The Non-Violent Communication Suckerpunch

Today I am thankful for my ability to understand how people can twist good things in order to be manipulative.

One of the reasons I trusted Steve enough to spend time with him is that he wanted to take classes to learn to communicate.  He wanted to learn non-violent communication.  It seems great on the surface because it appears that this man truly wants to get to know who he was, wants to get to know who you are, and solve problems with empathy.

Basically, it is a way of solving problems by trying to identify the underlying need.  It teaches you to make requests so that your needs are met. 

It doesn't really look at the role of body language in making requests.  For instance...walking ten paces ahead of me while bitching that my ex isn't moving out of the house despite our separation agreement was one way to request NOT to the rest of the night with me.  That was his way to tell me that he was angry with me and request that I leave. 

It wasn't so much that he was complaining.  It was that he was walking away from me as he did it.

My training involves looking at eye movements, body language, as well as words.  Our words only account for 20% of our communication. 

When he was searching in my eyes, it felt like we weren't connecting. When I reached out to lovingly touch his forehead and he pulled away, that said a lot to me.

Non-violent communication only goes so far.  It is a useful tool.  It isn't everything.  It CAN be misused.

*****

I have spent far too many hours re-reading about thirty emails that I've received over the past three months since I've seen Steve "exclusively." 

Every three weeks or so, I'll get obnoxious emails.  They tended to coincide when I was unavailable to him due to family commitments or health issues.  There were accusations that I wasn't attracted to him or that I was seeing other men.  Those hurt.

There were several glaring lines that stood out for me. 

It may be therapeutic to post them all, I'm not sure.  It's painful to read it but it does illustrate what my therapist friends were saying about his Facebook posts to me.  I had a therapist buddy tell me to run far away. 

After being accused of saying things that I did not say, I started to back away. 

He started to post passive aggressive things about me on Facebook, so I tried to clarify things in response to the nasty emails he began sending.  Then he flat out lied, so I blocked him.  That was the only way to stop the Facebook nonsense. He refused to honor my requests to re-read what he had written or to talk to me in person. 

He continued to twist what I was saying into something vile.  I was trying to help him feel better about himself, and he kept comparing me to his ex-wife, twisting things that I had said in earlier conversations, and engaging in a barrage of hurtful attacks on my character. 


Worse, I don't see how the things I wrote were seen to be hurtful attacks on his character.  I wrote that he was everything that I found beautiful in a man.  I've written that several times.  In my last email, I offered to give him a list of qualities that I thought made him the one for me.  

In return, he ran to Facebook and claimed that I called HIM abusive, obnoxious, rude, mean and a whole host of other adjectives that I used to describe his judgments.  I couldn't bear to see mutual friends responses come through my feed.  They were worried about poor Steve and couldn't believe any woman would see him that way. Worse, one of them posted a list of things to watch for in guys so you don't get trapped with the wrong one. Oh, man...

This is the kind of behavior that earned him the block.  He was writing rude, mean, untrue things and claiming that he could read my mind.  Then, he went to Facebook to air our dirty laundry and to lie about me (THAT IS emotionally abusive).


When I said, I find  his EMAILS  "hurtful" and his  BEHAVIOR "emotionally abusive"....he would write and tell our mutual friends that I described HIM as a hurtful, abuser (he added a fair bit more to that).  This is the gist.  In his mind, there is no separating him from his behavior.
 

We are NOT our thoughts.  We are NOT our intentions.  We are NOT what we do.  People perceive us by the things we do.  Those should NOT define us.   We are living works of art, forever changing and forever improving.  We don't have to be static.  We can choose to grow.

Like I said, I may post his "judgments" about me.  They are really painful to read.  Perhaps it would be therapeutic.  Typing them out would help me realize how comical they really are. 

What I really want to share is the concept of the Jackal.  The Jackal is the part of us that is highly judgmental to ourselves and others.  Most of what it says is false.  It is judgment.  It doesn't understand that we are evolving works of art.  It sees only the bad. 



So....when I tried to address some of the judgments about me being a "fake fraud politician", or stupid, or uneducated, a liar, or a "hypocrite"....I was told that IT WAS HEALTHY TO ALLOW THE JACKAL OUT.   The jackal is life affirming. 



I feel depressed.  It sucked the life out of me!  It sucked the life out of our relationship. My inner jackal is thinking, we'll maybe my girl stuff isn't tight enough for him and that's why he's turning into a tactless dork muffin just to run me off (no, I didn't tell him that).  I am sure glad I got the new ben wa balls. 

That's right.  He wrote to me that it was healthy to attack other people.  It was life-affirming.



It broke my heart, especially since most of what he was writing appear to be projections of his own feelings of self-worth on to me.  If I tried to refute what he said, he'd turn it on me.  I couldn't discuss them. 


