Speaker 1: No one is immune to narcissistic abuse. Their charm, charisma,
Speaker 1: and intense interest draws so.
Speaker 2: Many people in.
Speaker 1: On this I opening episode of Navigating Narcissism, I sit
Speaker 1: down with doctor Christine Coachiola, a therapist and social worker
Speaker 1: specializing in abusive relationships, who took decades to realize she
Speaker 1: herself was in a toxic, controlling, and abusive marriage. When
Speaker 1: doctor Christine left after more than thirty years, the post
Speaker 1: separation abuse began. The manipulation, gaslighting, and blame shifting escalated
Speaker 1: from threats to slit her throat and.
Speaker 2: Poisoning her children's.
Speaker 1: Minds with lies about her to sending her more than
Speaker 1: three thousand harassing emails. Doctor Christine's journey is a stark
Speaker 1: reminder of just how destructive narcissistic relationships can be on
Speaker 1: us and our children, and how easy it is to justify,
Speaker 1: blame ourselves and get stuck. This podcast should not be
Speaker 1: used as a substitute for medical or mental health advice.
Speaker 1: Individuals are advised to seek independent medical advice, counseling, and
Speaker 1: or therapy from a healthcare professional with respect to any
Speaker 1: medical condition, mental health issue, or health inquiry, including matters
Speaker 1: discussed on this podcast. This episode discusses abuse, which may
Speaker 1: be triggering to some people. The views and opinions expressed
Speaker 1: are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating
Speaker 1: in the podcast, and do not represent the opinions of
Speaker 1: Red Table Talk productions, iHeartMedia, or their employees. Doctor Christine Cocciola,
Speaker 1: I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is to
Speaker 1: have you here. We met originally by email, and I
Speaker 1: remember getting your email.
Speaker 2: I get so many and your message just stop me.
Speaker 1: I want to read a little bit of it, just
Speaker 1: so other folks can hear it as well. I am
Speaker 1: reaching out as a domestic violence educator and advocate my
Speaker 1: entire life, and also a survivor of narcissistic abuse. I
Speaker 1: was in a marriage to a narcissistic abuser for over
Speaker 1: twenty seven years. How could I, a successful college educator
Speaker 1: an advocate on the topic of domestic violence since the
Speaker 1: age of nineteen, be with a man for so long
Speaker 1: and not recognize the signs of the abuse. I am
Speaker 1: prominent in the field of coercive control and appreciate the
Speaker 1: educational platform that doctor Romney has. She literally saved my
Speaker 1: life when I found her on YouTube in twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: deciding to leave the abuser and where your email made
Speaker 1: such a strong impact on me is. I think that
Speaker 1: the myth out there is that, oh, this just happens
Speaker 1: to people who don't understand it, who don't get it,
Speaker 1: and you a survivor. I'm a survivor. Many other people
Speaker 1: who are trained in this are survivors, and so many
Speaker 1: people feel foolish. It humanizes it when professionals like you
Speaker 1: and I have gone through it. No one is immune.
Speaker 1: The red flags are not this big obvious thing. Your
Speaker 1: story is so powerful, not just for your lived experience,
Speaker 1: but for all that you know about cowers of control.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored, beyond
Speaker 3: honored to be here, so thank you.
Speaker 1: So let's just start at the beginning of your story.
Speaker 1: How did you meet your husband?
Speaker 3: I was only sixteen years old. He lived around the
Speaker 3: corner from me, and I used to run and he
Speaker 3: would make remarks about me and say, hey, you, I
Speaker 3: want to date you. A little bit about my family history.
Speaker 3: My mom and dad have been married sixty three years
Speaker 3: this October. They met when they were in see in
Speaker 3: the eighth grade. They have the most endaring love and
Speaker 3: I didn't grow up in an abusive home. I didn't
Speaker 3: grow up with a narcissist, but we did grow up
Speaker 3: in a culture of Catholicism. I have twelve years as
Speaker 3: Catholic schooling, and we were always taught to be kind, forgiving.
Speaker 3: My mom and dad are always accommodating to people and
Speaker 3: do go above and beyond to give to other people.
Speaker 3: It wasn't allowed to date before the age of sixteen,
Speaker 3: and now I had this young man interested in me
Speaker 3: who was kind of cute, and I just fell into
Speaker 3: the trap that I didn't know it was a trap.
Speaker 1: What were the early days of this relationship like intense?
Speaker 3: He was madly in love with me. He actually told
Speaker 3: me that when he saw me running, he pointed and
Speaker 3: told his mother, I'm going to marry that girl someday.
Speaker 3: He was fifteen and a half and yeah, so very intense.
Speaker 3: I became his world. It was all consuming. I would
Speaker 3: have to sneak to talk to him, meet him in someplace.
Speaker 3: There were just ways that he would say, I miss
Speaker 3: you so much, we need to talk, or I need
Speaker 3: to see you. So there was always this very intense
Speaker 3: desire to be with me and to spend time with me,
Speaker 3: even if it meant sneaking around and not being honest
Speaker 3: about it. I just thought that he loved me, and
Speaker 3: that's what I was supposed to do.
Speaker 1: So you were young, sixteen's young. What was your emotional
Speaker 1: experience like of him being so intense, so obsessive.
Speaker 3: I think that it vacillated. I think sometimes I almost
Speaker 3: became addicted to it. That it felt so good to
Speaker 3: be so adored by someone. There was also this understanding
Speaker 3: that there weren't guys at high school who liked me.
Speaker 3: It felt intensely good, but it also sometimes felt overwhelming.
Speaker 3: There were times where I broke up with him. Once.
Speaker 3: I broke up with him several times, but one time
Speaker 3: he literally got on his hands and knees and begged
Speaker 3: me not to leave him. He said he couldn't live
Speaker 3: without me. Another time that I broke up with him,
Speaker 3: when I was in college, there was a young man
Speaker 3: interested in me at college and I didn't want to cheat,
Speaker 3: so I decided to break up with my ex and
Speaker 3: he basically said he was going to hurt himself if
Speaker 3: I left him. So it was very intense.
Speaker 1: That's I mean, there's intense, right, it goes beyond intense.
Speaker 1: When somebody is threatening to harm themselves or end their
Speaker 1: lives because you're not going to do what they want,
Speaker 1: that starts going into the realm of manipulative. But when
Speaker 1: you're so young and somebody is saying that to you,
Speaker 1: if you and this, if you don't want to be
Speaker 1: with me, I'm going to end my life, how did
Speaker 1: you manage that?
Speaker 3: I remember a particular situation where I begged him not
Speaker 3: to talk that way. I remember one time that I
Speaker 3: actually did call the ambulance because I recognized somewhere in
Speaker 3: my logical brain that if he actually intended to do it,
Speaker 3: I needed to keep him safe. And if I called
Speaker 3: an ambulance, maybe he would never threaten me again like that.
Speaker 3: And that is exactly what happened. He never threatened me
Speaker 3: like that after I called an ambulance. So it did work,
Speaker 3: but I was in a fog, I would say, I
Speaker 3: was constantly wondering what was real, what was healthy, what
Speaker 3: wasn't healthy, But it wasn't enough for me to leave
Speaker 3: or there was also this fear or worry that if
Speaker 3: I left that he would become more intense. I guess
Speaker 3: the word I would call it would be persistent. Persistent
Speaker 3: to talk to me regularly, of course before cell phone,
Speaker 3: so sneaking a phone call in the middle of the
Speaker 3: night on the family phone when my parents were in
Speaker 3: the next room, and like, why would I even do that?
Speaker 3: I did it because I felt like I had to.
Speaker 3: There was a coercion.
Speaker 1: You said, you felt like you had to. If you didn't,
Speaker 1: then what.
Speaker 3: I would disappoint him? I would let him down. He
Speaker 3: would ask me how come I didn't love him as
Speaker 3: much as he loved me? How come I wasn't willing
Speaker 3: to prove it to him? You have another boyfriend? Is
Speaker 3: this why you can't be around me as much? There
Speaker 3: was no understanding that we each were supposed to be
Speaker 3: growing up as humans individually healthy, instead of becoming mutually exclusive.
Speaker 3: There was no mutuality at all.
Speaker 1: It's interesting your use of language on that. When you
Speaker 1: said he was persistent. The other word that was coming
Speaker 1: to mind to me is intrusive. It went into this
Speaker 1: really violating space of constantly encroaching. But you're also noting,
Speaker 1: and I think it's really important you shared this. I
Speaker 1: was afraid I would disappoint him, and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of survivors of these relationships, no matter what age
Speaker 1: they get in the idea of disappointing someone is really
Speaker 1: overwhelming and uncomfortable, So people will say, I don't want
Speaker 1: to disappoint someone, And in fact, there's many things about
Speaker 1: this person I really like. I want to understand, Christine.
Speaker 1: Was this all happening before you got married?
Speaker 2: Yes, okay.
Speaker 3: I think it's also important to point out that I
Speaker 3: had a curfew and I would get dropped off at
Speaker 3: home and then he would go out and be with friends.
Speaker 3: I realize now that he had a whole nother life
Speaker 3: outside of me.
Speaker 1: So you got married, Can you give us a little
Speaker 1: sort of insight into how you got to that place?
Speaker 3: Sure? So I was in love. I was in love
Speaker 3: with him, regardless of the negative experiences. I thought he
Speaker 3: was a good man. He was part of our family.
