vocabulary >

Devaluation

Devaluation is one of the main phases of the relationship.

Love bombing
Devaluation
Discard
Hoover

In my experience these phases occur randomly in no particular order.

She’s nice to me. It may be for a minute, an hour, a day perhaps even a few days.
She’s horrible to me. It can be for a minute, an hour, a day, perhaps even a week.

In my experience the phases aren’t sequential, they’re random. It continually toggled and there weren’t any obvious triggers.

So what is the devaluation phase?

Anger.
Rage.
Contained fury, just waiting to erupt.
Cold.
Fear.
Intimidation.
Silence.
Insult.
Blame.
Put downs.
Threats.
Blackmail.
Vindictive.
Malice.
Real badness.
Evil.

For me it’s like a wall of sound. It’s like a sustained hurricane.
She doesn’t care that our daughter hears her. It’s a tsunami of accusations and insults. She will not leave me alone. She’s aggressive. She follows me. With vicious calm anger::

How horrible I am.
What a terrible father I am.
What a useless husband I am.
How I can’t do anything right.
That I’m a f***ing asshole.
That I’m useless.
That I don’t care about her at all.
That I didn’t help her.
That I didn’t get her the help she needed.
That Daddy will be moving out (I’m your hero saviour Mum now).
To Emma, that I deliberately prevented her from having siblings.
That I tried to kill her.
That I hit her. That I hit Emma.
That I’m violent.
That I have a temper.
That I’m a pedophile and shouldn’t be let near children.
That I won’t be doing the homework anymore, she’ll be doing it instead (she’s incapable of doing it without a bust up).
That I won’t be cutting the lawn anymore because it’s her lawnmower.
That she’s locking the door to the bathroom and wardrobe because … well… I’m not sure really (she locks them for days).
That I’m not using her coffee machine or her kettle (she confiscates them for days).
That I don’t even talk to her.
That I don’t put her first.
That I don’t bring her on holidays enough.
That the hotel wasn’t good enough.
That the food wasn’t good enough.
That the coffee was terrible, you’re terrible.
That the Christmas gift was cheap and useless.
That the Birthday gift was thoughtless and pathetic.
That I’m pathetic.
That Emma is useless at soccer and “I thought you were coaching her”?
That Emma is shy and it’s your fault.
That Emma is struggling at school and it’s your fault, you do the homework with her don’t you?
That the problem with her car is your fault, “you choose the car for me” (I didn’t, I supported her and enabled her choice).
That her problems at work are my fault because I don’t support her enough.
That her problems at work are my fault because I encouraged her to go for the job.
She buys gifts only to confiscate them later as punishment.
And on and on it goes. Hours and hours of sound. Angry hateful sound. There’s no getting away from it.
She follows me around the house.
She wakes me up to give me more of it.
When I leave the house to get away she attacks Emma instead to get at me.
When I flee the house with Emma in tow I get further abuse for taking her away from her.
I get twenty phone calls in an hour.
I’m threatened that my family will be told about “all your dirty little secrets”. Meaning that the intimate sacred stuff that I’ve shared with her will be revealed.
I’m threatened that my friends will be told about “how badly you treat me”.
I have to bring my work laptop with me when I leave the house because she has threatened to break it.
I have to live out of bags because all my clothes have been bagged up ready for my eviction.

Why?

Why did Lord Sauron want to plunge middle earth into darkness and hell?
Why did Hitler execute the holocaust?
Why do premeditating predators brutally rape?
Why are children abducted?
Why are vulnerable people trafficked and tortured?
Why is my wife so brutally cruel for prolonged, sustained periods of time?

Because of some deep seeded insecurity and unhealed wounds from childhood…

Christ… it can be hard to hear that at times. If I ever needed a definition for Evil, then this is it.

It is pure Evil, plain and simple. This is torture inflicted on one person by another, deliberately,
knowingly, and with the explicit intention of inflicting as much harm as possible. I’ve lived it and yes it absolutely is torture.

Every day has some devaluation

The day to day

bashing,
put downs,
insults,
reminders of how unfaithful I am,
reminders of how insensitive to her needs I am,
reminders of how unsupportive I am,
reminders of how inadequate I am,
reminders of how unimportant I am,
reminders of how “I’ll just do it myself” (but won’t),

These things are mixed into every sentence, every interaction, every good deed.

Control

It is impossible to get away from it.

I stand up for yourself —> I get more, it’s like an invitation to fight.
I faun —> I receive worse.

This is power. This is control. This is devaluation. Every day is devaluation.

Self worth

For me, my worth was diminished, everything seemed so much more difficult that it should have been. For example, she would constantly let me know how inadequate I was when it came to fixing up our fixer-upper house, yet she wouldn’t let me do anything, she wouldn’t agree to anything, she didn’t want this tradesman or that tradesman because of some nonsense reasons. All quotes we got were rejected. Nothing got done and still I’d be blamed. I played this game for years until I saw what was happening. She just bashed me and kicked me verbally and emotionally until I was defeated.
I never got thanks, I never even got acknowledgement for cooking, cleaning, fixing, parenting, homework, making, doing, enabling, encouraging. Nothing.

Overcompensating

But, it’s only now I’ve come to realize just how much overcompensating I do. She obstructs me, I persevere regardless. In my early days of getting to know this stuff, I heard that the victim does so much and gets no thanks. I remember thinking that doesn’t apply to me. I remember thinking I didn’t really do that much. I’ve kinda changed my opinion on that now that I’ve zoomed out to see things with a wider perspective.

I get up, I get Emma up, I make lunch, I make breakfast, I get her ready for school, I bring her to school. I go online (work), I work (hard). At lunch I prepare dinner. I sneak out to mow some of the lawn if I have time. I collect Emma, I serve dinner between calls, I take calls, I work, I wash dishes, I do homework with Emma, I hear about her day, I play with Emma, I take her training or to games, I facilitate play-dates, I build things from cardboard, I participate in three-marker-challenges, I play board games, I get screamed at, I get told how useless everything I do is, I get cried at because Susan thinks I’m not doing enough for her and doing too much from Emma, my things are confiscated, I’m denied tea, I’m denied coffee, I’m locked out of rooms, I sleep, I rinse and repeat.