Yes, in Non-Violent communication one optimally would give his or her full attention to the other person, perhaps looking at them, giving them eye contact, and find out what need was behind the bad behavior (debasing of my character, giving away a ticket offered to me, and the lying).  He has a need to know I am not going to cheat on him like his ex-wife did.  He has a need to know I find him attractive.  He has a need for friendship.  He also appears to have a need to always be right which, sadly, interferes with his need for fellowship.

Oh, and I ever used the word "should" there would be hell to pay.  It's not shoulding when we talk about what is optimal.  It would be optimal, in an intimate relationship, to communicate about such painful things in person.  His emails were always difficult to follow.  In person, it was easier to get a sense of what he truly wanted.

*****

There is another relationship theory about love.  In this theory, each person in love has a bank account.  Every time we do loving things for the other person (either in word or deed), credits are deposited into the love account.

When we criticize, condemn, hurt, demean, ignore, stand up or do things that we know upset or inconvenience the other person, we withdrawal credits.  Every three weeks or so, I'd get emails that would simply leave me with a negative balance. 

I tried to blame my situation but I don't know.  A lot of divorced people share houses while saving up money to move out.  There just has to be openness and communication.  I did invite Steve over, he declined.  Mike claimed to have liked him until I started crying all the time. 

I don't know what to believe, quite honestly.  I'm fairly sure Mike's sister was watching me have coffee with Steve one afternoon. 

It was bizarre to have my ex-husband tell me to never see my ex-boyfriend again. 

*****

It is bizarre to have my former best friend tell me that I'm on the verge of some kind of break down when he's acting so erratically.  I think I had my nervous breakdown in 2012 and I'm still trying to pull myself out of it.  I think I lost it when the cops told me things about the stalking that I never wanted to believe.

It's probably not a bad idea to avoid romance until I get the stalking and ex-husband control issues under control.  I can't bring another person into this.

*****

Edit: I re-read everything a final time before deleting it.  I notice that the issue appeared when Steve became unglued because I posted a meme that seemed to be in support of the school lunch program.  It wasn't.  It was more of an attack on the way we treat our Presidents like Kings.   

In the comment section of that post, he attacked my friends.  Then he attacked me and sent me several nasty emails.  This was the third one (the previous ones were far worse).  This is what Steve wrote that garnered him a breakup note.  The lying about me on Facebook is what got him blocked.  His continuing to write to me and then run to Facebook complaining that I was playing games is the reason I stopped communicating with him.  I wanted to stop the game.  I didn't want to give him any more food for gossip.



This is what he wrote that made me decide to leave the relationship:

Over the last year I have gotten a much more intimate look at libertarians. And my assessment is they are shallow and fake people who support any nonsense just so long as it garners them social approval and political power.  You're right, you are a slave to the judgments of others. That's more important to libertarians than having valid workable beliefs that foster personal success. They don't have much self respect, and that has more to do with their need to social approval and status (to win elections) than it has to do with any real or valid ideology. They want to be judged positively by others. They need SELF respect, but are seeking it by getting approval from others. It's a completely impossible strategy, it's irrational out of the gate. But they piss on anarchists who explain, quite rationally, you need to give YOURSELF respect. And that's where I get pissed.

Why the hell am I seeking your approval in regard to my anarchism? Why do I care if you respect it? I'm violating my own personal integrity by being with someone who doesn't respect my beliefs, and I'm trying to sell my self to you??? I feel icky. I want love, and what I am getting is this message that who I am is subordinate to everyone - that I am a less than, an undesirable. And I'm asking for more?!

He wasn't respecting my libertarianism and my diplomacy.  He wasn't trying to understand me.  There was no empathy.  He wrote several paragraphs within several emails of abusive nonsense critical of my life and friends.  I felt devalued.  I admire Anarchism.  I admit that it works (we have proof that it works in tribal communities) but it's going to take time and a large segment of the population to pull it off.  It will take a community and diplomacy.  Change will not happen if we ridicule one segment of it.


Saying that doesn't mean that I don't respect him.  I'm so hurt.  I think this was a red herring.  I think I violated his personal integrity by not forcing my ex out of the house.  The political crap was just a ruse.

At least seven similar emails followed.  It was hard to deal with but the line about violating his personal integrity.  That was the line that hurt me the most.  I gave him time to calm down.  He was overreacting to a Facebook meme. 

Lovers don't have to agree on everything, do they? 

It became quite painful. 

My response was simply.

Goodbye Steve. I don't want to continue to make you feel devalued or violate your personal integrity. 

I wish you the best of luck and I know you'll find someone who resonates with your political ideas. Wishing you the best of everything.




*****

I am depressed.  I can't pull myself out of bed except to do the bare minimum. 

Steve, chose the worst day to start an all out attack upon my character.

The separation agreement has been ignored.  The money I was given isn't accessible to me and is being spent by my ex-husband to pay for things for him.  I have no say in where it goes.  He's blowing through it.  I probably need to hire a lawyer to put a stop to it but I don't want to cause trouble. In his mind, I am sure my ex-husband is trying to help.