Speaker 3: I dated him for seven years. He couldn't wait to
Speaker 3: get married. He was very much a romantic and romanticized
Speaker 3: our wedding and everything that we were going to have
Speaker 3: as a life together. And you know, the week before
Speaker 3: the wedding was his stag and he never came home
Speaker 3: from it. So you know, these are like examples of like, Wow,
Speaker 3: why did I marry this man? But this was a
Speaker 3: man who cried on the altar.
Speaker 1: First of all, let's just put a finer point on
Speaker 1: that he didn't come home from his bachelor party.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're familiar with her work as
Speaker 1: doctor Jennifer Fried who talks about betrayal blindness. That has
Speaker 1: that flare to it. Right, I'm about to marry this man.
Speaker 1: I think he's a good man. I'm in love with him.
Speaker 1: He didn't come home from his bachelor party. We're just
Speaker 1: gonna gordon that one off and we all do it.
Speaker 2: I've done it.
Speaker 1: I could be the patron saint of betrayal blindness. And
Speaker 1: her framework is that now people could say, this isn't
Speaker 1: me being ridiculous and overlooking red flags just to get married.
Speaker 1: It's a real mechanism. It's almost like a trauma mechanism
Speaker 1: that you can't afford to look over there. Basically, you
Speaker 1: don't want to disappoint him. You weren't not going to
Speaker 1: have that wedding, all of those things. Can I ask you, though,
Speaker 1: while you were together, before you got married, were you
Speaker 1: seeing patterns like entitlement and variable empathy and grandiosity and
Speaker 1: arroganinst the stuff if you will of narcissism, was any
Speaker 1: of that popping up in those seven years you were dating.
Speaker 3: He's a musician, and I would say that he really
Speaker 3: enjoyed the attention that he received for playing his music.
Speaker 3: He is talented, but he sometimes tried to play humble,
Speaker 3: and you know, I don't like all this attention, or
Speaker 3: maybe I'm not that good. So I mean, I look
Speaker 3: back now, and of course it's very clear to me.
Speaker 3: But during it, no, during it, no, even his not
Speaker 3: coming home the week before the wedding was more like,
Speaker 3: I must be crazy for overreacting. I was crazy for
Speaker 3: being upset about it. There was something wrong with me
Speaker 3: for not trusting him, and it wasn't until years later,
Speaker 3: of course, he fully disclosed. So yeah, I just think
Speaker 3: that I was young, naive, and definitely dealing with cognitive dissonance.
Speaker 1: But one would argue it's cognitive dissonance, you know, that
Speaker 1: idea of wanting to make the pieces fit. It was
Speaker 1: probably the front end of trauma bonding, though after seven
Speaker 1: years we could call it full In trauma bonding, somebody
Speaker 1: who threatens to end their life because you're not doing
Speaker 1: what they want to do is actually a traumatic experience.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any way to soft pedal that. Right,
Speaker 1: there's a terror and a fear. I'm sure you've worked
Speaker 1: with clients with this. I have worked with dozens of
Speaker 1: clients who have gone through this in relationships, and they'll say,
Speaker 1: I'm stuck and frozen because I can live with the
Speaker 1: idea that someone would end their life. I would argue,
Speaker 1: you weren't naive. I would say, I don't care if
Speaker 1: you were eighteen or seventy eight. I think people would
Speaker 1: have had actually a similar experience to what you did.
Speaker 1: And I want to go back to to one other
Speaker 1: thing here. Patterns you're describing this sort of humility, if
Speaker 1: you will, like I'm not so great, and as well
Speaker 1: as the abandonment stuff, don't leave me. That's actually more
Speaker 1: in line with vulnerable narcissism than grandiose narcissism. That's the
Speaker 1: pattern everyone misses. We don't see the big, preening, pretentious
Speaker 1: look at me. It's very much this woe is me.
Speaker 1: But then there's still the manipulation of your overreacting, which
Speaker 1: is gaslighting.
Speaker 2: So you get.
Speaker 1: Married, what was the day to day in and out
Speaker 1: daily stuff of marriage like with him?
Speaker 3: And I would say that overall, it seemed pretty smooth
Speaker 3: before children, except that I look back now and I
Speaker 3: recall he would go out and then not come home
Speaker 3: until very very late. When he was out with friends.
Speaker 3: I would be worried about him, ready to call the
Speaker 3: state police and say where is he It's three in
Speaker 3: the morning, and he would say I was overreacting. I
Speaker 3: mean I ended up finding out that he had a
Speaker 3: porn addiction and still stayed. I think that that's like
Speaker 3: probably the pattern, that I would find out something and
Speaker 3: then I would eventually forgive and move on. I appreciate
Speaker 3: you reframing that naivety, because I think you're right. Beyond naivety,
Speaker 3: it is this desire just to make everything be okay,
Speaker 3: just to make the relationship okay. So I would say
Speaker 3: anytime there was a major event, whether it was getting
Speaker 3: to the airport or traveling to go somewhere, there would
Speaker 3: always be some kind of drama. There was always some
Speaker 3: kind of an argument or something. There were definitely arguments
Speaker 3: around birthdays. There's a pattern of something being ruined.
Speaker 1: Narcissistic people ruin special events. I have seen this pattern
Speaker 1: repeated for years in working with clients. It's almost as
Speaker 1: though these special events either make the narcissistic person uncomfortable
Speaker 1: because they're not the center of attention or because there's
Speaker 1: a certain loss of control when that person isn't in
Speaker 1: charge of the emotional agenda for the day. We tend
Speaker 1: to minimize the actual harm done by this disregulated behavior
Speaker 1: and often blame the person whose birthday is being ruined
Speaker 1: by labeling them a child for caring so much about
Speaker 1: their event not going as planned.
Speaker 3: Things didn't always go smoothly, but I would say that
Speaker 3: there was enough good that I was able to forget
Speaker 3: the bad.
Speaker 1: That right there, you just sort of defined the trauma
Speaker 1: bond bingo. That's it, right, there was enough good that
Speaker 1: I could forget the bad. And it's amazing how little
Speaker 1: good a person needs in one of these relationships to
Speaker 1: forget the bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I feel like he almost got worse
Speaker 3: with time mothers. They would always be disrupted in some way.
Speaker 3: There was never just an opportunity to have a wonderful,
Speaker 3: peaceful day, holidays, you know what time do we have
Speaker 3: to be to your parents? And then it would always
Speaker 3: be me waiting for him to be ready to go
Speaker 3: to an event, let's say socializing with friends. There was
Speaker 3: always some problem with it. It was either it wasn't
Speaker 3: the right weekend. And one time I had a party
Speaker 3: at my house and he knew about it, and he
Speaker 3: came home and I was getting the house ready. I'm
Speaker 3: running around getting you know, the yard ready. It was
Speaker 3: kind of an outside inside party, doing everything to get
Speaker 3: everything ready. He said, you know what, I don't really
Speaker 3: remember saying that it was okay to have this party,
Speaker 3: and I can't believe that you're having any left. He
Speaker 3: left when guests were arriving, and then he came back
Speaker 3: at about nine pm, showed up and pretended that everything
Speaker 3: was okay. It felt like I was constantly being punished
Speaker 3: living in it. I didn't see it as punishment, but
Speaker 3: now I see it as punishment. I lived in a
Speaker 3: life where there was so much to manage because it
Speaker 3: was eggshells all of the time.
Speaker 1: This is somebody who was entitled not communicating with a
Speaker 1: spouse or partner when you're coming home at three am
Speaker 1: and then your concern was worry and then being gaslighted.
Speaker 2: That's abusive.
Speaker 1: Things like the party leaving in a petulant sort of
Speaker 1: tantrum and then rolling back in as if nothing happened.
Speaker 1: It's as though that's like page three out of the
Speaker 1: Vulnerable Narcissistic Person's Handbook right there. That's exactly the kind
Speaker 1: of play we'd see. That's sort of sullen. I'm not staying.
Speaker 1: I didn't say you could have this party and then
Speaker 1: showing up. However, he sort of regulated himself in those hours,
Speaker 1: coming back like nothing happened. The nothing happened part also gaslighting.
Speaker 1: So this was difficult. And then you had kids? What
Speaker 1: happened then?
Speaker 3: So when we had children, I realized that I was
Speaker 3: replaced very quickly. So I went from being his everything,
Speaker 3: his queen, to being now the children replaced me, And
Speaker 3: it's a beautiful thing. Try to tell another mother that
Speaker 3: your husband is giving your children way too much attention,
Speaker 3: that he doesn't want to spend any time with you.
Speaker 3: What does another mother say? You're lucky, You're so lucky
Speaker 3: he's so good with the children. And the reality is
Speaker 3: is that we no longer did anything together anymore. They
Speaker 3: actually started to fill a greater void for him, and
Speaker 3: I was just there for maintenance. I was the one
Speaker 3: who drove them everywhere. I did all the school meetings,
Speaker 3: I went alone to all of these things because he
Speaker 3: was too busy to do any of these tasks. I
Speaker 3: think for that, I'm grateful because it created this space
Speaker 3: where my kids and I always had this connection because
Speaker 3: little did I know, and by the time my children
Speaker 3: were nine and ten, he was starting to indoctrinate them
Speaker 3: against me. I mean, I would make dinner and he
Speaker 3: say in front of the kids, did you cook this?
Speaker 3: This is disgusting. I'm not eating this in front of
Speaker 3: the children.
