Accepting the enduring denial in grief

Since Mum’s spirit left this earth back in August, I’ve been reminded of the enduring lastingness of loss.  One thing I’ve found altogether too true is I’m experiencing an enduring denial for the fact that it seems incredibly unreal for her to be gone.  But this is counterbalanced by the feeling that Mum’s been gone longer than she has—it’s not even been 100 days yet.

When I discuss the enduring denial in grief what I mean is losing someone precious remains intangibly incomprehensible.  It doesn’t seem real that the precious one is gone.

This is probably because we have an uncomfortable and an unsteady relationship with death in our society at our time.

It seems too unreal that the person we’ve lost is gone.  There is an enduring denial in grief.

But the grief process is confused by the fact that—by the order of life—we must get on without our loved one.  This seems like a betrayal.  It can seem to us that we’re forgetting our loved one.  This is because we’re viewing them through the lens of them still living.  We naturally think that they’re missing out, which is a paradox given that we want them to “rest in peace.”

The enduring denial in grief is one element of the loss process that feels like it’ll never change.  I recall notes and emails from Mum saying how she missed her own mother two decades after she died.  It can seem a long time to live without our loved one.

One way we can live peaceably with this sense of enduring denial is agree that we’re “carrying” the memory of our loved one with us.  That is, we imagine that they’re still somehow present with us.

The fact is with loss and grief that there are many realities that are unchangeable and any method we use that makes our loved one’s loss more palatable, whilst we face the truth that they’re gone, is good.

Personally, whenever I’m aware of my missing Mum, or Nathanael for that matter, I like to think they’re there with me.  It brings me comfort.  I continue to humanise them even though they’re gone.  I’m not denying they’re gone.  I’m acknowledging that they’ll always be part of me, they’ll always be remembered, they’ll always be significant in my life.

Accepting the enduring denial in grief is coming to accept what can never be changed: they’ll always be missed, and appropriately so given love is the supreme cost of loss.

Somehow out of the grief that must come from loss there’s a peace experienced that accepts what can never be changed.  This peace means this precious loss can be faced, it can be talked about, and indeed it must be remembered—THEY must be remembered.

If anything will heal us of the pain of loss in grief, it’s the ability to face the pain.

I think it’s safe to say that we grow around our losses.  It may not feel as if this is the case, but we definitely do grow as a result of being able to face our pain.

This all starts from, and is made possible because, we accept the enduring denial in grief.

A life beyond controlling others and being controlled

Imagine living free of relational baggage and torment, free of being controlled by others, and free of needing to control others.  Imagine drawing a line in the sand and saying from this day forth, “I will not stand aside and watch myself and my loved ones be controlled,” by an ex-partner, a parent, a child, or a co-worker or boss.  Imagine that the perpetrator who consumes so much of your energy having an honest moment and coming to the realisation that their life would be happier, more successful, and people would actually like them if they weren’t controlling.  That might be too much of a stretch.

We cannot live free unless we commit to giving up our control of others.

We cannot live free unless we make a decision to no longer tolerate others’ control over us.

Living free of these dynamics of control is the only way to live free.  And it’s easier than we think.  It does mean making a commitment.

Let’s begin with the person who exerts control over others.  If this is you, and you’re honest enough to face it, I’m talking to you.  It could be the best growth moment you’ve ever experienced.  It could be a time when your life begins to turn massively toward you.  If you embark on the journey of making amends, sure, it will involve pain, and it will require humility, BUT you will endure it, and you will prosper immensely as a result.  The most important thing to remember is, once you’ve made the commitment to change, keep going!  Don’t look back.

If you’re known for controlling others, or maybe it’s just one person, in turning away from controlling behaviours, you’re the human manifestation of a miracle in those relationships.  It will be the most unexpected thing for the one you’re controlling to experience.  Imagine their relief, their glee, their joy, and their thankfulness toward you, if indeed these things are important to you.   

Whatever it takes for you to reflect on your controlling behaviours is less important to what motivates you to live for a purpose outside of you.  Honestly, the laws of life never change, and whether you lived 100 years ago or 100 years from now, life’s success is contained in the same things.  When you give up your control of others, you come into alignment with life’s success pattern, as far as life’s supposed to work.  It doesn’t mean a life without pain, and if anything life might be a little more painful, but life will have an immense more purpose, and purpose is the bigger narrative of life, trust me.

Control others and you waste your life.  Let go of controlling others and purpose grows.

