friendship

4. More details about Tracy’s abuse of her husband and children

6. Sexual Harassment from some of Richard’s friends

7. Without warning or explanation, tensions build

10. Grief

12. Musings on how Christians should treat each other

13b. Thinking of celebrating the first anniversary

Sequel to this Story: Fighting the Darkness: Journey from Despair to Healing

by Nyssa McCanmore
Posted on August 1, 2010April 15, 2020

Tracy snarks and Richard nitpicks

On February 10, 2008, I wrote an e-mail to my mother that said Richard told me they patched things up. I wrote,

I had trouble with Tracy because I’d hear her pick at Richard and yell at him when he was trying not to argue; if she’s not doing that anymore, then a major barrier to our potential friendship is removed.

Unfortunately, this honeymoon period didn’t last, and I later witnessed her doing stuff like this at him and the kids again.

Tracy poked fun at anything I did or said, in real life or on Facebook. Jabs from Richard and Tracy kept adding up over time and driving me crazy.

Richard told me I didn’t feed my family right because I didn’t do it like they did. He got upset with me for being happy when a citywide controversy with a local business was resolved a way that I wanted but he didn’t.

He jabbed at me for bringing Kleenex to their house (I have always, always had a bundle of Kleenex in my coat pocket wherever I go, just like in the olden days people carried handkerchiefs).

He and Tracy criticized so many things I did that in 2010, I complained to Jeff that everything I did, said or thought was “wrong” somehow.

I kept in touch and tried to deal with things as well as I could online, but sometimes the chats led to their own misunderstandings and disagreements. Especially when I’d see a ping from him and think, oh cool, Richard wants to talk to me–but he’d start ripping on me for having a different political opinion.

Or he’d make some personal remark late at night and out of the blue that I thought was unfair, but get upset that I wanted to talk this over and get it resolved right away. Then I’d have trouble sleeping because it wasn’t resolved.

It was harder than heck to get him on the phone: Either Tracy answered and said he was in the middle of something and he’d call later, but he never did, or nobody would answer/return my calls. That made me think she told him not to call, though he later told me that was not the case.

I kept telling him we needed to get together and talk about things in person. I told him our issues were not getting properly resolved because we didn’t do this.

But it fell on deaf ears, and I was stuck with e-mail and the occasional phone call, which was not as effective–especially when Tracy was nearby, or he scolded kids every two minutes.

We were eventually “allowed” to get together and talk if he brought the kids along, but it was hard to get him to even do that. You’d think he’d come over more often, since at my place the kids had room to roam inside and out that they didn’t have at home, and a playmate, my son. And my son and Richard’s kids kept wanting to play with each other more often.

I have described the snotty comments Tracy made while living with us. But there were even more after she moved out.

For example, one day, the eldest child saw Ronald Reagan on TV. I told her I watched on a TV in my classroom as Reagan first went into the White House in 1981. I was excited to share this with her, and had so much to tell her.

But as I began the story–Tracy suddenly snarked that I was really showing my age. (She’s almost a decade younger than Richard and me.)

I was only about 36 years old! Hardly ready for a cane and the nursing home just yet!

In shock and indignation at her rudeness, I could not say another word. But, of course, since people say you’re supposed to ignore the bully to get her to stop, that responding will only feed the troll, I ignored her.

How amazing that they kept accusing me of rudeness, when I was polite to her but she was constantly rude to me!

I thought we had settled things: I believe this was in 2009, after Richard and I had a long phone chat that (I thought) sorted everything out. But here she was being mean again.

Did Richard ever notice any of this? He knew she insulted me several times on the phone while I was nearby, loud enough for me to hear. Why did he act so surprised that I held her at arm’s length?

They basically told a sheep to befriend a wolf or the wolf would eat her up, wondered why the sheep was nervous around the wolf, and then blamed the sheep when the wolf devoured her.

In I think 2009, Richard asked me to please please help with a problem his wife had, by finding and sending any links I could find on it. He said I had an amazing ability of finding things on the Net.

I did as he asked, and stayed up late that night, giving myself mouse-cramp from all the Googling and clipping/pasting of links. I did this to please her.

But it made her furious.

She convinced him that he did an awful thing by having his friend send her links. The next day, when he picked up my son for school, he asked me to stop sending links.

He was very apologetic to me, because he knew he asked me to do this.

He also seemed psychologically beaten down, upset, on the verge of tears. This tells me that her fury must have been frightening and emasculating–over something meant to help her, to make her happy.

I saw him sad and crying once before because of her. It made me feel protective of him and angry with her.

So not only could he not do anything right, but it was passed along to me, his defender.

Shortly after this, I found a “how-to” video on Youtube, how to deal with friends going through what Tracy went through. One of the suggestions was exactly what I did! (If I were more clear you’d understand, but due to the personal nature of the situation, I can’t be.)

And when Jeff was in the same predicament later on, she had no problem at all telling him how to search a certain website and find links etc., giving him all this information. He found this hypocritical.

I’m talking about the kind of sensitivity we call “walking on eggshells” which describes how people act when they never know what will set that person off.
Which means that offense is taken where a reasonable person would never even think to get offended over such things.
Narcissists often pretend to be offended in order to steer the behaviors of those around them to suit their purposes. It is a manipulation tactic to constantly be looking for reasons to be offended as the narcissist does. –Anna Valerious, Do They Have Feelings?