Speaker 1: It's interesting for the so called devoted father, you would
Speaker 1: think then he'd want to go to the school meetings,
Speaker 1: he would want to sort of be that devoted father
Speaker 1: and learn about school and all of that. What I'm
Speaker 1: hearing is that the kids were a better source of
Speaker 1: narcissistic supply.
Speaker 3: I think so in our relationship that I ended up
Speaker 3: working at least one full time job all the time
Speaker 3: and one part time job, if not more. I was
Speaker 3: the one who was contributing most to the family finances,
Speaker 3: and so when I was working nights, he would be
Speaker 3: home with the kids and enjoying them. And he was
Speaker 3: the fun dad. He was not the person creating structure,
Speaker 3: but he would get them to bed on time, and
Speaker 3: he just loved the attention.
Speaker 1: They adored him, So he was all about the kids.
Speaker 1: You're working one and a half jobs. How did he
Speaker 1: view your career and your accomplishments.
Speaker 3: So it's interesting that you asked that because he really
Speaker 3: minimized what I did. My daughter had actually at one
Speaker 3: point mentioned wanting to be a social worker, and he said, oh,
Speaker 3: you never want to do that, that's not a good job,
Speaker 3: right in front of me. Those are the types of
Speaker 3: minimizing conversations that would happen in our home. And so yeah,
Speaker 3: I just was meant to go to work and not
Speaker 3: necessarily talk about it. I was creating programming in the
Speaker 3: early nineties regarding child sexual abuse trainings for the state
Speaker 3: of Connecticut, and he was not at all interested, did
Speaker 3: not care what I was doing.
Speaker 2: Were you the primary breadwinner?
Speaker 3: He works full time too. He's actually a school guidance
Speaker 3: counselor and he's been doing that for years. But I
Speaker 3: was the one contributing more to the family finances. I
Speaker 3: was the reason why we were able to go on
Speaker 3: nice vacation. So I was the reason why we were
Speaker 3: able to buy that car. So it was financial abuse,
Speaker 3: But different people don't think about financial abuse as being
Speaker 3: as my brother would often say, I was the cash cow.
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting, I see where you're going with that,
Speaker 1: is that when we think of financial abuse, we think
Speaker 1: of a narcissistic person or a controlling person having all
Speaker 1: the money and then isolating that person financially, taking away
Speaker 1: credit cards, monitoring their spending, making it so that they
Speaker 1: don't have any discretionary income. In your particular case, it
Speaker 1: was really exploitatives.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So even though I was working extra and saving more,
Speaker 3: I was also never allowed to get my hair done
Speaker 3: professionally or get a manicure.
Speaker 1: As the marriage was going on, I'm hearing the themes
Speaker 1: like the gas lighting. As the kids are getting older,
Speaker 1: he's actually now sharing with them things that would really
Speaker 1: put a wedge in your relationship with them. Were there
Speaker 1: any other things happening that would shed light on how toxic,
Speaker 1: how unhealthy it was?
Speaker 3: There was an infidelity, and I thought it was only
Speaker 3: one time. The issue with the infidelity is that it
Speaker 3: was with someone that we were friends with that worked
Speaker 3: at our children's school and then said we would get
Speaker 3: better and we are going to go to therapy. And
Speaker 3: it was always this thing whenever we talked about going
Speaker 3: to therapy. It would be like, well, I can't go
Speaker 3: every week, he would commit to every other week, or
Speaker 3: he would show up late, or he would say I
Speaker 3: didn't tell him about the appointment. There was always that
Speaker 3: type of manipulation going on, and I'd be running around saying,
Speaker 3: let me show you. I did tell you about this appointment,
Speaker 3: and that's why I'm here waiting for you. And I
Speaker 3: have to say that was always interesting because it felt
Speaker 3: like the therapists really weren't always picking up on the
Speaker 3: fact that he was abusive and that the relationship really
Speaker 3: probably couldn't get healthy. So when he did have this affair,
Speaker 3: we would have to go to the school and see
Speaker 3: this woman and she was a theater person and so
Speaker 3: my children were in theater and a very small school
Speaker 3: system by the way, so very intimate community, and he
Speaker 3: would be looking at her and it would be like
Speaker 3: a year later, and I was just like, what is
Speaker 3: going on. Why is he saying that he's going to
Speaker 3: go to therapy not always showing up, And so there
Speaker 3: started to be this connection of the dots. And then
Speaker 3: we had an event for the school and I ended
Speaker 3: up going with friends in the car rather than going
Speaker 3: with him because I was just really frustrated by how
Speaker 3: he had behaved, and when I got home, he had
Speaker 3: locked me out of the house. I had to decide
Speaker 3: what to do in that moment, because I could call
Speaker 3: the police, but I didn't want to call it a
Speaker 3: domestic abuse. I didn't want to get my husband in trouble.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to
Speaker 3: call my father. Was one in the morning, so I
Speaker 3: did end up calling the police and just saying I'm
Speaker 3: locked out of my house, and the police knocked on
Speaker 3: the door, and when he opened the door, he told
Speaker 3: the police officer that I was drunk, that I had
Speaker 3: been using medication, mixing medication and alcohol, and that they
Speaker 3: could check my car because there were open bottles in
Speaker 3: the car. Now, it was a byob and we did
Speaker 3: bring home a bottle of wine in the back of
Speaker 3: a car, and so this was an example of things
Speaker 3: that were happening that weren't shocking enough for me. The
Speaker 3: police officer said, I think you should just leave tonight
Speaker 3: and go to your parents' house. And I went to
Speaker 3: my parents' house the next day. I picked up my children,
Speaker 3: and it was that evening that when he begged me
Speaker 3: to come home intermittently accusing me of kidnapping my children.
Speaker 3: I love you, You're my soulmate. Will go get therapy. When
Speaker 3: I did decide to go home on Monday and I
Speaker 3: went to my night class to teach, that is the
Speaker 3: day that he began telling my children that I was
Speaker 3: the cheater. That my daughter remembers the exact day I
Speaker 3: was the cheater. I am the one who has mental
Speaker 3: health issues, that I am not to be trusted. She
Speaker 3: was nine, my son was ten, and I didn't leave
Speaker 3: him until they were seventeen and nineteen. And she told
Speaker 3: me when she was seventeen. So for nine years, eight
Speaker 3: or nine years, he indoctrinated them unbeknownst to me. I
Speaker 3: knew something was wrong in the home. I believe that
Speaker 3: when he realized I couldn't forgive him for the infidelity
Speaker 3: and he knew I was pulling away, that's when he
Speaker 3: needed to exert more control. He started doing it in
Speaker 3: other ways, more insidious ways, including harming my children by coercively.
Speaker 3: I'm going to use the word coursively, controlling my children.
Speaker 1: We will be right back with this conversation. What did
Speaker 1: that look like? What did the coercive control of your
Speaker 1: children look like.
Speaker 3: My daughter really just wouldn't connect with me. It started
Speaker 3: to really change around age twelve. This started when she
Speaker 3: was nine, so imagine it's happening nine, ten, eleven, by
Speaker 3: age twelve, you know, puberty, all of those things. It
Speaker 3: just became where she started to you know, I don't
Speaker 3: have to listen to you. You can't tell me what
Speaker 3: to do. Some of this you could say, okay, wait,
Speaker 3: this is typical teen like tough teen stuff. But when
Speaker 3: it really became evident to me was he would come
Speaker 3: home from work and I remember, like, I'm a cookie maker.
Speaker 3: I would make cookies for the family, and I would
Speaker 3: make like, in an attempt to make him happy, I
Speaker 3: made like homemade biscotti with pistachios, and he came in
Speaker 3: the door. The piscotti's on the counter. I said, I
Speaker 3: made you some biscotti. He walked past me, walked directly
Speaker 3: to her, and said, how is the most beautiful woman
Speaker 3: in the world to my child?
Speaker 1: So this is deeply, deeply, deeply inappropriate. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: no other word for that. It's it's deeply inappropriate. It's triangulated,
Speaker 1: and it really was meant to create the power struggle
Speaker 1: that sounds like an incredible event. You could feel the
Speaker 1: potency of it. How did all of this together, these
Speaker 1: three years of indoctrination, how did all of this affect
Speaker 1: your relationship with your daughter?
Speaker 3: Was challenging, and I was distraught. I was filled with anxiety.
Speaker 3: I just always was wondering what I was doing wrong.
Speaker 3: I was either doing something wrong with him or heard.
Speaker 3: Over the course of those eight years, it began to
Speaker 3: feel like it was three people against one, and it
Speaker 3: would be oftentimes in the form of mockery. It would
Speaker 3: be like, oh, you can't take a joke, and of
Speaker 3: course the lowest level of humor is mockery, right, So
Speaker 3: there would be just I couldn't listen to my own
Speaker 3: music in the home. I couldn't actually, like, you know,
Speaker 3: turn on the music and dance in my own home.
Speaker 3: I couldn't choose a TV show in my own home.
Speaker 3: I was really beginning to see clearly what was going
Speaker 3: on and recognizing that the longer I stayed, I was
Speaker 3: afraid I was going to lose my daughter entirely. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: because she was aligned and my son was away at
Speaker 3: college at that point, and so I stayed in the home,
Speaker 3: but in a spare room, and then when I did
Speaker 3: do that, that's when the emails starting to ensue, about
Speaker 3: three thousand harassing, threatening emails over the course of thirteen months, intermittent.