I am realizing that I have no way out of this house and this bizarre situation so long as I honor my portion of the divorce agreement (which is to stay in this house and raise the kids).  He won't honor his. 

I am stuck. 

Last Friday I sat in the living room around 1:00 a.m.  I heard a truck pull up in my driveway.  I heard someone get out and I heard the clink of metal.  I shuddered because I had heard those sounds before.  I heard those sounds right before finding creepy things on my doorstep.  I heard that sound right before I caught my former sister-in-law trying to break into the house. 

I froze. 

I waited about ten minutes before running outside.  There were no creepy things on the doorstep.  Maybe someone had just turned around in my driveway and dropped something. 

It scared me. 

It made me ponder what was going on. 

It hit me. 

It hit me what the cops were saying.

Stalking is a crime intended to either create a relationship where there is none or to keep a dead relationship going.  It is a dysfunctional way of building and/or keeping a connection. 

Financial abuse is one way men tie women to them.  I've endured this for seventeen years.  The stalking caused me to lose jobs and educational opportunities.  I grew dependent upon my ex-husband.  Every time I became self-sufficient, the stalking would pick up. 

He swears up and down that his sister is stalking me without his help.  He swears he doesn't have anything to do with it.  Never mind the times I've caught him watching me (he was just trying to be helpful).  He's just "trying to help" (man, I have come to hate that phrase). 

The cops tell me my ex-husband has been stalking me since we started sleeping apart.  He uses his sister to keep tabs on me. 

I don't know who to believe.

But, the fact that I cannot talk to him about a workable separation, or honoring the divorce agreement, or anything at all....is a red flag. 

I realized....in one dark moment...that my ex had no intention on leaving.  He could very well be the stalker.  I still wasn't sure. 

Steve...he knows about Steve.  Someone claiming to be Steve says my ex-husband threatened him.  I checked it out with Steve.  It wasn't him!  So someone has been making up fake Facebook accounts to pretend to be the guy I love in order to scare me away from him.  When I click on the profile, nothing we've done together shows up.  So I know it is not him.

At that moment, I realized that I needed to become more secretive.  I don't know who is doing what.  Perhaps if I were more secretive, I could ferret it out.  I mean, everyone knows I love Steve.  What if they didn't?  Then I'd KNOW who my stalker was.  It would be someone close enough to know I was seeing Steve.

So, I hid all my information online and tried to find new ways of isolating myself.  I just need a new life.  I need a life no one can guess.  I need to become a more private person in order to survive this mess.

That is what pissed off Steve.  I hid my relationship status.  When I did that, my ex-husband told me that the stalking would stop if I changed my status to "divorced".  He said that his sister wants us divorced and if she succeeds, she'll leave me alone.  This is what I did.   

I tried to reach out to Steve, tried to explain the situation, and he treated me with disbelief.  He said I made up the stalking crisis. 

Then, he did the unthinkable.  He claimed I was "lying" about him on Facebook and threatened to harass me if I didn't stop.  That wasn't happening.  In my mind, he threatened to stalk me.  He didn't but his threat put me in mind of the things I have been enduring for 22 years - someone harassing me to manipulate me into doing stuff. 

That, my friend, is a deal-breaker. 

I can't really talk about it coherently because I have a lot of questions.  It has gone on since January of 1992.  I don't know why.  I don't know who is doing it.  I just want it to stop.  I find it hard to explain that which I do not understand.

Steve wrote publicly that I was crazy on my Facebook page.  Then he went on the attack in emails.  He claimed that it was healthy to let his Jackal on the loose. 

He wrote that I made up a crisis to get rid of him.  I'm not lying.  I am trying to figure out what is going on and how to take control of my life back. 

I don't feel healthy.  I feel hurt.  I feel ashamed for trying to get out there and live life.  I feel the need to isolate myself further. 

I realized that I cannot have friends so long as I have a stalker problem. I cannot have a job.  I cannot have a business.  I cannot have anything that brings joy into my life unless I violate the divorce agreement and MOVE OUT OF STATE.

It is making me depressed.

For the first time in my life, I am considering medication.  Maybe if I don't allow myself to feel desire, I won't hurt anymore.  I won't miss anything.  I can honor my duties without pain. 

I've spent the past four days trying to kill my needs and desires.

If it doesn't work, I'll try SSRI's.  They kill natural desire.  It'll help.  I lost my insurance in the divorce and was hoping to have found work by now (or have access to money) so that I could buy my own policy. 

So, I am in pain.  I am in pain from my own stupidity and my inability to articulate the inexplicable.

I am in pain for reaching out and trusting someone.  I trusted Steve.  He was my friend for years.  I guess my constant panic attacks and fear took it's toll on him. 

I hope he finds someone he can enjoy being with. 

Love ya,

S.