Other examples of perverted behavior are:
…–reacting with anger to what should please (such as finding some mysterious offense in an attempt to suck up)
–getting angrier in reaction to what should appease (Narcissistic Rage)
In short, whenever you see a backwards reaction to something, believe your eyes and ears. Accept this behavior’s perplexity and know what you know — that there is something seriously wrong with that person. And don’t forget about it tomorrow when he’s Dr. Jekyll again.
Are you in a relationship with someone who has made you want to pinch yourself to see if you’re dreaming? Have you often found yourself confused, afraid, and distressed at this person’s inexplicable backwards reactions to things?
Please, please see this for the red flag this is and get the hell away from them. Carefully. Don’t threaten to leave. Just leave. Plan your escape and run away! Change your name if necessary. Seek a shelter if you know this person is unlikely to let you just leave. –Anna Valerious, The Reddest Red Flag of Narcissism

Another time, in 2010 I believe, somebody asked my height. I answered the question the way I usually did: “5’4 and three quarters.” To me, just a simple answer to a question. But Tracy said, “Only little kids use fractions of an inch. Are you insecure about being short?”

HUH???? My mother uses fractions of an inch all the time when giving her height! In fact, if you say she’s 5’1, she gets indignant and says, “5’1 and three quarters!” My mother is not at all childish.

When I told Jeff about this in 2011, he said, “Tracy just had it in for you, didn’t she?”

Tracy snarked at or got highly offended by things that Jeff either supported or shrugged at. So he stuck up for me whenever he could. He kept getting upset at her barbs or jealousies.

But you shouldn’t have friends who treat you so badly that your husband needs to stick up for you! Several times over the course of that “friendship,” I researched “toxic friends” on the Internet. (“Frenemy” is a good word.)

By the way, he is not a “yes man”: He tried to get me to see Tracy’s point of view in many things. I respected that he didn’t just say what I wanted to hear. (Of course, later on he discovered my powers of observation were greater than his, and told me wished he had listened.)

I suspected that saying what the other person wanted to hear, on the part of Richard and Tracy, was sabotaging our friendship, because they didn’t even consider my point of view.

Sometimes I’d discuss an issue with Richard (always on the phone) and then try to explain Tracy’s point of view to Jeff, but Jeff would still be upset with both of them. So when Jeff got upset at Tracy, I knew it was genuine, not just keeping his wife happy.

The snarking really stepped up in spring 2010; more on that later, and how Jeff defended me.

More on this subject in the next section.

Why did I stay in this friendship? Because Richard didn’t always act like this, and many times acted like he still cared about me. If not for him, I’d have nothing more to do with Tracy.

His criticisms didn’t come as often as hers; I thought he was well-meaning, but flaky and know-it-all. Many times, we had fun online or sharing videos or chatting while the kids played.

Just like any abusive relationship, if it were bad all the time, you’d flee at the first opportunity.

Table of Contents

4. More details about Tracy’s abuse of her husband and children

6. Sexual Harassment from some of Richard’s friends

7. Without warning or explanation, tensions build

10. Grief

12. Musings on how Christians should treat each other

13b. Thinking of celebrating the first anniversary

Sequel to this Story: Fighting the Darkness: Journey from Despair to Healing

by Nyssa McCanmore
Posted on July 20, 2010May 24, 2017

Their doublespeak and double standards

As for the things that so upset Tracy, as described in chapter 2, she wouldn’t let either of us forget for the next couple of years that I did these things or wanted to do these things and was such a slut to even think of them in the first place.

If these things wouldn’t be okay with her, why did he do them with me in the first place? (In case you don’t know and don’t look at the link, these things were all innocent and platonic. But I don’t want to use up space by describing them yet again.)

If Richard didn’t complain about something, and especially if he acted as if it were perfectly fine and dandy to do it, and especially if he himself kept doing the thing–

I had no way of knowing if Tracy had a problem with it until I did something in front of her (to show her my intentions were pure and I had nothing to hide), and she got short with me, or he’d tell me about the drama he was dealing with at home.

Or the rules about what exactly was and was not okay, were extremely hard to understand because his own behavior kept changing, or because nobody ever explained them to me. And Tracy’s reactions to things seemed extremely overblown.

An example: We were always having long chats online and off, and I never heard the slightest hint from Richard that Tracy might have a problem with it.

Then one day–several years into our friendship, which was online for two years before becoming in-person, and in person for at least a year–Richard told me Tracy said to him one night, “Were you just chatting online for two hours with that woman?”

Keep in mind modern online geek, Gen-X and Millennial culture, how it’s been for probably 20 years now: It’s quite common to find people online at all hours of the night, especially with different time zones, ages and work schedules.

I have often chatted with male and female friends in the wee hours of the morning, whether on BBS’es, IRC or Facebook. Keep in mind that Richard and I were both night owls, that he called me or guy friends in the middle of the night, that late-night online conversations are quite common in online geek culture.

My friends are often male because I’m part of the geek subculture, and it’s more common to find males than females who share such interests.