Now, let me turn to the people who are sick of being controlled by others.  It’s painful avoiding unsafe people and unsafe situations.  It’s exhausting trying to understand how a controlling person thinks and behaves.  It’s exhausting physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually.  It causes hypervigilance and disordered anxiety.  It’s disabling to mental health, and it crushes confidence, leading to depression.

But it’s empowering and confidence-building to imagine you have power to resist those who exert control over your life, but it does require courage and a commitment to keep going.

It’s not only your right to live free of another person’s control over you, but it’s also something worth committing to.  It’s worth getting support for.  It’s worth committing to the journey of escaping that person’s control.  It’s worth working toward.  It begins with a decision, and I can honestly encourage you by saying that once that decision is made, God will lead you toward the freedom you crave.

While we’re at it, there are circumstances in all our lives that have a hold over us.  If it’s not people who are controlling us, and it’s not us controlling others, it might be that we’re captive to other bonds that control us.  Perhaps it’s money.  Maybe it’s loss.  If it’s money and we’re held by a dream of future, only you can make the call as to whether it’s worth it or not.  Maybe it’s a path you’ve committed to that’s a good path and it would make no sense to turn back now; that’s not controlling, and the last thing you’d want to do is give up and potentially be dominated by regret.  Control is a contemptible and life-crushing force, and we need to rid ourselves of it if we want to live free.

At the end of a year, we’re all thinking about the things we want in the New Year, and especially of the things we need to let go of.  What is it about your life right now, or who is it, that is controlling you?  It doesn’t need to be that way.

It’s time to live free, to live with more purpose, to be more motivated, to experience more hope, more joy, more peace.  This truly is the best of life.  But we cannot do this until we get free of controlling elements in our lives.

Which pain will you choose?

In our home, I do a lot of the talking and my wife does a fair bit of listening, which is a bit unusual for most relationships.  It works for us.

When my wife does talk, she often has something very wise to say, and this article is brought to you by one of those wise sayings.

To be fair, it wasn’t her saying, but the way she contextualised it meant that she had owned it, and in her sharing of it, it really was her wisdom.

She shared a quote that said effectively, “whether you give up or keep going, the pain is the same, so what pain will you choose?”

I see it so often in my work.  It’s also in churches.  I’ve also seen it in my counselling work.  I encounter many different individuals, some you could characterise as being cynical, negative, pessimistic, and perhaps overly realistic, whereas others are optimistic, positive, and perhaps even a little overly idealistic.  The contrasts are stark.

I’d much prefer to have a discussion with the latter kind of person than with the former, even if realism is better than idealism.  There’s something about negativity that just feels like a mountain to climb before you’ve even started.

There’s an open-mindedness in the latter, more optimistic person.  Open-mindedness reveals open heartedness.  But close-mindedness is a barrier to the curiosity needed to overcome the hardships of life.

It’s this latter kind of person who is more commonly given to attitudes and approaches that are inherently resilient, whereas cynical people will often talk themselves out of progress—when the pain is the same whichever way we go.  Whatever we do in life involves pain.

The quote is a truthful quote.  It says in effect that giving up isn’t the easy option even though it seems to be the easy option, because what we don’t foresee when we give up is the regret we feel and face later when we see others succeed who had the pluck to carry on committed to doing what’s right.

We don’t see that regret early on, yet when we do it’s too late to go back and have a do over.  The pain of carrying on, of swallowing hard when disaster strikes, of picking ourselves up by our bootstraps, of taking a breath before moving on, is a momentary pain.

Sure, it’s hard, but there are so many hard things in life.  We must choose our hard.

Think about the ease of giving up, of justifying our unproductive attitude and action, the reaction to the negativity, that surrenders to the enemy, that becomes despondent in the face of challenge, and the justification for such a decision is always fraught with folly—even when it feels good, or we feel justified.

It really doesn’t matter how much we justify our own actions, for times it might feel wise in your own eyes, but if it doesn’t align with true wisdom, it is always folly.  My mother always called this cutting your nose off despite your face.  Yet we’ve all had situations in our life where we made such decisions and came to regret them.

It is easier in the long run to grit our teeth and to make the right decision, no matter the cost, because the cost of making a tough decision is rarely costlier than making the decision that seems easy but always involves hardship in the end.

We are destined to live with the consequences of our decisions.  And there are two ways of learning wisdom, the first is to observe the mistakes, errors, lapses, and violations of others, and the second is to make them ourselves.  The important thing is that we learn and turn those regrets into wise actions in the future.  Learn and turn.  That’s wisdom.

