This was one of the most thoughtful people I’ve known. I mean, here I was, the therapist, and whenever she sent me an email, Mary would ask how I was doing.Talk about the opposite of narcissistic.
She always wanted the best for everyone.
Mary was the type of person who would allow herself to be volunteered into community jobs that no one wanted just so everyone was happy.She was the perfect wife for Michael.
She was a giver and he was happy to take.
Unfortunately, it was more complicated than that.
I won’t go into Michael’s life and history; I’ve done that in another post.
Suffice it to say that Michael had a very small tolerance for anything that could possibly rub him the wrong way.I don’t generally like to pin labels on people (take a look at my posts in my Linktree list and the replays listed there on being “non-judgmental ” and “non-pathologizing”) . . .
. . . but . . .
. . . most people would say Michael was an abuser.
Plain and simple
(I love waving my magic wand at “abusers” and transforming them into sensitive, compassionate people. My whole team does. It’s so much fun. But to get back to my story) . . .So here we have Mary, a kind, loving person who couldn’t stand seeing people hurting.
And then we have Michael who couldn’t feel another person’s pain (or his own) – which made him dangerous.So what happened when the children displeased Michael?
I’ll go you one better because you definitely know the answer to that one:
What happened when the children reacted badly to Michael’s overreaction?What happened when Michael went over the top and got down and dirty scary?
What do you think Mary did?
Remember, Mary saw her precious children getting hurt. But she also was scared.Real scared.
Because it was escalating, and both Michael and one or another of the children were out of control.Mary had to make peace.
She had to.
Can you understand? What else could she do?So . . . she made the children apologize “for upsetting daddy.”
Fast forward twenty years.
The three children moved as far away as they could. One relocated to Ireland, one to New York (from California) and one to Pennsylvania.They married, had kids.
And they made a pact with their spouses never, ever to blame a child for their own shortcomings.Their father was not welcome in their house and Mary was tolerated… She often wondered why they could be rude to her.
They certainly never turned to her for advice.
But Mary, who, remember, only wanted peace, accepted things as they were. She didn’t see the pain in their hearts.Things coasted along until one day Leslie, her youngest, said she hated her father and wished he would die.
Mary was not shocked, just sad. After all, her marriage was not a picnic either.But she made the mistake of saying, “I understand. At least I’m glad I could be there for you.”
“What?” exploded Leslie, genuinely shocked.
“How could you say that?” Leslie asked.
“Not only weren’t you there for us, but you took his side! Every time!”“In fact,” Leslie went on with words that burned, “you enabled him.”
Mary was speechless.
Are you kidding? she thought. I was your protector!
But all she said was, “How can you say that?”
Leslie stared at her mother for a long moment. Then it dawned on her: My mother doesn’t get it. She really doesn’t.”Leslie had tolerated an awful lot of abuse. While it made her sister, Madeline, an angry drug abuser, it turned her into a social worker.
She took a breath, waited a moment to collect her thoughts and asked Mary, “Did you ever tell me dad was wrong?”“Of course I did!” Mary answered.
“Hold on, mother,” Leslie said. “You made me apologize, right?”
“Ye–s,” Mary said slowly, the light beginning to dawn.
“So, if I was right and dad was wrong, why in the world should I have had to apologize?” “To to um to calm your dad down. He felt hurt,” Mary answered weakly.Leslie didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
Now, I ask you: Was it Leslie’s responsibility to calm her dad down?
More importantly, if both were in the wrong, why didn’t Mary ever say anything to Michael to get him to take responsibility?Well you know the answer: She was afraid of him.
Do you think that is what “protecting her children” really is?
Do you think it protected them emotionally?
Let’s ask another question: I get that Mary must have stayed in the relationship because (mixed with the fear) she may have believed that underneath the abuse was a man with a good heart.But –
What kind of marriage could she have had with a partner she was afraid of?That she had to placate?
And throw her children under the bus to calm his taste for blood?
You think I’m exaggerating?This is the basis for addictions, hate, anger, and crime.
It’s not just the abuse itself.
It’s the crazy-making of telling someone they’re wrong when they’re not.Okay, I get that a child who answers back is in the wrong. But sometimes a child feels like a frightened and trapped animal who has no other choices.
If the adult started the escalation, the parent is in the wrong.
And any parent watching this without giving the unvarnished truth to the child and the other parent is equally in the wrong.Call it being an accessory to the crime.
Or an enabler.
Or codependent.
There’s a time for kindness. And then there’s a time for truth….
….Just so that the children get the real message and don’t come out feeling like they’ve been gaslit. Sometimes smoothing over the evil is evil, not kind.