Meanwhile, Jeff’s friends are often female because he can talk with them on the sidelines at SCA events while most of the men fight with sticks. He often went to events by himself because I got bored with the SCA a while back, and stopped going for a long time.

I’ve read many crazy things on the Internet–probably by much older people who have nothing to do with geek culture–describing “signs of cheating.”

Things which show no understanding of modern culture among Gen-Xers and Millennials, especially computer geeks. Things such as late-night conversations must be cheating, going on the Internet late at night must be cheating, etc.

When actually, in our crowd, such things are considered perfectly normal and appropriate behavior.

So I certainly didn’t expect Tracy to be upset about any of it, especially when we’d been carrying on such chats for years. So her comment baffled me.

I was sick of her making innocuous stuff “dirty.” Especially when I had no reason to think she’d be upset about it–and especially when Richard kept carrying on with it (such as late-night chats) with no indication that we were doing anything wrong.

Then another time he’d tell me she had no problem with us talking on the phone or him visiting me with the kids along or whatever. I didn’t know what was going on.

Then there were things that Richard did many times, but if I did it, it was somehow wrong. Then later on, he did it himself again. It was all very confusing.

I doubt that having a normal brain, no NVLD, would have helped me much: Abusers do this “crazy-making” with normal people as well, keeping you on your toes, being fine with one thing one day and then screaming at you for it the next.

Then there was the time shortly after they moved out, when I told Richard I had another bag of his family’s stuff waiting to be picked up. He said he’d come over, but didn’t, didn’t even call to cancel, so I just waited and waited. I was upset at his rudeness and lack of consideration for my time.

I finally wrote an e-mail asking him to PLEASE let me know when he can’t come over, rather than leaving me hanging.

He responded that she actually fought him “tooth and nail” every time he needed to come over just for ten minutes to get a bag of their own stuff! She’d say I hated her and was biased against her.

That’s the first time I heard of this! What, did she want us to keep their hair fasteners and mail and books and other crap that I kept finding all over the place?

Then when he finally did come over soon after to pick up those bags, I talked with him some more about it. He said no, she was just upset because he promised to do something with the family right after work.

Wait–What? So which is it? Does she hate me or is she just afraid you’re going back on your word? I later asked him by e-mail and he said, “It’s both.” So the doublespeak drove me mad, because he did this all the time. Jeff also complained about it.

More doublespeak: One day I hear something’s okay with Tracy, then another day I hear it’s not okay with Tracy.

Also: He called it “flirting” when he put his head in my lap, when he put his head on my shoulder, when he began flirting so shamelessly with me that I began thinking it wasn’t just innocent flirting, so I fled to my room to get away from it.

Then the next day and night he goes about life like nothing has happened, talking about his wife and kids coming to town in a couple of days, etc.

Then the following night he does these things again, making me think, What the heck is going on here? Then the next day he acts normally again.

So that night I confront him with the “cuddling and flirting,” to confront him about it, get the truth out of him of what the heck he’s up to. But he denies there was any such thing: No, it wasn’t cuddling, cuddling is something else, my family/relatives put our heads on each other’s shoulders, I was sleepy, and the teasing wasn’t flirting, it was “playful banter.”

In online geek culture, everybody, no matter what their marital status, flirts with anybody and everybody, often shamelessly, often with the same sex. Jokes get raunchy, humor gets bawdy, and some really crass groups on IRC will have one guy (such as “Maverick”) greeting another guy (“Saetan”) with “Maverick is raeping Saetan.” This “raep” stuff is too crass for me. But it’s all just pixels on a screen.

I have participated in such exchanges ever since the days of BBS’s in the 90s, so much so that my college roommate Sharon once called me a “cyber slut.” My husband, too, occasionally does this. It’s just what you do for fun in chats. Bawdy humor and flirting is also the norm in SCA groups.

So while some people might consider this shameful or even “cheating,” our groups would consider them “prudes.” Nobody is swinging or switching beds here: It’s all just talk.

The double standards: Richard flirts shamelessly with the ladies. Tracy sometimes flirts with Jeff (footsie, or asking me if I wanna switch husbands). Tracy flirts shamelessly on IRC.

Richard posts a picture online (for those overgrown frat boys in the IRC channel!) showing his wife’s breasts. He often flirts with me.

But I use my verbal wit on Richard in IRC one day and Tracy appears to get all upset. (I say “appears” because I was never sure if she was upset or just joking.)

(I’m pretty sure Tracy had a little thing for Jeff; I found it cute. Jeff also used to have a thing for one of my friends; I found that cute, too. I just don’t have time for jealousy.)

Or Tracy makes some comment in the IRC channel, and one of the guys types, “fap fap fap!” Or Richard acts like a stick-in-the mud, some days flirty and some days acting shocked at something I said, even though it’s just a bit of harmless silliness, nothing like the kind of stuff he says to people all the time.

He can “sex” ladies in the IRC channel with Tracy watching. He can post to ladies on the Forum that he “may be married but has lots of love to go around, so call me.”

He can make orgasmic sounds in the middle of his music webcast, knowing full well that I’m listening along with the guys in the IRC channel. My mind starts going places where I don’t want it to go, but when I complain he treats me like a prude.

He can hit on Jeff all the time and tell me he’s going to steal him away from me, so–even though it’s supposed to be a joke–Jeff complains to me, “Talk about crossing boundaries!”