The pain involved in making the right decision is a clean pain, but the pain involved in making the wrong decision is always messy.

Do we give up or keep going?  Both involve pain.  Which pain will you choose?

Let me pray for you just now:

Dear Lord,

I pray for each one that reads these words, that they will pray for your wisdom, for discernment, for your help, and most of all be humble enough to see the right way of responding and give them the courage to do what is needed.

Amen.

Faith by reflection leading to repentance

I’ve long struggled with the thesis that people’s characters are tested by their response to situations—given none of us is perfect.  We will all react in wrong ways or overreact.  Generally none of this is unforgivable.  But we have made it an almost unforgivable sin.

I’ve often heard it said that a person’s true character comes out when they’re tested.  But the truth is sometimes we react worst when we are tested.  I think the concept is heavily clichéd.  It can too easily put perfection up as the unattainable standard.  It can also too easily become a way of relegating someone who is actually being abused.  That’s right, it can be used as gaslighting.  Especially when a person engages in reactive abuse.  That is when a person reacts to the abuse of another, in other words, they are reacting because they didn’t start it.

But faith is tested most by our responses.  And what I mean by responses is the overall product of our action, given that our overall response may occur minutes or hours or days or weeks after the initial testing.  That is, our responses occur AFTER we’ve reflected, when we’ve been honest about what we did or didn’t do.  When we faced it in the cold, hard light of day.

As human beings, we are allowed to get it wrong, and indeed the best part about humanity is when we can see and admit and confess and repent of our wrongdoing.

That previous rather long sentence bears repeating.  Let me put it another way to not be boring.

As human beings, better than proving ourselves to be perfect, we are most productive when we are personable, when we are relatable, when we allow ourselves to be seen as wrong.  There is actually enormous strength in standing in the face of our fallibility.  And the strength is not just for us, it’s for others; our fallibility is THEIR justice.  Justice is crucial in relationships.  Justice like this brings peace because it makes amends.

The perfection of always reacting well in a testing time is unreachable for just about everyone.  It’s not how we should assess character or the strength of someone’s faith.

There is room biblically for those of faith to react poorly before reflecting.  This caters then for the all-too-familiar trauma triggers of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.  Rather than putting instant responses in as the key measure of character, it is far better, and far more useful, to assess character based on the ability to reflect, on own one’s own actions and contributions.  That’s a better test of humility than responding well in the moment.

Responding well in the moment is not just about character, it’s also about brain wiring and physiology, many situational dynamics, the social nuances, moods of one or more, and the threats in the experienced environment.  Responding well in the moment is far more than attributions of good character.

~

The thing that sets a solid character of Christian faith apart from a narcissist is the ability to respond well ultimately, to be able to face one’s own wrongdoing.  Narcissists typically can’t, and therefore won’t, because it’s an affront to their ego.  They operate out of a sense of entitlement because they cannot be seen as wrong or weak.  And their idea of admitting wrongdoing is it’s a weakness.  They don’t see the positive character traits borne out in repentance.  And I can tell you, there are many Christian narcissists who cannot and therefore do not repent; they do not engage in that biblical way of living.

Adversity truly isn’t the biggest test of character, power is.

Power is the way to test a person’s humility.  And the real faith is in a person who stays grounded when tested with power.  But the test of adversity is one that we will all fail.

There are times in life when our adversities and our adversaries will be too much for us.

But thankfully, we’re not defined in our reactions on a given day if only we have the capacity to reflect, reassess, and repent of any wrongdoing.  That’s a real test of personable, relatable faith.  If we can own our wrongdoing, much of the time we’ll not only be forgiven, but we’ll also inject hope into many of our relationships, because when we apologise for our wrongdoing justice comes.

~

In failing is food for learning, if only we’re humble enough to stay in reflection long enough to learn what to do to respond differently next time.

Being able to stay in the wrongdoing long enough to learn requires humility, which is the ability to overcome those feelings of shame that overwhelm the narcissist.  Staying in what we did wrong is impetus for a deeper learning, and that right there is Discipleship 101—to learn without judgement or condemnation.

Faith in relationships is defined in reflection that brings repentance.

Keeping your head up when nothing makes sense

Though we’re gaslit by ourselves when we’re in that place, there’s nothing more normal than feeling completely awry.  It’s so normal as a human being to feel as if nothing makes any sense when nothing makes any sense.  When we find ourselves in that circumstance.

