason for that.

She can go saturate social media with victim status posts now. She can sob about being viciously attacked (even though every word is true). She can fling you-go-girl, independent-woman quotes all over Facebook Land. She can go drive by her other ex-husband’s house until she gives herself whiplash and is delirious from buzzing around in mindless circles. (Yes, everyone knows about that, too.) She can go badmouth me to the kids, to anyone left who will listen, though I suspect that number is dwindling. She can piss and moan and whine and bitch until she passes out.

But most of all — and I mean this from the bottom of my heart — she can go fuck herself.

After all, no one else wants to.

Sixteen More Years

It doesn’t take a degree in psychology to easily recognize my stalker, Psycho, as a full-blown narcissist. Lack of empathy, self-centered, blaming others, self-glorifying, endless lying, entitlement…all the telltale traits are there in full, raging color.

Narcissists are emotionally stunted, and they never change. Growth and improvement are impossible, because those require introspection, a willingness to learn, a desire to be a better person. Narcissists prefer to hide in their fantasy world where they have no shortcomings, and everything is someone else’s fault and responsibility.

After more than 16 years of the exact same irrational behaviors and absurd tantrums, Psycho is the same undeveloped person she was long before I met her. It’s bewildering, and more than a little sad, to observe. She learns nothing. She changes nothing. She improves nothing. Shoveling more lies to justify mounting failures is not living. That’s pretending.

And 16 more years from now, she will still be exactly the same. She will continue to lie to herself to bolster her starving ego, but there is no denying the truth: she is pitiable. Malfunctioning. Toxic. She made herself that way and has no one blame but herself. She etched her disgrace into stone with each selfish action, each refusal to move on, each lie.

I am not concerned with how she feels about flatlining through her remaining days. She gave up the luxury of my regard long ago. But as usual, the ones paying the heaviest price are the kids. They’re not babies anymore. They recognize the dysfunction and chaos that are ever-present in interactions with their mother. They may not know precisely how to diagnose or categorize it, but they know something is wrong…off…not right. That she can’t maintain a sane relationship with anyone, romantic or otherwise. That she is unstable, raging at nothing, shockingly infantile. And that nothing is being done to improve any of it, least of all by her. What are they supposed to make of that insanity?

Sixteen more years from now, Psycho will still be stalking me and god knows who else. She will still be envious, spiteful, petty, fake. In short, she will still be just like she is now, a dead soul driven only by jealousy and hate, desperate for attention and validation, forced to bully, bribe, and trick people into tolerating her presence.

And me? I pray I never stop feeling horrified at how she chooses to exist. I will let her continue to serve as an example of what not to do, what not to be. It’s impossible to help someone who doesn’t want to change, but I can make damn sure I stay on a much different, higher path.