Richard tells Jeff (with Tracy right there) that he’s going to invite us to a Christmas party and smooch me under the mistletoe, so Jeff says he won’t bring me to his party, then.

But when I playfully tease Richard about it later, he acts like I’ve said a horribly shocking thing, and says like a party pooper, “I think of you as a cousin.” Jeff’s response: a very cynical, “Uh-huhhh.” So….It’s perfectly fine for you to make this joke, but it’s disgraceful for me to tease you about it?

But somehow (according to Tracy in July/August 2010) I’m the one who “doesn’t understand boundaries” or social convention or “appropriate behavior.” Even though anything I ever do is extremely tame compared to the stuff they do, with me, Jeff and others.

She tells me how Richard flirted via text with one of his female friends from the Forum, while proposing to Tracy. And she laughs about it. She jokes about how he finds “girlfriends” online. We all laugh, understanding that he’s a faithful husband and it’s all just a big joke. But then she gets mad when it involves me. Or another time, doesn’t get mad.

Richard flirting with me, especially in front of Tracy, is an obvious sign that she must be okay with him doing that now, just as she is with him flirting with other women. But then several months later I can’t even tell him I’ll miss him on his trip out of state. Okay, Sybil, who am I talking to now?

The lines keep moving back and forth so much that I can’t pin them down, what’s okay and what’s not. Her approval for something, like getting coffee with him, is given one day, then at some mysterious point, without a word, is taken away again.

He’d say, “She knows you’re not trying to get with me,” but she acted as if she thought I was.

Tracy can go to a rock concert with Jeff, but I can’t get coffee with Richard. (Both are in public places!)

I don’t wear revealing clothes around Richard, while Tracy wears extremely low-cut blouses and low-waist pants around Jeff–yet I still get treated like a slut.

Richard and Tracy can be jerks to others, but God forbid anybody be jerks to them.

One day he tells me something would be fine once I fulfilled Tracy’s obligations, but the very next day he tells me it would never be okay. This is obvious crazy-making.

I think that even a “normal” (neurotypical) person would have trouble dealing with this doublespeak and the double standards. But NVLD made it even worse because–since I already knew that I was socially inept and had trouble doing “normal” social things–I looked to Richard as my guide for proper behavior. If he did a certain behavior, then it must be okay for me to do it, too.

The author has noticed how girls with Asperger’s Syndrome seem more able to follow social actions by delayed imitation. They observe the other children and copy them, but their actions are not as well timed and spontaneous. —Tony Attwood Answers Some Common Questions About Asperger’s Syndrome

Note a double standard in what Richard was allowed to do with male and female friends, vs. what Tracy was allowed to do:

All Richard had to do was meet a guy once, and he’d even let the guy go to a conference overnight alone with her. Then if he hit on her, Richard would know whom to beat up.

In red because it’s a HUGE red flag of abuse:

But according to a phone conversation Richard and I had in 2008 or 2009, and a forum post she wrote in 2008, she insisted on approving all his friends. This included male and female.

She had to meet them, put them through her “test.” Her approval could be made in minutes, or–with me–it became a long, drawn-out, exasperating process that infuriated my husband and me.

She felt she had the right to say she didn’t want him to keep a friend, and it was “respect” for him to follow her wishes.

But she freely did things with Jeff that if I tried them with Richard, she’d scream bloody murder. Like, for example, going to a concert alone with Jeff, telling me she was playing footsie with Jeff under the table, and joking about wanting to switch husbands.

If I did these things with Richard she would scream because I “hadn’t befriended” her. Yet she did them with Jeff after making very little effort to ever befriend me.

I thought this meant I finally had more freedom to do simple friend things–like going for coffee–with Richard, since turnabout is fair play, but no, I didn’t. (Or maybe I did, but she pulled her approval at some unknown time without a word.)

He could go out for coffee with, flirt outrageously with, and show affection to his friends, male and female, but if it involved me–I was a whore. (She didn’t use that word, but the things she said and did added up to that.)

More doublespeak: He told me I was very dear to him, reassured me that we were friends. But he was cruel and deceptive to me, allowing his wife to go off on me for things he did and convinced me were fine, getting angry at Jeff for saying it was wrong of her.

Richard tells me for the longest time, “Oh, yeah, hugs are fine. Hugs are okay.” So we hug all the time, including in front of Tracy, and I’m led to believe it’s perfectly fine.

Then on the day of the Incident, he gives Jeff the impression that hugs are NOT okay and were never okay until certain conditions would be met.

I’m told it’s not okay to go out for coffee with Richard. Then one day, maybe December 2009, Richard asks me to go get sushi, but it’s like midnight and hardly the time for it.

This was the “signal” I had asked for in an e-mail just a few months earlier, to tell me that Tracy is completely fine with me, that we can go out for coffee now, do everything he does with all his other “okayed” friends, since I didn’t want to keep asking him again and again if these things were okay.

So I e-mail him, saying, let me know when you want to go out for sushi.

Then on the day of the Incident Jeff hears how “Yes, it’s okay to go out for coffee/hug/etc., when certain conditions are met which have not been met.”