When it happens, we may have the vaguest perception that we can fight our way out of it.  The trouble is we have no motive nor purpose nor energy to mount such a recovery.

When situations like this conspire against us, when the circumstances of life erode our confidence, it is easy to find ourselves in a place where our heart has gone AWOL, and our mind simply won’t cogitate.

Whether it is fear or sadness or a combination of both or even some elusive sense that our purpose has disappeared, really matters very little, because we just feel so disempowered.

The greatest paradox is that the moment we need a boost most is the moment we can procure a boost least.  The very time we need to lift our head to the heavens in hope is the very time we struggle to do that seemingly simple thing.

Despair is a pariah.  Many times it comes without any warning.  Enervation is no respecter of persons.  It dashes significant levels of confidence in short, sharp time.  Much of it can be attributed to spiritual attack, as dark and invisible forces thwart a person’s plans.

To have been there once in any significant way is a life experience for the employment of empathy for any who suffer such spiritual poverty.

To have been there is also the knowledge that it can happen again, and when that occurs perhaps there’s the grace we might extend ourselves as we employ space for ourselves—whether it’s time, the removal of pressure, strategic withdrawal, space to divert attention to bird noises and the breeze, a box-breathing routine, etc.

There is something enigmatic about the spiritual attack that offers no clue of both its origin and its correction.  It’s in this space of being that we’re confounded and perplexed.  And until you’ve been there you think it can’t happen.  But again, once you’ve been there the eyes of your conception for challenges previously unknown to life are opened.  

Never considered a badge of honour, the unlocking of these challenges previously unknown opens the door to a realm of suffering that can seem unbelievable and untold.

Never considered a gift, ever!  Never even considered something that’s to be granted to someone despised.  But such levels of pain are to be experienced to be believed.  Even in the midst of it there’s the conception of possibility—if there’s a way into this, there must be a way out.  But first there must be the poise to sit in it to pick up on the cadence of such an environment.

Keeping our head up when nothing makes sense is something that can only be learned when we’re there—when nothing makes sense.  Nothing else can prepare us for such a place of being.

Enduring those places of being where nothing makes sense is a deeper spirituality, not extended to the fainthearted.  Keeping your head up in the temerity of it is something that can only be learned when you’re there.

Don’t worry, though.  When you’re there in the midst of it, you find you’re connected with kin who empathise and can help you through.  Commensurate with the depths is also a bearing for getting through it.

Lifting our heads when nothing makes any sense is a learned response, and we find that had it not been for such a challenge we’d never have known we could do it.

Joy and peace are contentedness

This fact is liberating yet depressing, true yet seemingly false, and the direct path to life yet it’s almost always indirect the route we take to get there. When we understand this golden truth, then we have the lonely confidence to make the most of life:

“Peace is joy resting, and joy is peace dancing.” 

— Charles Haddon Spurgeon

There is always something seemingly vital that we need to give up if we are to approach the Lord’s peace and joy – to rest well and to dance without inhibition. What we need to give up is our rights to ourselves. We need to explore a way of living that exposes us yet releases us. The releasing is conditional on the exposing. To gain something we need to give something up.

If we can no longer be held ransom for our needing all our rights satisfied, God can give us reign over the peace and joy available to us.

If we have no claim over the use and purpose of our lives – and the claims we have are generally self-serving – then God will make great use of us and he will give us a purpose that will provide us peace and joy.

~

Peace and joy collude. Joy and peace work in unison. When we present no barrier to the acquisition of joy and peace, the Lord works them more and more as yeast into the dough of our lives.

Joy and peace, peace and joy, are a two-for-one deal. And not only that, with the surrender that goes into the claiming of these two priceless gifts we get hope thrown in; and the ability to ply faith; and the desire and capacity to love.

What better life could there be than to rest in joy and to dance in peace? These are irrepressible destinations of the soul that seeks unity with God.

There is no catch other than to give up what we can’t keep (the control over our happiness) in order to gain what we can never lose (an operant salvation).

The best life is one that remits joy and peace, because those who have these partners-for-good will get a fire-sale of other miraculous qualities that ruminate within the being of the converted.

Joy and peace remain. Joy is inspiration and energy. Peace is a soul’s assurance. Joy expands capacity and capability. Peace makes them stable. Joy and peace work faithfully for each other. Have one and you have the other.

Originally written in 2014.