Speaker 3: Thankfully I knew enough by then because of listening to
Speaker 3: people like you, not to respond. But there were about
Speaker 3: ten a month that were you're my soulmate, please don't
Speaker 3: leave us, Please don't leave our family, and then the
Speaker 3: other two hundred summadd emails where you're unlovable. Everyone will
Speaker 3: know who you are, your children will never love you.
Speaker 3: And he knew that if he talked with me about
Speaker 3: my children that that would be the most heartbreaking. I had,
Speaker 3: of course, shared with him my concerns about my daughter
Speaker 3: and why we weren't close and what was wrong with
Speaker 3: our relationship, and now I know he used that against
Speaker 3: me to harm me.
Speaker 1: The sheer amount of confusion, right, because you didn't know
Speaker 1: he was talking badly to your kids about you.
Speaker 2: You didn't know this, so it had to.
Speaker 1: Have been one of the most confusing, destabilizing experiences.
Speaker 3: The day my daughter told me she was seventeen, he
Speaker 3: had been arrested because when I used to try to
Speaker 3: leave the home, he would turn off the electricity, so
Speaker 3: I couldn't pull the car out of the garage. She
Speaker 3: was going to her part time job at my sister's
Speaker 3: house as a dog sitter, and he hated that she
Speaker 3: had anything to do with my sister. He one day
Speaker 3: he turned off the electricity in the garage so she
Speaker 3: couldn't go to work to my sister's house, and she's
Speaker 3: texting me and help, I call the police. I don't
Speaker 3: know what to do. I call the police and the
Speaker 3: police come and he gets arrested for disorderly conduct. He
Speaker 3: had actually physically pushed her and threw her to the
Speaker 3: floor because she wanted to leave to go to her job.
Speaker 3: So the next day, we're in the car and I said,
Speaker 3: when did this start? And that's when she tells me
Speaker 3: the day you went to work when I was nine
Speaker 3: years old and we had gone to nan On Papas
Speaker 3: for the weekend, and dad said, you were the cheater.
Speaker 3: She tells me the exact day and time that it happened.
Speaker 3: And so that was the day that I literally could
Speaker 3: not believe what he had been doing all of those years.
Speaker 3: Here I was thinking that he was a decent human being,
Speaker 3: a good father. They're a good father. Absolutely not.
Speaker 2: That's almost a decade.
Speaker 1: For almost ten years, he was, in essence, filling your
Speaker 1: children's heads with lies. It is such a cruel form
Speaker 1: of abuse, and you had no idea this was happening.
Speaker 1: How was your daughter treating you throughout of all this?
Speaker 1: How do you think she even felt about you during
Speaker 1: this almost ten year period?
Speaker 3: I would say the word is contempt. There was just contempt,
Speaker 3: and I didn't know why. And I would often ask,
Speaker 3: what's wrong? Why are you so upset? But how could
Speaker 3: she even know it? If it was being done so
Speaker 3: insidiously to her, How could she even really know it?
Speaker 3: And this was someone who, by the way, was fun
Speaker 3: and you know, let her do basically whatever she wanted. So,
Speaker 3: for all the moms out there listening right, our children
Speaker 3: are so harmed by these abusers. It's totally never their fault.
Speaker 3: They are psychological traumatized. They are basically turned against the
Speaker 3: one parent who will love them unconditionally. When I think
Speaker 3: about who was harmed the most in all of this,
Speaker 3: it's a little vulnerable child.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely it was. And it really sounds like a
Speaker 1: lot of what you're talking about is triangulation. It's two
Speaker 1: or three people in a family system coming after one
Speaker 1: and again, children are eminently recruitable. Right if somebody sets
Speaker 1: their mind to do something that cruel, it's very very doable.
Speaker 1: A child's tendency is to trust a parent. Their first
Speaker 1: place to go is not like, oh, they're trying to
Speaker 1: trick me and say this, he's sharing these things with them.
Speaker 1: You're not, so he must be speaking truth because you're
Speaker 1: not telling them anything. They take that in for again
Speaker 1: for the better part of ten years. In essence, you
Speaker 1: became scapegoated in this family system. It's what happens in
Speaker 1: all narcissistic family systems. And he was also very fun,
Speaker 1: and he wasn't the one working all the time. I
Speaker 1: think that we underestimate how much power a parent has
Speaker 1: to fill a child's head with that kind of a
Speaker 1: narrative and patently untrue, saying that you were unfaithful in
Speaker 1: a relationship where you were not, and allowing that lie
Speaker 1: to maintain for nine ten years.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and there was this belief system that mom has
Speaker 3: a bad temper, or when I would go outside to
Speaker 3: mow the lawn when I was upset, that was considered
Speaker 3: a bad temper. I would leave the house and say
Speaker 3: I'm going to go mow the lawn right now, and
Speaker 3: that was considered a bad temper. Tell you one more
Speaker 3: really insidious thing. I found out after I was leaving
Speaker 3: him that he had a gun in the home for
Speaker 3: two years. Unbeknownst to me, the kids had gone out
Speaker 3: in the backyard. We had some acreage, and they had
Speaker 3: gone out in the backyard and done shooting. They were
Speaker 3: told not to tell mom about the gun because Mom,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure I trust her knowing about a gun
Speaker 3: in the house. After I had left him, I actually
Speaker 3: came into the house to get some items out of
Speaker 3: my closet and he knew I was coming. And when
Speaker 3: I entered into the bedroom on my desk were bullets,
Speaker 3: and to me, it felt like a sign. I felt
Speaker 3: like he was trying to threaten me.
Speaker 1: It's that manipulative, that awful. And you know you also
Speaker 1: made a point earlier, Christine, that I want to put
Speaker 1: a finer point on the mockery and the making jokes
Speaker 1: at your expense. That is also a form of gaslighting,
Speaker 1: meant to sort of unbraid undo another person. And I mean,
Speaker 1: it's all here right in fidelity, deception, manipulation, triangulation, it's
Speaker 1: absolute and utter cruelty, gaslighting. Every time you turned around.
Speaker 1: What was that penny drop moment in your marriage when
Speaker 1: you thought, Oh, my goodness, I am living what I'm
Speaker 1: teaching about in these programs on coerceive control.
Speaker 3: The vernacular of co wersive control didn't come in until
Speaker 3: after I left him. But I was teaching on the
Speaker 3: power and control wheel and the post separation abuse wheel
Speaker 3: every semester in my social work classes. And I did
Speaker 3: have a moment where when I was looking at it
Speaker 3: and I said, Oh, my gosh, like, is that counterparenting
Speaker 3: that's happening in my home? Am I being diminished? Is
Speaker 3: this financial abuse because I can't go get my hair
Speaker 3: done even though I'm the one working extra hours. I
Speaker 3: did have that moment.
Speaker 1: The deluse power and Control wheel is a visual tool
Speaker 1: used by domestic violent specialists to explain the types of
Speaker 1: behaviors abusers utilized to maintain power and control, and the
Speaker 1: tactics used to keep someone in a relationship. The inner
Speaker 1: wheel has subtle behaviors like threatening to take their own
Speaker 1: life and humiliating her, while the outer ring represents physical
Speaker 1: and sexual violence.
Speaker 3: But I have to say, he was so good at
Speaker 3: coming back to being nice. The intermitt and reinforcement was
Speaker 3: so evident, so incredible, the moment that he thought I
Speaker 3: had a full out the door. He was on task,
Speaker 3: he was going to therapy, even if it was only
Speaker 3: every other week. He was making dinner, he was coming
Speaker 3: home with flowers. There was just this, you know, come
Speaker 3: on in here, let's watch TV with the kids, you know,
Speaker 3: versus the day before it was let your mother do
Speaker 3: the dishes, come in here and sit with me. In in
Speaker 3: other words, there was a diminishing of me the night
Speaker 3: before that we don't all help each other with the
Speaker 3: dinner table, cleaning up and everything like that, and then
Speaker 3: the next day it was come on in here and
Speaker 3: sit with us. So there was this push pull all
Speaker 3: of the time. I really couldn't see clearly at all.
Speaker 3: So there was that moment when I did finally leave
Speaker 3: and go up to the spare bedroom. What was going
Speaker 3: on was the water was being turned off in the
Speaker 3: house after he went to work, so that I couldn't
Speaker 3: shower and I couldn't do laundry. The coffee beans were
Speaker 3: gone from the coffee maker. I ordered more coffee beans.
Speaker 3: They disappeared, and then I was locked out of the
Speaker 3: garage during an entire year when I was up in
Speaker 3: that spare room before I finally filed, because I said
Speaker 3: I wanted to file, but I was worried. I mean,
Speaker 3: not having the coffee beans, you know, him buying new
Speaker 3: sheets for the master bedroom when we had sheets. And
Speaker 3: now I know, of course, that he had been involved
Speaker 3: with another woman for at least eight or longer years,
Speaker 3: and that she was coming into my home when I
Speaker 3: was leaving on the weekend to go to my parents'
Speaker 3: house so I wouldn't have to be around him. So, oh,
Speaker 3: there's so much here.
Speaker 1: There's so much here, right, But some of these patterns,
Speaker 1: the turning the water off, the turning the electric off,
Speaker 1: the removing the coffee beans, this is textbook coerceive control.