It drove me crazy. I felt like Alice in the rabbit hole, trapped in a world I didn’t understand, bombarded by contradictions. And Jeff, too, recognized the doublespeak and double standards.

As “Dategirl” Judy McGuire wrote in a column a few years ago,

Lest you think that could never happen to you, if you look at any study of domestic violence, you’ll see that jealousy is the No. 1 predictor of domestic abuse. Some other adjectives used to describe a typical abuser include controlling, overly critical, hypersensitive, and isolating. Sound familiar?

Yes–In fact, these describe Tracy, not just to me but to her husband and children.

But unfortunately, she and Richard gaslit me, scapegoated me, tried to pin the blame for everything on me.

I resisted as much as I could (as I do whenever someone bullies or abuses me), knowing there was plenty of blame to go around, to them as well as to me. But the gaslighting still affected me, making me doubt my own eyes and ears.

It seemed they wanted me to think I was crazy and they were normal, as if I had no right to my own opinions, as if everything I felt was wrong.

Tracy seemed to want me to grovel at her feet, and think I was some kind of worm who didn’t deserve their friendship unless I jumped and danced to her tune.

Her demands seemed to be deliberately placed so high that I could not reach them, especially with someone as mean to me as she was.

And of course, when she first discovered that I found her behavior to everyone to be abusive, that her behavior to me was ungrateful and wrong (after I had gone out of my way to give generously to her and her family), that being jealous and controlling are wrong–

–Instead of changing or proving me wrong, she did everything in her power to prove me correct–and try to make me seem like the “wrong” one.

2. The brainwasher controls the victim’s time and physical environment, and works to suppress much of the victim’s old behavior. The victim is slowly, or abruptly, isolated from all supportive persons except the brainwasher.
Your partner might have insisted that you stop certain social, hobby, or work activities. You might have gotten moved to a new location, farther away from your family and friends.
Or you may have been asked (or told) to reduce or stop contact with specific supportive people in your life. –Barbara, The Process of Brainwashing (Mind Control)

Table of Contents

4. More details about Tracy’s abuse of her husband and children

6. Sexual Harassment from some of Richard’s friends

7. Without warning or explanation, tensions build

10. Grief

12. Musings on how Christians should treat each other

13b. Thinking of celebrating the first anniversary

Sequel to this Story: Fighting the Darkness: Journey from Despair to Healing

by Nyssa McCanmore
Posted on July 19, 2010June 21, 2018

Tracy’s unreasonable jealousy even as I take pains to be above reproach

Tracy saw everything I did through green-colored glasses. I was always careful to not cross the boundaries, to dress modestly, cover my cleavage when bending over in front of Richard, to only kiss his head or cheek if I kissed him at all (which was rare), to make sure my e-mails to him were about life and religion and such, etc. etc.

Yet she still saw everything I did through her jealousy, even my ingrained personality trait of being quiet!

Everyone I’ve ever known has commented on how quiet I am. Yet to her, my being quiet with her was proof that I was not to be trusted with her husband.

It was inevitable that one day it would all blow up, that somewhere I would mess up and she would refuse to believe she had completely misunderstood me.

I have already described why he was not sexually attractive, including poor hygiene. I occasionally find an overweight guy attractive, but he was morbidly obese.

Hygiene aside, I find infidelity to be disgusting. If I even get tempted, my moral objections flare up; while I can’t help being tempted or being attracted to someone else, my conscience keeps me from acting on it.

I love my husband, who complements me quite well; we get along quite well most of the time, which–from what we can tell–is more than can be said for far too many couples.

There were many things about Richard that I wouldn’t be able to stand in a husband, while Jeff wasn’t like that at all.

Jeff is like my other half; he’s my main confidante, so there is no danger of me confiding far more in any of my friends, male or female, than I do in him.

For me, Richard was someone to whom I could tell the things that would bother Jeff, such as details about past boyfriends, or religious musings that would actually upset Jeff (make him wonder if I was turning atheist or heretical or the like). While Richard was no stranger to religious questioning, and on the side of Orthodoxy.

So there was no danger of Richard usurping Jeff’s role, and I also did not want to usurp Tracy’s role.

In fact, whenever we went out in public, such as to church or the grocery store, I took pains to distance myself from Richard physically and tell anyone who misunderstood that no, we are not married, we are not “together,” we are just friends.

When he lived with us alone, I anxiously looked forward to Tracy’s arrival (once Richard secured an apartment) so she would be at his side during church, leaving my relationship to him more obvious.

(We sometimes went to other churches where our relationship to each other was not known. I’d spend the entire service worried that people thought we were married. Heck no!)

While visits with Richard were far too short, I was still quite happy to have him go to his own filthy house, with his own children and his own wife, and his extreme politics and coffee and other things I couldn’t stand–

while I stayed in my clean house with my little family and its moderate politics, no coffee, no alcohol (because we don’t like it), and other things that I preferred.

Also, after I had worked so hard to find the Truth and get access to the Eucharist–the very source of Life itself, direct access to the Holy Spirit and union with Christ–I wasn’t so stupid as to risk excommunication from the Chalice with the very person who brought me there.

I also kept my husband updated on our conversations and such. He never objected to the friendship, so it was never some shady, secret thing.