A calm response when emotions overwhelm

If there’s one challenge just about everyone wants to overcome, it’s the ability to master one’s emotional response.  There’s no more satisfying a feeling than responding calmly and in control when in a crisis or when overwhelmed with emotion.  Achieving this gives us enormous belief.  But when we lose control of our emotional response it brings both pressure to justify our behaviour, as well as embarrassment, plus the damage it causes to people and relationships.

Especially for those who care, the competency of emotional intelligence is about the most sought-after character trait — not just a skill, but a pointer to a person’s integrity.

I want to use the rest of this article to outline strategies that support calm responses rather than out-of-control overreactions.  All these strategies are in play for anyone, they only need to be practised:

1.             Preparedness is such a key.  Merging a couple of psychologies together means we always stay within an achievable mental control.  That is the internal locus of control, which is staying within what we can influence in any situation, together with staying within our circle of influence, which is not being lured into things that might concern us that we have no control over.  It’s amazing the anxiety we save ourselves when we agree to discipline ourselves to control only that which we can control.

2.             Acknowledging that the powerful pre-frontal cortex in our forehead and temple area is our superpowered facility for overcoming the primitive limbic system, we only need to engage in the behaviour of PAUSING.  This is actually where a partial FREEZE response is not such a bad thing.  It prevents the lizard-reaction of FIGHT or FLIGHT.  Deliberate inaction when we’re panicked and emotional is advised.

3.             A big part of wisdom is knowing BEFORE we get to the stressful situation what attitude we’ll choose, what we can control, deciding beforehand not to panic.  The Bible helps, and these are just two examples: “do not fret — it leads only to evil.”  (Psalm 37:8).  And “The LORD will fight for you; you only need to be still.”  (Exodus 14:14)

4.             Invest in gratitude.  Honestly, there’s hardly a better way to prepare for or endure crisis than stay buoyantly thankful.  The daily miracle about the grateful life is how it fortifies us against stress.  We don’t sweat the small things because it’s the small things we’re thankful for.  Holding in tension the simplicity and blessing of small things with a more global perspective, inspired by gratitude, is wisdom.

5.             Sleep well, exercise vigorously, eat well.  These again are the basics that pay off handsomely for mental health and resilience.  These three strategies don’t just help us respond well, like the other strategies they leave us with such feeling of wellbeing.

6.             A good response to the inevitable times we react poorly is to simply accept we could have done better, that we’re not perfect, and as we refuse to judge ourselves, we’re empowered to simply get curious as to what went wrong.  Do it with an inner smile, brave enough to endure any guilt or shame we experience.

7.             Learning to focus is more about catching ourselves drift out of focus, which realistically happens in less than a minute or less than five minutes.  The discipline of catching ourselves lose focus is something that will harness the ability to manage the unanticipated stressful moment.  Our capacity to endure them is fortified by our ability to focus as a stressful moment arrives.

8.             Think about everything you can control.  Think about everything you can’t control.  The things we can control are limited to our thoughts, attitudes, and behaviours.  The things we cannot control are just about everything else.  It’s amazing how much we can control when we’re in control of those three things, our thoughts, attitudes, and behaviours.  Stick in that zone!

9.             Opposite to our gratitude is the caustic nature of corroding our emotions through the negativity of resentment and vengeance.  It’s why being peacemakers is so important, and that is simply acknowledging that as we build into others’ lives, we build into our own lives.

10.          Our outlook to the negative things that occur in our lives is key.  We can either resent the experience or we can be grateful, and in all psychologically challenging events there are both — it depends on what attitude we choose.  It all depends on how we look at the experiences we have.  We can turn traumas into formative life experiences if only we can face them with support and an appreciative, curious, open attitude.

We cannot control other people’s responses to anything.  When we accept this, we drop our illusion of control, we become more open to why people respond the way they do, and we may be of more help to them whilst being less emotionally vulnerable.

Manipulation manifesting as gaslighting in marriage breakdown

It’s so common in broken marriages that one party will up the ante on the other and make it harder than ever for the other to simply survive.  This is often overt but can be just as often covert where gaslighting is so prevalent it causes everyone to do double takes continually.  Unfortunately, and very sadly, this happens just as much in separated Christian marriages as it does in those without a faith or other faith.

Narcissism is no respecter of faith systems.
The narcissist delights in deluding people.

