Conscious?

Do they know what they’re doing?

No.

It’s habitual. It’s learned behavior; a lifetime of it.

Towards the latter end of our divorce process, Susan was saying things like:

• “I’ll make life so fucking difficult for you that you’ll have to move out”.
• “I’ll make sure all your family/friends/football-coaches know all about what you did to me and the way you treated me”

I realize this does sound premeditated but honestly, I don’t think it was. It was just her usual babbling bullshit.

Since I became aware of the “narcissistic perspective” phenomenon it really does explain quite a lot. She genuinely feels entitled, she feels special and needs to be praised and served. She cannot see past her own needs (lack of empathy).
Therefore it makes perfect sense to me that all her torturous nonsense is just acting in the here and now. She genuinely feels hard done by and lashes out. I don’t believe for one moment that she’s a mastermind Bond villain planning and plotting my fate.