In fact, I’d often say, “Hey, I got to talk to Richard for an hour on the phone today,” or “We chatted for two hours online just now,” and Jeff would say, “Oh, good, I’m glad you finally got a chance to talk with him again.”

It’s also quite ridiculous that I even have to explain myself. One adult shouldn’t have to explain/defend his/her friendship choices. Yet I’ve actually encountered people who thought our relationship was somehow wrong–simply because Richard is a man and I’m a woman and we’re married to others!

It made me wonder if I’d slipped back 100 years or so. I thought such backward thinking had been eradicated a long time ago!

Until Tracy’s jealousy flared up and I encountered these people, I never felt the need to explain or defend this friendship to anyone!

If Tracy had been sweet, kind and accepting like most of my friends’ significant others, I would’ve loved her like a sister and freely given her hugs (once I got comfortable with her).

She’d probably make a terrible animal trainer, because instead of using love and kindness to draw me to her, she punished me with harshness for not being comfortable around her, chasing me further into my shell.

If only she would take the lesson from my son and one of our cats, a shy and skittish little thing: When he was little, he kept harassing her, so she became afraid of him and ran away from him. She still gets nervous around him and will sometimes bat at him.

But he grew out of his meanness, and I taught him to be kind and gentle with her, which, over time, is winning her over. If he kept being mean to her, she would never want anything to do with him. But now she’s finally beginning to warm up to him, take pets from him, even curl up on his lap.

Whenever I had to deal with false accusations (whether from Tracy or from clueless people on the Internet who don’t understand male-female friendships can be platonic and that it is possible to love without lust and sin), it was ridiculous:

There was no infidelity, no attempt from me to start infidelity, no attempts to get into his pants or even kiss him, except on the head or the cheek (like with a child or beloved brother).

Yet Tracy kept treating me like some kind of ho who doesn’t understand boundaries, as if I were her own ex-friends who apparently did try to screw around with her boyfriends.

To me, she was the one acting extremely inappropriately–Heck, an ex (Phil) had called me “possessive” for far less (not wanting to hear about his lust for others)! A friend (Catherine) accused me of having Jeff “on a long leash” for far less (not wanting him to share a hotel room with her)!

If I behaved with any of my boyfriends or husband the way she behaved with Richard, I would’ve been unceremoniously dumped immediately.

Tracy’s behavior transgressed boundaries, showing her belief that she could yell or scream or bully anybody she liked, showing a desire to gain control over others/her husband. It was possessiveness, jealousy without cause.

I believe no one has the right to behave this way with a spouse:

to pre-approve his/her friends
to control what he/she can or can’t do with friends who haven’t been “approved” (short of infidelity)
to tell him/her to stop being friends with someone and get mad because that friend’s name was on his/her cell phone call list
to chase away his/her friends (such as Todd or me)
to act jealous of his/her friends
to yell and scream and/or want to kill as a knee-jerk reaction to anything less than a liplock or groping or finding proof he/she has slept with somebody else
to go through his/her cell phone logs, e-mails or pockets without legitimate reason/permission

I believe that anyone who thinks a spouse does have the right to behave this way, has serious control and boundary issues–unless the spouse slept with somebody else.

This is a serious red flag of abuse from this person, so it’s best to get out ASAP, before you find all your friends/family gone and yourself locked into marriage/parenthood with a control freak and domestic abuser.

Every website on abuse I check, seems to list jealousy and isolation from friends/family as major signs of abuse.

In fact, on Facebook an old classmate asked if his girlfriend’s behavior (checking his phone, calling it her “right”) was legitimate. The responses were a resounding NO, this is not right, and you need to trust someone and give him room for friendships. One said RUN!

But Tracy blamed others for this behavior and grew angry and accusatory when they objected. It was all quite maddening, more of Alice in the rabbit hole.

Table of Contents

4. More details about Tracy’s abuse of her husband and children

6. Sexual Harassment from some of Richard’s friends

7. Without warning or explanation, tensions build

10. Grief

12. Musings on how Christians should treat each other

13b. Thinking of celebrating the first anniversary

Sequel to this Story: Fighting the Darkness: Journey from Despair to Healing

by Nyssa McCanmore
Posted on July 18, 2010May 6, 2017

Richard gives me the fateful hugs good-bye

The rest of the family had gone to their new apartment, while Richard finished packing the car. Before he left, Richard gave me three bearhugs–hugs which I took as being in friendship, in gratitude, in platonic love and caring, as a huge “thank you for all you’ve done for my family.”

Jeff was there in the house during the first two. The last was right out in the open, by the garage. The line of garages faces the front doors and windows of our condo building. I saw my husband in the kitchen, and thought for sure he saw us through the kitchen window. There was a streetlight nearby.

The neighbors could easily see us, yet I did not fear what they thought, because we did nothing wrong or inappropriate. I think I even told my mother about these hugs. Hugs just like the ones he gave me good-night numerous times while he lived here alone.

But he had reassured me his actions were all in platonic friendship, so that’s how I took these hugs the day he moved out. They were sweet, special, and treasured in my heart.

One day, I saw him give the exact same hug to one of his little daughters. She was small, so he cuddled her in his lap, which, of course, he never would’ve done to me. But he gave her a long bearhug and nuzzled the top of her head.