I want to focus on the most common dynamic I find in counselling, and that is when the husband turns friends and family against the wife, manipulating existing relationships through classic gaslighting, where they’re skilled exponents of DARVO — defend-and-reverse-victim-and-offender.  Those who engage in the Ninja craft of DARVO manipulate the perceptions of bystanders so they, the aggressor, look like the victim, and the real victim is made out to look like the aggressor, the unreasonable, unreliable, untrustworthy one.  Those who engage in DARVO challenge and confuse everyone except the one who knows what to look for.

~

Of course, what we find, is not only the manifestation of manipulation but also the other tools that Psalm 82 Initiative have identified, and that is intimidation, isolation, and deflection.  The ex-husband deflects the resistance that the ex-wife responds with — everyone in their right mind responds to abuse, at least initially, with resistance.  The isolating behaviour of getting friends and family to take his side is what we find.  And his direct attacks against his ex-wife, those that others don’t readily see or put up with, are motivated and exacted in intimidation.  She doesn’t feel safe in his presence, and yet even in his absence she feels dogged by the mere threat of his presence.

What is the ex-wife able to do in the situations?  She won’t win any battles fighting the way he fights, that’s for sure.  He’s got the market cornered on that front.  And, besides, in the present context, she’s not capable of fighting like he fights.

So, what does she do?  I’m not sure that trite answers are helpful, and because the nuances and dynamics in abuse situations are so variegated, I firstly just want to empathise.

It can feel as if you’re going crazy when people are believing wrong things about you given wrong information they’re fed.  Part of the issue is one of gender.  Society still favours the strength and compelling nature of a manipulative male.  Society doesn’t cope well with overbearing “confident” types, which are ironically those who, deeper down, are the most threatened individuals.  There’s no question there are manipulative females, but they’re not in the frame in the present context.

Add to the manipulation is the isolating effect of losing the confidence and support of key family and friends.  Think about it this way.  If there is any situation where you feel your ex-partner strategically wooing others to their side with lies and half-truths (lies), their isolating of you is evidence of their capacity for manipulative behaviour.  Reasonable people don’t manipulate others and situations routinely for their own advantage.  Put yourself in the situation.  Would you have the capacity to routinely manipulate a person and situations for your own advantage?  It is in your best interest to be honest.

~

Now there are two scenarios: people are isolated for the right reasons (this is called boundaries) and people are isolated for the wrong reasons (this is called abuse).  It depends on the heart behind each.

The latter approach preferences one person or maybe two, certainly only a few, and others are exploited, whilst the former approach considers all, is fair and respectful, and employs boundaries only because it must.

When someone has chosen to manipulate people and situations, and they do it so constantly that you don’t know whether you’re coming or going, there is very little advice that can be given.  And I sense you know that.  More is the case that you need empathy, and encouragement to continue to do the right thing even though wrong things are done to you all the time.

To get out of what we would call “victim-mode” is a challenge but not one that cannot be overcome.

First, be thankful if you operate in a way that honours the truth at all times.  Be thankful that you are respectful at every juncture.  Be thankful that you have the capacity to absorb the wrongdoing done against you.  Be thankful that someone can see everything that goes on, and that one is God.  Be thankful that integrity matters more than winning, for those who win through manipulation ensure that everyone including themselves lose.  Be thankful that as a parent, all your children need is one good parent.  YOU are their example by your calm, reasonable, reliable, rational, logical, responsible ways of responding.  Take a humble sense of pride in the fact that you are a safe person, not least for the children themselves who need a safe person in their lives in order to prosper and to develop properly, giving them the best start they can have going forward into an ever more concerning and confronting world.

~

One motto I live by is “threatened people threaten people.”  I’ve seen it so much in others and I’ve seen it in myself.  Whenever we’ve been demanding in our life it’s usually because we’ve been feeling threatened, and thereby, when we’ve not been conscious of the fact, we can be a threat to others.  For most of us, just being aware of this is empowering.  It helps us because we don’t want to be unkind.  But for some people, there’s not the awareness and that’s usually because there’s a strong sense of entitlement driving their attitudes and behaviour.

In the choice between being true to your children and other relationships and maintaining your integrity, and not doing these things, be thankful if you can’t compromise.  God has made you this way.  Even though wrongdoing will be done against you, over time you will “reap a harvest [of goodness] if you do not give up.”  (Galatians 6:9)

IMPORTANT NOTE: these dynamics do also occur in reverse where the woman is the manipulative gaslighter AND, of course, so very often it happens that both partners engaging in manipulative gaslighting of the other.