Signs: No Friends No Family

They say blood is thicker than water.  Maybe that’s why we battle our own with more energy & gusto than we would ever expend on strangers.-David Assael

 

When I met Mr. Money he had already disowned his family.  He wasn’t reared in the most loving & supportive of homes.  He was a witness to the many drunken insults & beatings his mother received from his father.  He feared his father.  Hated & loved him at the same time.  He despised his mother for being a martyr in his eyes.  “Why couldn’t she just leave him?”  This was his question to me every time he came across old family photos or when we passed someone on the street that looked eerily similar to her.  How could I tell him the answer?  I didn’t know her answer but I knew mine. Fear.  Fear of setting him off just enough that he might hit me (he never did).  The fear he would kick me out of his home for being seemingly ungrateful (oh he did do that).  And the fear of  being so far removed from all family & friends that I’d have no one to turn to when this got way too deep for me to handle alone.

 

His siblings wouldn’t escape his wrath either.  To him they had mental issues.  The oldest couldn’t seem to sleep without a man in her bed and therefore married 5 times.  The youngest sister accused him of sexually harassing her and his younger brother was a drug addict/thief who committed suicide in his early twenties.  He was the only one who came out unscathed from the terrors of his childhood home he says.  But I saw it differently.  They all had their unresolved issues from childhood creep into their adult lives.  Mr. Money seemed to handle his issues by needing to be financially, sexually & emotionally dominate with the people in his life.  If you weren’t down with his program you were easily cast aside.  Or like Mr. Money would say “Take a big black marker & cross my name & number off your list, you mean nothing to me”.  And he meant it. A few years ago he had his attorney send his family letters stating all communication must be made through his lawyers only.  Suffice it to say they got the message.

 

His daughter.  His one and only daughter Ms. K. receives the brunt of it though.  He feels the absolute need to control her life because he pays for everything in it. Ms. K is just as much to blame.  She’s in her mid 20’s, has never had a real job (though she graduated from one of the best colleges in the west) and inhales pot like it’s her last meal.  “This is not the daughter I wanted”. He tells me in the kitchen one night.  I was preparing my special Moroccan salmon when he let it slip.  I looked at him questionably and asked him how he could say something like that.  “Easy.” He said. “I raised her better than this.  I raised her on my own since she was 12 years old and look at her.  She turned out to be some tattooed pot smoking freak!”   He was seething now.  I knew better than to continue the discussion for fear of disagreeing with him.  So I dropped it. 

 

Then there are his friends or dare I say his one and only friend M.R.. M.R. is a wandering gypsy musician who lives over in Sweden with his wife and child.  They had a falling out years ago when Mr. Money tried telling him what type of songs to write and how to deal with record executives.  Things Mr. Money had no experience in but felt fully qualified to give his two cents.  When M.R resisted Mr. Money was highly upset & ended their friendship.  They reconciled a few years later but it has never been the same.  When we went to visit M.R. in Sweden he refused to play us his music in fear of what Mr. Money would think.

 

That ugly word. Fear.  It seemed to pop up in everyone involved in his life.  I didn’t get it at first but it slowly grabbed a hold of my neck and I could barely breathe.  Mr. Money had this bigger than life persona.  Even if you knew you were right you feared not being on his side.  He was always trying to “teach ya something” and if you didn’t get it you were stupid.  I hated feeling stupid.  I never felt stupid until I met him.  I have always been a confident person but being with him brought out major insecurities.  I felt maybe he knew more because he was older.  He’d seen more and traveled the world more. I on the other hand was just coming into my own, learning who I was and what I really wanted. What I really wanted at that time in my life was not to be “stupid” in his eyes. 

 

What I know for sure now is to look out for controlling behavior.  To look for the fear your partner can stir up with people in their lives and question it.  Control is not a loving quality.  Instead it is an insecurity your partner has within themselves that has not been rectified and the only way to sooth the beast is to control & conquer.

 

Don’t be conquered!

 

Love & Light