It was cute and sweet–and the proof I needed that this was just a loving and affectionate kind of guy, who probably gave this exact same kind of hug to his mother, his sister, his female cousins, his platonic female friends. That it never had a hint of romantic feeling, and was totally appropriate.

(It also made me believe that he never could hurt one of these little ones. So it was a shock to learn that he later choked one of them.)

I figured this was common where he grew up, which was thousands of miles away, and supposedly a more laid-back and open culture.

(I recently read an abuse blog by a woman over there, whose male friend also gave her hugs like this. He had no romantic interest in her; the hug was for support because of her abusive marriage.)

Richard made it sound like over there, flirting is more blatant even when it’s innocent and just being playful, and people put their heads on the shoulders of their friends to go to sleep….

Also, unless you’re a pervert, you don’t do anything “romantic” with your own daughter, so those hugs he gave me, had to be perfectly innocent and appropriate.

I also have SCA friends who do things like this, while being faithful husbands. One in particular can get very huggy and nuzzly with you, but his wife is right there, laughs, and makes it clear that this is as far as it goes. 🙂

(I also just found a blog post by a girl with a platonic male best friend; he has a girlfriend, and they don’t think of each other romantically at all, but they will chat for hours, each with an arm around the other.)

So I have been in both very reserved and very open groups of friends/family. I am typically more reserved, but my friend Catherine–another very huggy, flirty and cuddly kind of person, despite being a faithful wife–has always wanted me to open up.

I see nothing wrong with it, and wanted to be more open like she is. I didn’t want to be the one with Asperger/NVLD reserve, the odd one out, because it seemed so lonely and cold in comparison to what my extroverted, “normal” friends did.

But I had no clue that Tracy would one day use these hugs as justification for a hysterical narcissistic rage episode.

I did absolutely nothing wrong here. Richard had always reassured me that hugs were okay with Tracy, and I even have an e-mail from him saying so.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with our hugs, or with my reminding him of them or remembering them fondly as a sign of our close friendship and his gratitude.

But Tracy was so entrenched in the idea that I must be destroyed at all costs, especially after I began speaking up about their child abuse in 2010 (and I must have shown obvious shock and distaste the few times she abused the kids right in front of me in 2010), that she used anything she could grab ahold of as justification to bully and verbally abuse me in May, June and July 2010.

So on July 1, 2010, she had her revenge. (More on this in chapters 7 and 8.)

She did the same thing to Todd, as I will demonstrate later, because–according to the story told to me–he once beat her (or nearly beat her) at Risk. He also preferred talking to Richard instead of to her, was wary of her. So one day in June 2008, she had her revenge by publicly humiliating and smearing him.

As I have explained above, I believe this is all because she is abusive and wants to isolate her husband from anyone who could point that out to him.

But more on that later. Back to January 16, 2008.

I was depressed not just since they moved in, but for at least two weeks after they moved out, because I got used to Richard being around all the time, and missed him dearly.

I was also distressed because of how Tracy treated people, and how she had twisted a good, pure friendship into something dirty. I could no longer listen to a couple of CD’s which I got while Richard was here alone, because those two pleasant months were now tainted with Tracy’s suspicion and abuse.

After they finally moved out, a day or two later Tracy stopped over to get something. My son saw her, thought she was moving back in, and curled up into a whimpering ball.

Coincidentally, when she stopped over, I happened to be blasting “Let Him Go” by Animotion. I had no idea she was coming, and she may have walked right in, so I found this quite ironic, considering the anti-jealousy message of that song and how badly she needed to hear it:

Let him go
Do the things he’s got to do
Give him the freedom that he needs even though it worries you.
Let him go
Have the faith that he’ll be true
It’s the only way you can be sure he’ll come back to you.
I understand your desire to keep him near
But you poison love when you mix it up with fear.
Trust yourself to be the woman that you want to be
If you both have room to grow
Then you’ll live in harmony.

For a short while after that, Richard kept bringing Tracy along when he came to visit. Jeff would be at work. I felt like they were ganging up on me, ripping on me, telling me what I should or should not be doing (potty training, meals, whatever), making fun of me, helping each other do that.

Memories of the hugs and other signs of his friendship, I held close to my heart, hoping he would do these things again, and stop joining in on Tracy’s bullying. It was a strange disconnect between how he acted while here alone, and how he ganged up on me and criticized me with Tracy around. It hurt deeply, and confused me.

When Richard was by himself (whether on the phone or online or here with his kids), I relaxed. He was pleasant and fun, or empathetic, or supportive as I dealt with religious questions, or whatever. But Tracy kept tagging along, and I hated that because of her nasty attitude and their ganging up on me.

The same thing happened online as well, with them starting to pick on me. I have often wondered if–the times I talked with just him in a chat room–his moods depended on whether she was nearby.

Even though this situation was forced on me, even though I was forced to be hostess to people we had no room for, even though I was never asked if I wanted to host them, I was accused of not being properly “welcoming.”

Looking back, Jeff and I wish we had been more assertive. Friends and family tell us we should have been more assertive, that these were freeloaders using us and only pretending to be our friends.

But we thought it our duty as Christians and friends to be obliging and let them stay instead of kicking them onto the street in the bitterly cold, snowy, northern winter.

