Another Post About Heartlessness
Today I got an email from Flint. Well, actually, a few weeks ago I got an email from Flint. I set up a filter in my email that reroutes certain addresses to a folder called “People I Don’t Like.” I check it about four times a year. This keeps me from using up my sanity points, or from constantly re-checking my email with a big pit of anxiety in my belly, wondering if Flint is about to enter into another harassing email spree. If he does, well, shit, I won’t know till September.
These days, it’s one email a year, and it always comes around June. He natters on about how wonderful his life is, listing off all his achievements. Oh, yeah, hope you’re good, too. In fact, he’s pretty sure we’re both doing so well that we really ought to get together and talk, yeah? I mean, maybe you still hate me. I could see that you might still hate me (note: this is not the same thing as 1) apologizing, or 2) apologizing for something specifically, but it is a keen way to try and elicit a “I don’t hate you,” from a woman that you obviously consider to have all the wit and dimension of an ). But we should really talk, anyway, because some sort of vague, manipulative threat.
This year, the vague manipulative threat is that we may be working professionally together sometime in the future (I have no idea what he’s talking about and don’t care — my boss is cool and I can go to her with anything that gets hairy). Last year, it was because our friends, our poor friends, they are so sad and I don’t know what to tell them — but I might have to tell them that you’re a psychotic bitch I mean that you are very upset even though I apologized and offered to have coffee with you. The year before that, it was that we should get some closure, end things on a nice note so we don’t harbor all these bad feelings that might make me want to show up at your house in the middle of the night and refuse to leave until you let me verbally abuse you. The year before that, it was that if we don’t get together he is calling a lawyer.
Consider this a tack-on to A Field Guide to Being Heartless. This is how it goes. On the surface, this is the least abusive email Flint has ever sent me. In fact, it appears downright normal — were this not Flint, but some guy who accidentally typed in the wrong email address, I would think, “Oh, hey, this guy had a bit of a falling-out with somebody. Hope they can work it out.” Of course, this being Flint, I note little discrepancies on the surface of this superficially normal email. Such as, maybe a polite, civil “Ought we not be friendly in case I drop by your place of employment? Let’s have coffee” is not altogether an appropriate way to approach your rape victim. Nor is a continual stream of, “I can see why you’d hate me,” without any glimpse of something resembling an apology for having done things that would make a person hate you. Nor is, “We should talk so we can be civil if we work together professionally,” because I will tell you now that he doesn’t need me for that. He could just be civil to me, should we chance upon one another, and he could let me behave however I choose to behave. That, though, would require letting go of his best chance of throttling me into his proximity right now, and would require an ability he does not and never has had with me: the ability to not attempt to control my behavior. And letting me act however I choose to act isn’t really conducive to his real end-goal, which is to add me to his list of accomplishments that he notched off — and, oh, yes, did I mention? My ex-wife and I are friends, I’m such a good guy. Unfortunately, unlike his rent, college degree, and relative immunity from prosecution, my forgiveness isn’t something his parents can buy. I also suspect he’s seeking to have me invalidate every abuse he committed, because why would I be civil to him — why would I meet him for coffee? – if he was really a rapist and abuser? If he can browbeat me into a meeting, he has some superficial form of immunity from all my accusations.
This is why the terminal cut-off, to me, only works if it’s terminal. Any back-and-forth with Flint now only proves to him that he just has to bug me annually, threaten to accost me about civility at my workplace, and mansplain my emotions to me in order to get me to respond. Not responding ever again proves to him that he doesn’t even exist to me, which shines a big fat light on his need for my validation and attention, because next year I will get an email saying we should really get together because he is moving to the same neighborhood at some indeterminate point in the future that he will not reveal unless we have some coffee, goddammit. He needs something from me, and all he’s got to put on the table is a list of ways he is awesome, a vague threat, a guilt trip, and some displaced insinuation that if I don’t see him, I’m not civil. If I respond to him at all, I’m giving him what he wants while receiving nothing from him, because I’ve already seen his A game — all he’s got to offer me, he already put on the table here — and it lacks. If I don’t respond to him at all, he will forever be seeking a relationship with me, which is every reminder I need of the fact that I was never the one who needed him. Every time I need a reminder that he’s a creepy, manipulative, abusive person, I can just think back to the years upon years where he told me I needed him, then look at his yearly plea for validation. With abusive people, I often tell myself, “Follow the money,” so I can see where my resources are going to go, and if anything’s going to come back to me. If I’m with Flint and he convinces me I need him, he’s collecting on that money. If I’m not with Flint and he convinces me I need to talk to him, he’s the one collecting. If I act as if that stinky fuck is dead to me? I think I’ve got some interest accruing.
And the terminal cut-off does work, because otherwise I wouldn’t get annual mansplains from my ex-husband about how important it is for me to speak to him, because he is so great and awesome, and also because maybe he will be showing up at my workplace in a totally non-threatening way at some unspecified time in the future, for unspecified reasons that will not be revealed unless I go to meet with him. If the terminal cut-off wasn’t such a useful and effective tool, it wouldn’t cause your rapist to terminally beg you for validation. Never believe anybody who says that if you cut them off, they will hate you forever. What they are really saying is that they will be thinking about you forever, and they are terrified that you won’t be.
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I hate using words like “empowering” because they sound like sad-sack therapist words. Perhaps is simply better to call this post powerful. I hope that people who have escaped abusive relationships find this post to help them understand how important the terminal cut-off is. As someone who is harassed online by her terminally cut-off ex, everything about this rings so true for me. He can’t stand the fact that I refuse to respond to him, no matter what he says or does. I wish he’d give it up, but if he won’t I’m certainly not going to validate him by offering any response.