Speaker 1: It was basically, I'll show you whose boss. You're not
Speaker 1: taking a shower, you're not making coffee, you're not leaving
Speaker 1: this house. It was controlling these kinds of mechanisms. This
Speaker 1: is what coersive control looks like. The examples you give
Speaker 1: are so in your face. There's two other big things
Speaker 1: you're talking about. First of all, three thousand emails in
Speaker 1: a year, that's ten a day, right, sounds like lots
Speaker 1: of them are bat and every so often there'd be
Speaker 1: some that were good and welcoming, and that was his behavior.
Speaker 1: Everything you're talking about, Christine, is all trauma bond, right,
Speaker 1: This is why people get stuck. You use the term
Speaker 1: intermittent reinforcement. And for everyone listening to this, if you've
Speaker 1: ever played a slot machine, you know what intermittent reinforcement is.
Speaker 1: You stand there and you keep putting money in something
Speaker 1: with the idea that it will pay you out from
Speaker 1: time to time and maybe maybe someday, if you're lucky,
Speaker 1: you'll get the jackpot. That slot machine rewards schedule. The
Speaker 1: intermittent reinforcement is this what we call the stickiest reinforcement schedule.
Speaker 1: It's the hardest to break away from. It's when somebody's
Speaker 1: giving you those little bits of good sprinkled in lots
Speaker 1: of bads. You just keep pulling the slot machine handle.
Speaker 1: And that right there is the origin of the trauma bond.
Speaker 1: It's the back and forth tendency to self blame. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's going to be okay after today. Justify justify having
Speaker 1: the same arguments going around, the merry go round over
Speaker 1: and over again. Not being able to articulate what's going on.
Speaker 1: This is the trauma bond. I don't think we can
Speaker 1: describe it enough times so people can fully understand what's
Speaker 1: happening in these relationships, and above all else not feel foolish,
Speaker 1: because when you have children and you have a family,
Speaker 1: and you have a home and you have a life,
Speaker 1: you're going to fight to keep it together. And that
Speaker 1: fight can be kept in place by these little sprinklings
Speaker 1: of Hey, why don't you watch TV with us? So
Speaker 1: I want to jump to a point where there's a
Speaker 1: very specific part of your story I want to highlight,
Speaker 1: which is, can you tell me what happened after you
Speaker 1: went out to dinner with an old friend.
Speaker 3: So I went out to dinner with a high school
Speaker 3: friend who had reached out to me, and everything was
Speaker 3: transparent in my Facebook messaging. I didn't know that my
Speaker 3: ex had access to it. This was when we were together.
Speaker 3: But when he came home from a school trip, he
Speaker 3: went on to supposedly look at his pictures from the trip,
Speaker 3: and he went onto my Facebook and he saw the messages.
Speaker 3: And in those messages, I clearly say happy to go
Speaker 3: out for a cocktail with you, but I not interested.
Speaker 3: I'm married, I would never cheat on my husband, totally platonic,
Speaker 3: and he said absolutely, that's fine. And so I went
Speaker 3: out for this drink with this friend. And then when
Speaker 3: my ex came home from this trip and saw it,
Speaker 3: he basically left me a message at work. He said,
Speaker 3: you whore, I'm going to slit your throat. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: And I went to the police, and the police, of
Speaker 3: course made me leave the home with my children, and
Speaker 3: he had thrown all of my personal items out of
Speaker 3: the house. When I went into the house to get
Speaker 3: some of my items, the police were helping me put
Speaker 3: them back in to get some personal items to take
Speaker 3: with me to my parents' house. And when I went
Speaker 3: in there, there was actually an altar in my master
Speaker 3: closet where he had set up my jewelry box with
Speaker 3: candles and pictures and his wedding ring and a note
Speaker 3: to this person gone out for the drink with That
Speaker 3: was basically a note from me imploring my love to
Speaker 3: this person and how much I loved this person. That
Speaker 3: was what I saw in my closet. Nothing else in
Speaker 3: my closet, everything else gone out in the yard or
Speaker 3: being pushed back into the bathroom. I mean, yeah, that's
Speaker 3: what I ended up.
Speaker 1: That's terrifying in every way. The shrine, it's more of
Speaker 1: the obsessiveness. What's interesting is the very obsessiveness you saw
Speaker 1: as a sixteen year old girl is showing up in
Speaker 1: this and then you come home and you see this,
Speaker 1: which almost feels like a horror film to come home
Speaker 1: and see that. Emotionally, Christine, what was happening for you?
Speaker 3: I think there's this I don't know what it is,
Speaker 3: but it's a problem really believing that someone could be
Speaker 3: that evil. I stayed with him after that, he begged me,
Speaker 3: we went to therapy. I stayed with him for about
Speaker 3: four more years. So what is it? You know? I
Speaker 3: tell my story because I don't want victims to feel shame. Yeah, no,
Speaker 3: But the reality is, as I feel a little bit like,
Speaker 3: what the heck? What else did he have to do
Speaker 3: for me to actually leave the post? As we all know, right,
Speaker 3: the post separation abuse intensifies, and we know that about
Speaker 3: course of control. Ninety percent of victims of course of
Speaker 3: control have an intensification of that course of control when
Speaker 3: they leave. I think, in general, I want to believe
Speaker 3: the best in people. I didn't want to believe he
Speaker 3: was a horrible person, or that he could be a
Speaker 3: horrible husband or a horrible father, but he really is.
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone's going to disagree with you if
Speaker 1: we were to be very clinical about this and take
Speaker 1: a part what was happening here. This was a person who,
Speaker 1: for him, a relationship was fully about control. It's about dominance,
Speaker 1: it was about power, it was about validation, and it
Speaker 1: was about a titlement. That's what a relationship was for him.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: However, he's also very very thin skinned, and that thin
Speaker 1: skinned quality becoming really reactive when there's any perception here
Speaker 1: this is a guy who's cheating on you with somebody
Speaker 1: in your small community. Right, no problem there for him,
Speaker 1: but he perceives you as doing one thing, and it
Speaker 1: is this completely disregulated reaction. Again, that's that thin skinned
Speaker 1: nature of this. I think every time somebody has an
Speaker 1: experience like.
Speaker 2: This is this evil? What is this?
Speaker 1: It's really these dynamics and they simply don't work in
Speaker 1: a human relationship.
Speaker 2: They don't. They simply don't. It's that simple. We don't
Speaker 2: have to dismiss the person entirely.
Speaker 1: Saying, whatever it is you are, you can't be in
Speaker 1: a relationship with another human being is you don't have
Speaker 1: the apparatus for it, because relationships aren't about power and control.
Speaker 1: They're supposed to be about collaboration and respect. What I
Speaker 1: want you to do, though, because we've been floating this
Speaker 1: term around a lot, I just want to make sure
Speaker 1: everyone's clear on it. Could you please define Christine coersive control?
Speaker 3: Yes, so, course of control. I think a simple way
Speaker 3: to define it is to say, when one person has
Speaker 3: power over another person in a relationship, and it's a
Speaker 3: pattern of one person having power over another in a relationship.
Speaker 3: The goal of the course of controller is to diminish
Speaker 3: another person's autonomy, their agency. The tactics I use are
Speaker 3: psychological abuse like gaslighting, manipulation, intimidation, isolation, legal abuse, financial
Speaker 3: abuse certainly could be sexual abuse, and use of the
Speaker 3: children as weapons. You can correct me if I'm wrong here,
Speaker 3: doctor Romney. But because these people only feel okay in
Speaker 3: life if they have control, they need to have power
Speaker 3: over others in order to feel secure in themselves. So
Speaker 3: course of control I see it as the foundation of
Speaker 3: all oppression. When we think about judicial systems, when we
Speaker 3: think about criminal justice systems, when we think about racism, genderism,
Speaker 3: all of these things. But in an intimate relationship. If
Speaker 3: anyone treated me this way outside of my home, that
Speaker 3: person would have been immediately seen as someone who is
Speaker 3: harmful to society. Yet, because it happened in my home
Speaker 3: over and over again, I had therapists diminish it. I
Speaker 3: had police diminish it. I had a judge, you know,
Speaker 3: basically reprimand me for going back to get the title
Speaker 3: of my car because my ex had my car tracked.
Speaker 3: The reality is is that it's an oppression that we
Speaker 3: see happening in all systems and our most vulnerable. My
Speaker 3: area of interest is the impact on children, because child
Speaker 3: protective services doesn't really look beyond a physical a violent
Speaker 3: incident model, right, or maybe a sexual abuse of a
Speaker 3: child discloses. But the reality is is all of these
Speaker 3: abuses are based on power and control, and it is
Speaker 3: a psychological manipulation that is so harmful to the developing brain.
Speaker 3: So I was an adult when this happened to me.
Speaker 3: I was a relatively well adjusted human being. Imagine children
Speaker 3: when this happens to them. That how harmful this is.
Speaker 3: That no system is recognizing this. I don't even have
Speaker 3: words to the level of I guess, rage, sadness, whatever
Speaker 3: it is, that the systems don't recognize how harmful this
Speaker 3: is to children until we begin to recognize that coercive
Speaker 3: control is inflicted on everyone in the family system.
Speaker 1: Thank you for also elevating coerceive control to understand larger
Speaker 1: dynamics in a society, because I've always sort of simply
Speaker 1: understood coerceive control as using menace and fear and isolation
Speaker 1: to control another person in a relationship and rob them
Speaker 1: of any autonomy in that relationship. Basically they cannot leave.