No, we never got a thank-you from her. Ever. From him, but not from her.

—Something I read on 1/5/14 which made me go hmmmmm:

To draw you closer, the psychopath creates an aura of desirability—of being wanted and courted by many. It will become a point of vanity for you to be the preferred object of their attention, to win them away from a crowd of admirers.
They manufacture the illusion of popularity by surrounding themselves with members of the opposite sex: friends, former lovers, and your eventual replacement. Then, they create triangles that stimulate rivalry and raise their perceived value. (Adapted from “The Art of Seduction” by Robert Greene).
Psychopaths, like most predators, seek power and control. They want to dominate their partners sexually, emotionally, and physically. They do this by exploiting vulnerabilities.
This is why they love-bomb you with attention and flattery in the beginning of the relationship—because no matter how strong or confident you are, being in “love” makes you vulnerable by default.
Psychopaths don’t need physical aggression to control you (although sometimes they do). Instead, relationships provide them with the perfect opportunity to consume you by manufacturing the illusion of love.
This is why it’s so damaging when bystanders say: “Well, why didn’t you just leave?” You never entered a relationship with the psychopath expecting to be abused, belittled, and criticized—first, you were tricked into falling in love, which is the strongest human bond in the world. Psychopaths know this.
…The psychopath’s ability to groom others is unmatched. They feel an intense euphoria when they turn people against each other, especially when it’s over a competition for them.
Psychopaths will manufacture situations to make you jealous and question their fidelity. In a normal relationship, people go out of their way to prove that they are trustworthy—but the psychopath does exactly the opposite.
They are constantly suggesting that they might be pursuing other options, or spending time with other people, so that you can never settle down into a feeling of peace. And they will always deny this, calling you crazy for bringing it up.
….The final triangulation happens when they make the decision to abandon you. This is when they’ll begin freely talking about how much this relationship is hurting them, and how they don’t know if they can deal with your behavior anymore.
They will usually mention talking to a close friend about your relationship, going into details about how they both agreed that your relationship wasn’t healthy.
In the meantime, they’ve been blatantly ignoring frantic messages from you. You’ll be sitting there wondering why they aren’t chatting with you about these concerns, considering it’s your relationship.
Well, the reason is that they’ve already made the decision to dump you—now they’re just torturing you. They only seek advice from people they know will agree with them. That “friend” they’re talking to is probably their next target. —Torture by Triangulation

If you take away the focus here on marital relationships, and adapt it to friendship, the same thing applies. Richard’s relationship with me was a platonic friendship, but the same dynamics were at work:

The first couple of months he stayed with us, his cell constantly rang with all sorts of friends. He’d ignore them to talk with me, or answer and then say he was in the middle of a conversation, and get back to me.

He’d tell me about all the women he had to fight off–not just in his single days, but after getting married.

After this love bombing phase ended, the criticism began and I was discarded for a month. I could do nothing right, and he didn’t want to spend time with me anymore.

Then he gave me special hugs–throwing me a bone to keep me thinking that things would be as they were at first.

But after that, despite the occasional bone-throwing (kind words etc.), he kept me off-balance. Other friends constantly clamored for his time, and I became lower on the totem pole than they were.

Then a new friend, Chris, came along, and got all the attention that I used to get. They’d go out and do things, talk, etc., and I would be the one sitting at home, or abandoned at the picnic table while they went walking along the beach.

(It sure wasn’t about Richard getting less drama by spending time with a male BFF instead of female, because even though they were the same sex, now Chris’ wife caused trouble with her jealousy and controlling behavior, trying to separate them. She behaved the exact same way with Richard, as Tracy did with me!)

The last part also reminds me of mid-2010, when I could feel things were going wrong. But when I tried to discuss it with Richard, he shut me down, made me feel paranoid. He also told me his political friends were messaging him on Facebook complaining about the things I posted on his FB threads.

This article also makes me wonder how much of the whole situation was Richard manipulating me to make Tracy jealous, to keep her from leaving him. If he played each of his friends, family, spouse, the way he played me, on purpose to control us all.

I think back and remember little things he did, which individually may not mean much, but taken together make one big picture of him playing people off each other.

He did once say that being fought over gave him a big head. Another time, he deliberately skewed what I said to make Tracy jealous:

Somebody on TV used the phrase “love on.” It’s a new Evangelical phrase which sounds soooo wrong, but they’ll say, “we’ll love on you.” I’m not entirely sure what it means, but I think it’s about showering people with agape love.

I commented on how weird it sounds, and said, “I don’t say ‘love on you,’ I say ‘love you.'” Then Richard turned to Tracy and said, “She just said she loves me!” So Tracy started hissing at me.

??!!

I think it was a joke, but I’m not entirely sure. Or if she knew it was a joke.

I also remember him complaining to me privately about her jealousy over women friends, at various times over the years. He complained to me about her jealousy over another friend when she first moved into my house.

But while sitting on the couch with both of us, he’d tell her the jealousy was sexy, a compliment. Meanwhile, she drove me crazy with her jealousy toward me in my house.

He complained to me about her being mean, then in front of her would tell the kids that he married her because she’s mean.

Individually these things may not seem like much, but taken all together, they become a big picture of control and manipulation, playing people off each other to gratify his ego.

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