Focused on Me and My Son 2

[Sherman333]

Thanks Fogg,

I would say cold shoulder is an improvement.

I'm in complete agreement!

I think in her mind, she's punishing me. See "Silent Treatment" from the quote below. She's been pretty pissed about everything and that I'm not doing everything the way she wants.

Narcissist’ s controlling and manipulation techniques

Gaslighting is a subtle, underground maltreatment, that can go unnoticed by the victim until it is too late. It penetrates you but it’s difficult to identify. Gaslighting is ambiguous, diffused, it is a dangerous kind of abuse. It leave no trace and you can’t prove it. Ambient abuse is perpetrated by dropping certain hints, by disorienting, its aim is to make you doubt your own sanity so that you are always left wondering what the narcissist is thinking and feeling. Don’t waste time trying to find out their motives or try to understand why they feel or think the way they do because it leads nowhere. Just accept you are a source of supply and move on. Gaslighting over a prolonged period of time can damage the victim sense of self and self esteem for a long time.

Silent treatment is used by narcissists who withdraw when confronted and is also a form of punishment they employ when you refuse to accommodate their needs. They ignore you out of the blue for as long as it takes, until you give up your own needs and agree to do whatever the narcissist wants you to do. Until you end up apologizing even, if they were in the wrong.

Divide and conquer is an approach used to isolate their victim. They’ll find out everything about you, your past, your secrets and use them against you, making you look bad while they are seen by everyone else as a perfect, loving and caring individual.

I still don't understand how you were able to handle yourself so great with what you were dealing with.

I'm normally pretty level headed. It always took her a lot to get me off center... but when I am I'm not the nicest. For the most part, I viewed it as feeding the beast by giving her exactly what she wanted. If I blew, then she'd be able to get me in a position that she could own the situation... I didn't want that to happen.

I remember her complaining to the cop about how calm I was... but at that point I'd been going through this for weeks.

She also knows at this point that I've lined up a lot of information that can be used against her.