Speaker 1: What was really nefarious about what you went through, though,
Speaker 1: was your coerce of control was paired with these good days,
Speaker 1: and that's when it's the most toxic, because you keep
Speaker 1: skinning the game. Really you connected coerce of control with
Speaker 1: post separation abuse. Could you share with us how you
Speaker 1: sort of define or how you conceptualize post separation abuse.
Speaker 3: Sure? So, I think it's really important that language matters, right,
Speaker 3: and that I think we have to look at course
Speaker 3: of control as the umbrella term. So under coerceive control
Speaker 3: is post separation abuse. Post separation abuse isn't separate, it's
Speaker 3: under it. Course of control is inflicted in a variety
Speaker 3: of ways. And the reality is is that it happens
Speaker 3: pre separation, and it certainly happens post separation, and it
Speaker 3: actually intensifies oftentimes when a victim leaves, she's more at
Speaker 3: risk of harm, and so are her children. Because this
Speaker 3: is about how do I continue to retain control, and
Speaker 3: if I can, I can't have control of you in
Speaker 3: my home. I'm going to figure out another way to
Speaker 3: have control. And so to your listeners, anyone who thinks
Speaker 3: they're being tracked, you are being tracked because the reality
Speaker 3: is that that is a way to control, and it's
Speaker 3: so easy to do today. So this post separation abuse
Speaker 3: is really a further infliction of coerceive control, but by
Speaker 3: creating it in a space where it's no longer just
Speaker 3: in our home. And I would say that, you know,
Speaker 3: just as a little aside, when my children came home
Speaker 3: because of COVID, everybody came home, and they had to
Speaker 3: go between my little apartment and the beautiful home we
Speaker 3: had built up the road a few miles away, and
Speaker 3: he couldn't stand that they were coming here, and so
Speaker 3: what he would do was hide the keys, turn off
Speaker 3: the electricity in the garage because he did not want
Speaker 3: them spending time with me. That's post separation abuse. That's
Speaker 3: a further infliction of coerceive control on the children to
Speaker 3: harm me. And so really the end goal is to
Speaker 3: harm me. But who is he harming in the interim,
Speaker 3: of course the children.
Speaker 1: I really like what you're saying here about coercive control,
Speaker 1: that it's an umbrella. I want to share with you
Speaker 1: how impactful you've been in my work because I've been
Speaker 1: someone who has been guilty of using that term high conflict,
Speaker 1: high conflict divorce, high conflict relationship. And I absolutely thank
Speaker 1: you for shifting my use of that language. And I
Speaker 1: was actually giving a talk over the weekend to a
Speaker 1: large group of therapists and I said, everyone, we're going
Speaker 1: to tip our hat to doctor Coachiola. You framed it
Speaker 1: so beautifully when you said that when we call it
Speaker 1: high conflict, we're sort of pathologizing the other individual who's
Speaker 1: actually not behaving in a conflictual or abusive way at all.
Speaker 1: They're being abused and putting the entire relationship under that frame.
Speaker 1: It's almost as though, well, we can feel better about
Speaker 1: this if we say they're both a mess. And you said, no,
Speaker 1: this is post separation abuse to recognize the directionality. So
Speaker 1: I think language does matter, and so by calling it
Speaker 1: post separation abuse and not using the term high conflict
Speaker 1: that that's actually a really really important distinction to make.
Speaker 1: But Christine, what I keep hearing is that we do
Speaker 1: not people do not want to consider emotional abuse, even therapists. Listen,
Speaker 1: If cops don't want to get it, I get it.
Speaker 1: They don't get trained as therapists. Judges weren't trained as therapists,
Speaker 1: but people who were trained as therapists and in theory
Speaker 1: on trauma who are not willing to see emotional abuse
Speaker 1: in a relationship for what it is. And in fact,
Speaker 1: there are some real finger wagging therapists out there saying
Speaker 1: be careful about using the word toxic. Really, so shame
Speaker 1: a client who has lost all sense of agency, autonomy
Speaker 1: and control in their lives and chastise them for these
Speaker 1: dynamics in their relationship. This work is so important, The
Speaker 1: work you're doing is so important. You actually mentioned that
Speaker 1: COVID helped your relationship between you and your children. How
Speaker 1: did that work and how are they doing now?
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you. COVID was so awful for so
Speaker 3: many people for me. It brought my children back home
Speaker 3: to me. What I realized, doctor Romney, is that I
Speaker 3: could not be their mom in this home anymore. I
Speaker 3: had to be a therapist. I literally had to create
Speaker 3: a space where even if there was contempt or there
Speaker 3: was a snide remark, I mean, I would have someone
Speaker 3: come home say Dad called you a sociopath again, or
Speaker 3: you know, are you sure you never cheated on Dad?
Speaker 3: Because he says you always cheated on him? And so
Speaker 3: I learned to respond to them in a way that
Speaker 3: was calm and attuned to them and would basically acknowledge
Speaker 3: what they heard, but also be like, I'm sorry you
Speaker 3: heard that that's not true, and be really clear about
Speaker 3: what was true and wasn't true, but now be defensive.
Speaker 3: And that was super hard as a trauma victim. By
Speaker 3: the way, here, I was literally reeling from this financially decimated.
Speaker 3: He had taken everything from me, including the home, and
Speaker 3: now trying to ensure that my children had a safe
Speaker 3: place to come home to. And so what ended up
Speaker 3: happening is that he so badly did not want them
Speaker 3: around me that he started to coursively control them during
Speaker 3: COVID and eventually they started to see it clearly. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: we never got access to many of our personal items
Speaker 3: in the home. I mean my son's Thomas, the tank engines,
Speaker 3: my daughter's barbies, all of these very precious things that
Speaker 3: I had boxed up and labeled. He took everything. He
Speaker 3: had eight cameras up in the home. Eight cameras up
Speaker 3: in the home while I was living there at the end,
Speaker 3: and he kept them up when the children were living
Speaker 3: there because he said, your mom might break in and
Speaker 3: steal things. I don't trust your mom, So my children
Speaker 3: we're living in a home that when I said to
Speaker 3: my son, can you go into your sister's room with
Speaker 3: a black garbage bag and just grab as much as
Speaker 3: you can, my son got a call from his father
Speaker 3: put the bag down.
Speaker 1: My conversation will continue after this break.
Speaker 3: We have to really look through the lens of children
Speaker 3: and understand that their experiences are like ours. To expect
Speaker 3: our child to say I never want to talk to
Speaker 3: dad again, I'm never going to have a relationship with
Speaker 3: this person or he's To expect them to do that
Speaker 3: at their young, vulnerable age is a huge ask because
Speaker 3: their children and we couldn't do it. I was with
Speaker 3: this man for how long. So my children now thankfully
Speaker 3: are doing well and are growing, and I think it's
Speaker 3: a post traumatic growth, right. It's about this idea of
Speaker 3: being able to grow through the trauma. We're okay, mom,
Speaker 3: We're okay, is what I hear, and in my heart,
Speaker 3: I really it's hard for me to be they're okay,
Speaker 3: but I have to hope and continue to help them grow.
Speaker 3: The worst thing that could happen to a parent is
Speaker 3: to have a child that lives down the road that
Speaker 3: you don't have a relationship with, that has been turned
Speaker 3: against you. So I'm grateful that my children did begin
Speaker 3: to see clearly, and I truly believe that's because they
Speaker 3: always had a strong attachment to me when they were little.
Speaker 3: And I always tell my protective moms that your child
Speaker 3: will always have that attachment to you, and the goal
Speaker 3: is to reignite it or to foster growth in it
Speaker 3: as much as you can, because he is working all
Speaker 3: of the time to harm that and works so hard
Speaker 3: to harm it.
Speaker 1: And he's working so hard also to just constantly protect
Speaker 1: his fragile ego and remain in control. And I think
Speaker 1: that what's shattering as a co parent of someone like
Speaker 1: that is to recognize that their other parent would be
Speaker 1: so to sacrifice them, sacrifice their mental health, sacrifice their
Speaker 1: sense of well being in the name of their fragile egos,
Speaker 1: and never seek out the help. Because the pushback I'll
Speaker 1: always get is like, well, that's a broken person. I'm like, really,
Speaker 1: because that broken person is getting through the world just fine.
Speaker 1: They're able to organize extramarital affairs and music gigs and
Speaker 1: go to work, So that seems functional to me. And
Speaker 1: if a person's that functional, they can pick up a
Speaker 1: damn phone and call a therapist. But no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: lest the fragile person do the work, Let's just destroy
Speaker 1: everyone else in our wake. That's how they do it.
Speaker 1: And it is absolutely not okay because you know this
Speaker 1: from doing the work you do. I know this from
Speaker 1: doing the work I do. This stays with children who
Speaker 1: grow up with this. Are you seeing it in your kids?
Speaker 3: I certainly observe it in them. So you know, sometimes
Speaker 3: trauma responses, as you know, are to be a perfectionist,
Speaker 3: to be an over worker, to try so hard, or
Speaker 3: perhaps one of the things we know that happens with children.
Speaker 3: And this is specifically what I studied in my doctoral
Speaker 3: work is that when they have been harmed and they're
Speaker 3: not exposed to our witnesses too, they are truly victims
Speaker 3: in these circumstances. But when they've been harmed, they have
Speaker 3: significant anxiety. They are disregulated very easily. They can certainly
Speaker 3: participate in other adverse experiences. So you know, anxiety for sure,
Speaker 3: that is very evident, and you know, I have to
Speaker 3: take some of that responsibility. I was anxious in that home.
