The Provocateur

As with my other topics I’m sure I will be adding to this as time goes along.

Ex is an extreme provocateur. The provoker.

I wrote about my laptop and about looking online or really anywhere for answers in an earlier post.

Ex’s need for control was/is absolute. There was no questioning him, no having your own opinion. He is the smartest person in the room and he doesn’t mind telling you why that is the truth. He never came right out and said ‘I am the smartest’, no he just told you how sound his thinking is and how stupid everyone else’s thinking is. This is how he ruled our house.

We had two boys who bucked that thinking on a regular basis. Stepson and my middle son from my first marriage.

Although I have really only scratched the surface with stepson under ‘His first Wife’, Im sure I will add some about him here too and a-lot more there.

First, I am about to write about my middle son. Of my 4 older children, middle son took his dad and my divorce the hardest. Ex came along and son totally rejected him. I mean from the very first. It was you cant tell me what to do. You’re not my dad. Ex had it in his head that oh yes I can.

After all Ex’s bluster about loving being a dad, loving doing things with his kids. This really didn’t appear to be true. He tolerated the littles. They were all fun and games and took direction. But once they developed opinions and personalities of their own, He worked hard to squash the opinionated, because after all his opinion was the only opinion that mattered.

Ex never once worked to gain a relationship with any of the kids. His kids included. Stepson and son were the black sheep. Stepdaughter was his favorite and by a long shot even above our 2 children together. She has sat on the golden pedestal even to this day. No rules applied to her. She gets the baby talk and the rest get the gruff commands. Even though her behavior was pretty awful at times, she never talked back to him. She sucked up to him to his face. No one else did this. Ex also liked to make the others jealous of his time with SD. Middle son really took exception to Ex’s lopsided parenting.

Son and Ex butted heads daily, hourly, maybe even minute by minute. As son aged his angry outbursts grew. Ex had zero tolerance for any backtalk. He was obsessed with eye contact during his ‘lectures’. If any kid lost eye contact, the lecture started over.

I totally despise smokeless tobacco. Chew. Barf. It was something my first husband did and I made no bones to Ex about how much I hated it. I was completely honest about my distain for Chew. I said I would never ever date or marry anyone that had the disgusting habit. I disliked it that much. Ex agreed. Always said how it is a disgusting habit and He doesn’t blame me, it’s gross.

Imagine my shock catching Ex with Chew. He outright freaking lied about his Chew habit. This wasn’t some gray area we hadn’t discussed before. He justified himself by saying he totally agreed with me: it’s gross. He said he didn’t lie, he just didn’t tell me. So the chew and the expenditures for chew became a marital issue.

I didn’t catch on to what Ex was doing for a long while. Ex was provoking middle son and taking extreme pleasure in disciplining him after the provocations. Son had and still has an aversion to chewing noises. I mean He really doesn’t like it. Ex started chewing gum on the pretext he was chewing gum in an effort to stop using smokeless tobacco. Like I said it took me a while to see past the gaslighting. Ex only chewed gum in son’s presence. It was dramatic, loud, mouth wide open, smacking, spittle spewing gum chewing. He chewed one piece after another. Over time Ex developed the most toned temples Ive ever seen on human. His temple muscles bulged with every wide open round mouthed chew. Ex sat near son, walked next son. Son’s displeasure was boldly written across his face. As soon as son showed even an ounce of displeasure, Ex laid into him about how disrespectful he was being. It was gum smacking lecture time. Round and round it went, day after day. Things were so volatile between Ex and son, when son turned 16 he went to live with his dad. Son’s siblings and I have talked about it. None of us remember Ex ever chewing gum anymore after son moved with their dad. Ex had been deliberate. Such a stupid and subtle act yet so powerful. Ex was driving my son away and this was one of the many situations I was on my laptop online posting anonymously about. I didn’t know what to do or how to stop it.

I have asked my son for forgiveness. I pray he has forgiven me. He has grown into such a sweet reliable hardworking adult and I am immensely proud of him.