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What they are really saying is that they will be thinking about you forever, and they are terrified that you won’t be.
So true. A well-written, powerful piece, as always.
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I just got one of those “once a year” emails from an ex and I am holding to the same method…dead silence. It has worked to stop the flow of “contacts” to once a year and soon will fade to none ever, I suspect. You articulated the usual MO beautifully…no apology but a vague reference to some stuff that may have been bad in the past and a vague suggestion that we should talk. Nothing to talk about here and any response, positive/negative/neutral, will still be viewed as a response and an assurance that he still rates as a stimulus. I may have found myself on the crazy train at one time (and if I knew it was the crazy train, I wouldn’t have boarded, but there’s no truth in advertising requirement in relationships), but I AM smart enough to know that once you’re off, you don’t get back on! Or as the wise person said, the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. Indifference sends the message loud and clear, even to the slow of cognition.
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The fact that you don’t let them all drain like sewage into your spam folder speaks to your resolve. The will power it must take, to expose yourself to that, even occasionally, and then still deny them any sort of satisfaction… it’s really admirable.
Don’t know, if in a similar situation, I could do the same thing. Then again, I don’t know if I could not look either. Lot to think about, this post.
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: It wasn’t easy. It took practice. Whenever in doubt, I told myself to wait until I had no doubt. Inevitably, by the time I had waited out my doubt, I had a new email that already answered the, “Should I respond? Could I make him understand?” question.
What I really had to learn to let go of wasn’t about abuse or anything. I realized, though him, just how very, very much I needed others to validate my life decisions. That I did not feel comfortable just saying, to myself, “This is right for me,” if I could not get somebody to agree with me. It was such a pathological need that I even required my enemy — somebody who hated me and wanted to hurt me — to agree with me. It finally made the first of the twelve steps clang for me. My life had become completely unmanageable at the point where I needed my rapist to validate my life decisions. He was just the most extreme end of it — I did this with everybody around me, uncertain if I’d ordered the right sandwich, not sure if my outfit was okay, wondering if it was okay that I didn’t go to the party. I needed to let go of all of that, and my enemy was really the best teacher.
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God, apparently the stars have aligned, because my abuser has ALSO decided to show up and act like a horrid, soulless person and try to leave a comment on my blog about how maybe “abuse” is bad, but I am a far worse person for protecting myself and cutting him out of my life. What an awful lady I am! I should let myself be abused! The abuser is a person, too! He has needs!
Sadly, I have to see this kid when school starts again this fall. I was kinda hoping that this whole mess would just, um . . . . disappear? Or he could act civil? But no. Definitely no.
The hardest thing now is getting rid of the motherfucking ocean-size anger I have at him now. And the anxiety. About seeing him again. But right after reading this post, I went and gave him a separate folder in my email inbox. Never have to stumble on anything from him again, I don’t want. I labeled it “stupid git.”
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: I didn’t think about it until you said it again, but it does have a lot to do with looking for outside validation. Been dealing with that a little, obviously, as you said, not at the most extreme end of it, but there’s so much about just wanting to know you made the right decision about whatever you’re doing, or what you’ve decided to point yourself towards.
I didn’t consider myself that kind of person until the hard decisions came around. I’m not embarrassed by it, just surprised.
Talking too much about myself now. Appreciate you replying to my comment, sort of sharpened things a little for me.
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Harriet,
This post encapsulates everything that upsets me when my ex-girlfriend initiates contact with me. In the two years since we’ve split up, she’s basically been determined to make my life as miserable as possible. She has made up crazy accusations about harassment I’ve inflicted upon her despite the fact that I have pages upon pages of hurtful, demeaning, nasty, and otherwise crazy messages she’s sent me (half of which were during the time we were dating). Anytime I have responded or contacted her with something she didn’t want to hear, I’d get the accusations of “being mean” to her. “Being mean” was defined as anything from me not texting her back quickly enough to me asking her when I could expect to get her half of the rent to me telling her that I needed some time away from her after we broke up.
I cut off all contact with her in August 2008 (shortly after we broke up), and aside from two occasions, I have not knowingly spoken to her since then. Over the course of those two years, she’s turned virtually all of my friends against me, stolen clothing from me, cost me about $1500, and has made my life as miserable as possible. Her harassment isn’t frequent or threatening enough for me to put any sort of charges against her, just enough to ruin my week.
Most days, I’ll just accept that the money, the “friends,” the clothing, and everything else was really a small price to pay to get her out of my life, but then she’ll come up with some perceived slight that must be addressed. I think that the worst part about it is that all my former friends enable her. Last year, she subjected me to such upsetting and horrible harassment via my blog that I begged my boyfriend to call a former friend to get to the bottom of it. The friend’s initial response was to ask why I had dropped her and her boyfriend from Facebook; later, she (and another former friend) started taunting us with “we know who did it, but we aren’t going to tell you.”
How sick is that? The types of things she was saying to me were crossing the line into flat-out disturbing, and my former friends came up with every justification they could for her continual abuse.
I’m going to cut myself off before I start rambling too much on your blog. I just wanted to vent and let you know that I can relate too much to your post.
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When I realized that my relationship with my then husband was abusive- not just spattered with some episodes of bad behavior- I made the decision that I was not going to confront him. I decided that trying to get him ‘to get it’ was just looking for that approval and validation that you are talking about. This really confused him when he would contact me to get housekeeping things done after the divorce. I didn’t respond the way I did in the past at all. Fortunately for me he made wild and silly threats that he did not follow through on. Anyway, this decision was I’m certain inspired- one of the times I feel like God fed me the right answer at the right time. Talking to him beyond what was necessary to finalize the divorce was just playing into his games even if it was just gossip about friends of ours.
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