Speaker 3: I was anxious in that home. And so the good
Speaker 3: news is is that they now see me not anxious.
Speaker 3: The good news is I've been able to show them
Speaker 3: that they can also grow and change from this experience.
Speaker 3: And you know, so we have conversations. They know, they
Speaker 3: do know who their father is. Now they see it
Speaker 3: clearly and they understand what happened to them. You know,
Speaker 3: my daughter likes to talk about it, perhaps less. My
Speaker 3: son is more open to having conversations. But he's the
Speaker 3: one who also still accepts texts from his dad because
Speaker 3: he says it helps to remind him that he is
Speaker 3: not stable and my daughter has him totally blacked.
Speaker 1: Doctor Christine said that her son continues to receive these
Speaker 1: text messages. So he can really see it. And that's
Speaker 1: not an unusual pattern for people who may have distanced
Speaker 1: from an antagonistic or narcissistic or abusive relationship, staying in
Speaker 1: touch because the ongoing toxic messaging is actually a tool
Speaker 1: for seeing how unhealthy it all is and a reminder
Speaker 1: to not get back into it. I have known many
Speaker 1: people who say, well, they don't like seeing these messages anymore.
Speaker 1: They do help them recognize why they had to step
Speaker 1: away from someone they love. I want to go back
Speaker 1: to something you said, because I want to double that
Speaker 1: point is that children are experiencing this and not just
Speaker 1: witnessing it passive observers here. They're having a very real experience.
Speaker 1: But I am going to also call you out on something. Well,
Speaker 1: part of this was my fault. I was so anxious
Speaker 1: in this marriage. What other feeling was there? You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. I can't think of any other feeling
Speaker 1: one would have, you know, a real emotional experience when
Speaker 1: somebody is abusing, controlling, and in essence, like you said,
Speaker 1: relationally subjugating you. But anxiety, and you know, I know
Speaker 1: again we see this over and over again. Is that
Speaker 1: what were your choices? If you saw this earlier, Christine, Again,
Speaker 1: I'm going to cite doctor Jennifer Fried. If you saw
Speaker 1: this earlier, it was a cataclysmic thing to see and
Speaker 1: it might have very well been a call to action
Speaker 1: of having to leave. And there is a part of
Speaker 1: you that did not want those children growing up with
Speaker 1: him without you in the house. And you grappled with
Speaker 1: something that many many people struggle with, which is we're
Speaker 1: going to stay in this and they're going to watch
Speaker 1: me and during this and you can only fake it
Speaker 1: so long, right, They're going to see your anxiety, especially
Speaker 1: since you didn't fully understand what you were dealing with, right,
Speaker 1: or if you did see it, okay, come out of
Speaker 1: that betrayal blindness as Frid would call it, and saw
Speaker 1: it clearly, it would be cataclysmic. By the time you left,
Speaker 1: they were quite a bit older and they were both
Speaker 1: on their way sort of out the door.
Speaker 2: That's something to really focus on.
Speaker 1: And you also said something about I had to be
Speaker 1: a therapist almost more than a mom with them. You
Speaker 1: have the good grace of being trained as a therapist.
Speaker 1: The vast majority of people who are going through this,
Speaker 1: whether it's pre separation abuse, post separation, abuse, the entire
Speaker 1: umbrella of coercive control or any form of narcissistically abusive relationship.
Speaker 1: Aren't trained as therapists, are having a real experience, are
Speaker 1: having trauma responses, and may not necessarily be able to
Speaker 1: always tamp down all that emotion and be present with
Speaker 1: their kids while their own worlds are falling apart. It's
Speaker 1: quite remarkable that you were able to get yourself into
Speaker 1: that therapy headspace, especially during COVID, and create that space
Speaker 1: for your kids.
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you so much. I actually created a program
Speaker 3: and it's just literally trying to help protective parents actually
Speaker 3: do the things I did. So it's all about how
Speaker 3: do you create the space in your home to respond
Speaker 3: to your child when they're behaving a certain way, so
Speaker 3: that that way, you're not necessarily responding as mom or
Speaker 3: reacting as mom, but you're responding more in a more
Speaker 3: attuned way. Because you're absolutely right, I'm fortunate I had
Speaker 3: the skill set. What I saw happening was that it
Speaker 3: was working. They were starting to see me as safe,
Speaker 3: not the untrustworthy crazy mother that they had been told
Speaker 3: I was. They were starting to feel safer here, and
Speaker 3: that was my saving grace to be honest with you.
Speaker 1: How can we find this program that you've created for parents.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's on my website. It's Course of Control Consulting
Speaker 3: and by actually just started a foundation because I have
Speaker 3: so many moms who what happens in domestic abuse, of course,
Speaker 3: is financial destination. I just started a foundation so that
Speaker 3: people have more money for scholarships. I've been giving away scholarships.
Speaker 3: But you know, certainly the idea that our children are
Speaker 3: experiencing basically what we've experienced. Yes, but of course they're
Speaker 3: just so so vulnerable and needing as much support as possible.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I would say the vast majority of survivors of
Speaker 1: childhood course of control and narcissistic abuse, what we tend
Speaker 1: to see there is anxiety and inaccurate self appraisal. People
Speaker 1: who've gone through this do not see themselves clearly, they
Speaker 1: undermine their own sense of ability. They may have a
Speaker 1: higher risk of trauma bonded relationships going forward. I do
Speaker 1: have one other side question. I'm just curious. You said
Speaker 1: your parents were married for sixty three years. They were
Speaker 1: very happy, they liked him so much in the beginning.
Speaker 2: What happened?
Speaker 1: Does it all started to fall apart? How did they
Speaker 1: regard this, the situation and what you were going through.
Speaker 3: So I think in the beginning, as there were all
Speaker 3: of these incidentss along the way, they were willing to
Speaker 3: forgive him if I was again wanting to keep peace,
Speaker 3: you know. But towards the end, when things were really evident,
Speaker 3: and I was living out of the home most of
Speaker 3: the time, living at my mom and dad's, my mom
Speaker 3: said something pretty profound to me one time as I
Speaker 3: was laying on her lap sobbing, couldn't believe all of
Speaker 3: the horrible things he was saying about me to the
Speaker 3: kids and in emails, and she said, the girl I
Speaker 3: know is much stronger than this, and the girl I
Speaker 3: knows she needs to leave. And that was a moment
Speaker 3: for me. I always say to people, if the post
Speaker 3: separation abuse hadn't been so bad, if he had not
Speaker 3: gotten so it just became so bad that had it
Speaker 3: not been so bad, I probably would still be with him.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. And I think that the foreshadowing
Speaker 1: of that was there for when you were sixteen years old,
Speaker 1: the very guy who said, if you ever leave me,
Speaker 1: I'm going to end my life. I'm going to kill myself.
Speaker 1: That was already giving you that tiny seed of what
Speaker 1: would ultimately become this post separation abuse. That's what's so
Speaker 1: extraordinary and unsettling about a story like this. And I
Speaker 1: think that the post separation abuse landscape is something everyone
Speaker 1: needs to understand because people will often look sideways at
Speaker 1: survivor saying, ya didn't leave, yeah.
Speaker 2: Kept going back? How bad could it have been?
Speaker 1: Not understanding that a lot of people are trying to
Speaker 1: avoid something that's catastrophic if they were to leave, and
Speaker 1: that kind of bargain with the devil is one of
Speaker 1: the most difficult things that people simply do not understand.
Speaker 1: We're trying to bring awareness here, and you are too
Speaker 1: that end. You are an expert in this, and you
Speaker 1: train and educate people about this everywhere. What are some
Speaker 1: tips you have for our listeners if they're experiencing coersive
Speaker 1: control in a relationship, either pre separation or post separation abuse.
Speaker 3: I think that one of the things that helps A
Speaker 3: word I came up with I call it re traumatization theory,
Speaker 3: and it's this idea that the only way that we
Speaker 3: can actually believe it's as bad as it is is
Speaker 3: if we truly write down a list of all of
Speaker 3: the horrible things that have been done to us, and
Speaker 3: look at that list. You may have to look at
Speaker 3: it daily every time you're thinking of responding to that
Speaker 3: person or going back or not leaving. I have a
Speaker 3: client right now who's on the fence thinking about staying,
Speaker 3: and asked her to write this list, which just sounds
Speaker 3: horrifying because to have to relive all of those experiences again.
Speaker 3: But honestly, it's the only way the brain is going
Speaker 3: to get the message. The brain doesn't want to hear
Speaker 3: the bad right Our brain's number one job is to
Speaker 3: keep us safe. Our brain doesn't want to think it's
Speaker 3: this bad. And so it was for me printing out
Speaker 3: all of the texts and emails that we're so horrifying
Speaker 3: and putting them all in a folder and looking at
Speaker 3: the folder regularly listening to the video because I did
Speaker 3: start videotaping listening to the video of the horrific things
Speaker 3: he was calling me. The other thing I would say
Speaker 3: is that if there's a pattern of someone trying to
Speaker 3: diminish who you are, if you are with someone who
Speaker 3: doesn't support you being in your job, whatever it is,
Speaker 3: that's a diminishment of you. If you are with someone
Speaker 3: who doesn't really want you to spend extra time with
Speaker 3: family and friends. That's a diminishment of you. Who are
Speaker 3: you and who are you? Separate from this person, because
Speaker 3: what happens is we become so enmeshed in that relationship
Speaker 3: that we don't see ourselves anymore. Ask yourself, who are you?
Speaker 3: Who are you? Without this person?
Speaker 1: These are brilliant suggestions. I would even say what we
Speaker 1: should be doing with people as young as middle school,
Speaker 1: high school, college, most adults should be doing this is
Speaker 1: asking themselves that question.
Speaker 2: Before they ever get into a relationship. Who are you?
Speaker 1: What are you about? People don't grapple with that. It's
Speaker 1: funny what you call retraumatization theory is so much more
Speaker 1: elegant than what I've been having clients do for years,
Speaker 1: which is I call.
Speaker 2: It the ick list. Ick ick.
Speaker 1: I will say, get together with friends, do it in
Speaker 1: supportive circumstances. I've constructed many an ick list alongside a friend,
Speaker 1: and I'll say, well, whah, you're forgetting this. You're forgetting this.
Speaker 1: Remember I mean to me, memories are sort of like
Speaker 1: the cloud, right there's on a shared hard drive between
Speaker 1: many of us. We don't remember this someone else remembers
Speaker 1: that putting it in one place is very hard for
Speaker 1: people to do because it, first of all, doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2: It doesn't feel good to go back into that.
Speaker 1: I always encourage people to do that with a therapist
Speaker 1: or a coach, to do it alongside somebody who you
Speaker 1: know has your back and may have even witness the relationship.
Speaker 1: It is absolutely essential because you're absolutely right. Trauma, bonding, betrayal, blindness,
Speaker 1: all these mechanisms tend to turn us away from that
Speaker 1: because it is too destabilizing. It means we have to
Speaker 1: give up on all we know, on the status quo
Speaker 1: and what we believe is good and safe in the world.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you one last question, which
Speaker 1: is what do you hope people will learn from your story?
Speaker 3: Coerceive control can happen to anyone, and that even the
Speaker 3: most astute of us can miss the signs that if
Speaker 3: I was teaching on it. I've been a volunteer as
Speaker 3: a domestic violence sexual assault con source since the age
Speaker 3: of nineteen. I've been doing this work since I was
Speaker 3: nineteen years old. If I miss the signs, and I'm
Speaker 3: not trying to suggest I am better than anyone, but
Speaker 3: I'm saying, if I had the information and I missed it,
Speaker 3: anyone can miss it.
Speaker 1: I want to come back behind that is we keep
Speaker 1: making it about missing the signs. You're doing it since
Speaker 1: you're nineteen, missing the signs. I'm a psychology just missing
Speaker 1: the signs. I think it's really important that we stop
Speaker 1: talking about missing the signs and make it about understanding
Speaker 1: the processes, because it's not about I miss that, Because
Speaker 1: missing it that puts the responsibility on you the process
Speaker 1: to understand you're getting sucked into something where your nervous
Speaker 1: system is taking you also on a bit of a
Speaker 1: ride that's happening almost under the level of consciousness. That's
Speaker 1: a whole different game. So I cannot thank you enough
Speaker 1: for sharing a story that is so vulnerable, that is
Speaker 1: also so powerful and reminds us. I mean, I look
Speaker 1: at you to me or a peer. You are successful,
Speaker 1: you are smart, you're intelligent, you're beautiful. We look at
Speaker 1: you as someone that this doesn't happen to and that's
Speaker 1: the mistake. This can happen to any of us. And
Speaker 1: so putting yourself forth and not only sharing your story,
Speaker 1: but continuing to educate people, which can't be easy every day.
Speaker 1: You know, it takes you back into a really difficult place,
Speaker 1: and having raised two amazing children despite this is also
Speaker 1: a story of hope, Christine, that people can go through
Speaker 1: all of this. These things do shape us, and in
Speaker 1: your case, it still led you back to a wonderful
Speaker 1: relationship with your children and you're just held on tight.
Speaker 1: So I think that that's also a really important thing
Speaker 1: for people who are in the middle of the storm
Speaker 1: to hear in your story.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you so much for having me. I
Speaker 3: appreciate the ability to have this platform to talk about it.
Speaker 2: It's been an absolute pleasure.
Speaker 1: Here are my takeaways from my conversation with doctor Christine. First,
Speaker 1: we desperately want formulas who is most at risk, People
Speaker 1: from families with narcissistic parents, people with trauma histories. The
Speaker 1: answer is actually everyone. Doctor Christine had pairsarans who were
Speaker 1: happily married for sixty three years, and she grew up
Speaker 1: in a stable household and a culture of kindness and forgiveness.
Speaker 1: Subjugation in a narcissistic relationship is the idea that a
Speaker 1: person becomes overtaken by the narcissistic or antagonistic or abusive
Speaker 1: person and In this process, your identity and sense of
Speaker 1: self get lost. Once that happens, the tendency for self
Speaker 1: blame is magnified. Doctor Christine also said that she was
Speaker 1: afraid of disappointing someone, meaning that instead of seeing her
Speaker 1: boyfriend's behavior as intrusive and excessive, she would not push
Speaker 1: back for fear of disappointing him. That worked in her family,
Speaker 1: but it was dangerous in this relationship. In my next takeaway,
Speaker 1: doctor Christine raises a form of gaslighting we often do
Speaker 1: not think about, which is being told that you are
Speaker 1: over reacting because you are actually concerned about someone who,
Speaker 1: in her case, was deceiving her. When her partner did
Speaker 1: not come home and she raised concern and contacted emergency services,
Speaker 1: her partner would tell her she was overreacting. This process
Speaker 1: of painting another person as overly emotional or dramatic when
Speaker 1: they are expressing genuine concern is a manipulative game of
Speaker 1: hiding deceit and painting the concerned person as having a problem.
Speaker 1: Our conversation also revealed another often missed pattern of gaslighting,
Speaker 1: which is mockery, which can involve one parent often mocking
Speaker 1: the other parent and framing it as a joke and
Speaker 1: even encouraging the children to join in. If there is pushback,
Speaker 1: the mocking parent will tell the other parent that they
Speaker 1: are too sensitive and can't take a joke. And all
Speaker 1: of this is very confusing for children, who may even
Speaker 1: feel pressure to pile on the mockery while at the
Speaker 1: same time feeling guilty. For my next takeaway, During post
Speaker 1: separation abuse, one pattern we can observe is that children
Speaker 1: are having inappropriate, untrue, or hurtful information shared with them.
Speaker 1: This is called triangulation, and it is emotional abuse. This
Speaker 1: can look like teaming up against a parent, facing barriers
Speaker 1: when they try to see their other parent, or being
Speaker 1: rewarded for sharing in cruel words or actions towards the
Speaker 1: other parent. All of this can be an extraordinarily helpless
Speaker 1: and painful feeling for a parent caught in this situation.
Speaker 1: She notes that it is crucial that parents who are
Speaker 1: trying to help children through these crises be deeply attuned,
Speaker 1: create a sense of safety, don't be defensive, but answer
Speaker 1: the children's in worries honestly. It is also important, hard
Speaker 1: as it may be, to never disparage the other parent,
Speaker 1: even when that other parent may be disparaging you. This
Speaker 1: is not easy and even more difficult if you do
Speaker 1: not have support, access to therapy, or other resources, but
Speaker 1: it is essential. Next, Doctor Christine's relationship had many patterns
Speaker 1: that we observe in trauma bonded relationships. A push and pull,
Speaker 1: being treated with contempt and then being asked to join
Speaker 1: everyone for a movie night, feeling loved and then being abused.
Speaker 1: That creates confusion, justification, and foster's false hope. She talked
Speaker 1: about this as something we call intermittent reinforcement, which is
Speaker 1: a very useful way to think about this. It's much
Speaker 1: like a slot machine. More often than not it takes
Speaker 1: your money, but sometimes it pays out and you keep
Speaker 1: playing in hopes of the giant payout. The alternation between loss,
Speaker 1: small gains and the hope of a big gain captures
Speaker 1: the trauma bond and maybe a way for you to
Speaker 1: understand these cycles for yourself and end some of the
Speaker 1: self blame, because when we are in these cycles, hope
Speaker 1: and sticking around are to be expected. My next takeaway, interestingly,
Speaker 1: what doctor Christine calls retraumatization theory, I far less eloquently
Speaker 1: call an ach list. But both of us are coming
Speaker 1: to the same conclusion. Everything we know about trauma, bonding,
Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance, betrayal, blindness, and euphoric recall all point to
Speaker 1: the likelihood that you will forget about the bad things
Speaker 1: that happen in a relationship. Write them down. It's unpleasant,
Speaker 1: but it is also cathartic. Do it alone with friends
Speaker 1: or family who witnessed it, or with your therapist. This
Speaker 1: list can be a psychological splash of cold water on
Speaker 1: your face to help you avoid getting pulled back in
Speaker 1: and repeating the same cycles again. And Finally, this interview
Speaker 1: was about one person's experience in her marriage, but these
Speaker 1: patterns of familial coercive control can and do happen in
Speaker 1: a range of situations involving co parents of children, regardless
Speaker 1: of parental gender. It doesn't only happen to mothers. It
Speaker 1: also happens to fathers and to parents of any gender.