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When I was in my twenties, my father used to figure out ways to be alone with my girlfriends. He had some sort of an excuse for it, as if there was a tradition that relied on bonding between a father and his son’s wife.

I remember one instance where he’d contrived to put me on a different flight for a trip. He came strutting through the airport with a smug look on his face as if he’d just gotten away with something. The feeling I had was one of concern for what my girlfriend had to put up with. I knew that my father was prone to saying inappropriate things, and his behavior made me uncomfortable.

Years later, I was talking to my uncle. My uncle mentioned how he and my mom were driving together when they got caught in a storm and had to stop for the night. They’d called my father to tell him and he was adamant that they not share a room even though everybody was short on money back then.

“It bothered me,” my uncle said, “that he didn’t trust me to be alone with your mom.”

That story revealed a lot to me. It told me my father was unwilling to endure the treatment that he imposed upon others. I’ve since cut him out of my life. He’s never met my wife and he likely never will.

I brought this up to my wife the other day. Through discussions I’ve had with other survivors of narcissistic abuse, I’ve discovered that inappropriate flirtation is often deployed as a mechanism of control.

It’s an effective strategy. Abusive people like to provoke emotions like anger, jealousy, and frustration because that prevents you from perceiving their manipulation. In the case of my father, I knew that if I’d complained he’d have turned it back on me. “You’re being jealous. That’s something you have to work on more. You need to show more respect to your girlfriend.” The lecture would have gone on and on and on.

I elected to endure his behavior, which ultimately was another victory for him. That’s another strategy of abuse. You’re always presented with a prepackaged illusion of a choice. Both options benefit the abuser. If you don’t like either of them, you’re lectured on the importance of “compromise,” and you’re forced to give up even more.

Eventually I realized the game was rigged and I decided not to play. My father hates that. He spends all his time telling anyone who comes into his sphere about how “ungrateful” and “cruel.” I am.

Toxic.

As I was talking with my wife, she asked, “Can you imagine how he would have acted around me?”

“Yes,” I replied. I knew exactly how he would act. In fact, the question opened up the floodgates.

“He’d be on the outside looking in, so that would give him the advantage. At every slight disagreement between the two of us, he’d insert himself to attack me and ingratiate himself with you. He’d accuse me of being sexist and rude in your presence. He’d drive himself in like a wedge constantly under the guise that he needed to establish some perversion of a parental relationship with you.”

My wife nodded. She’s no stranger to manipulative people. She has a whole faction of her family that she calls “the dark side.”

I continued. “What happens when you have people like that in your life is that you end up living within a cloud of confusion. Things start to go wrong. You end up late for appointments. People who you were friends with for years come forward with complaints. Meanwhile, my father would be standing off to the side with an innocent expression on his face, while he secretly orchestrated it all.”

“Yup!” my wife said, “I know people like that.”

Years ago I was talking with one of my cousins. Within a few minutes of the conversation, I realized this cousin had become one of my father’s flying monkeys. Those are the minions the abuser sends out with their heads full of nonsense. Abusers use something close to hypnosis to create a shadow persona that bears little resemblance to who you are. When the flying monkeys confront the reality of you, they commonly tilt their head like a confused dog.

“You aren’t how I expected you to be.”

“That’s because my father has poisoned your expectation about who I am,” is what you think, but you shouldn’t say. If you admit that this level of mind control is at work, they’ll assume you’re the sorcerer and run back to the true toxic abuser.

So, you have to simply sit and endure their confusion and hope they figure it out for themselves.

My cousin asked me, “But what if you went and hung out with your father and discovered that he’s actually really nice?”

“Of course he’d be nice,” I said.

My cousin seemed surprised by this.

“He’d work really hard to be nice. He’d be gracious. He’d come bearing gifts. He’d laugh, he’d do us favors, he’d buy us dinner.”

My cousin looked confused.

“That’s the most effective way to abuse somebody,” I said. “First, he has to ingratiate himself. He has to present himself as the answer to all our problems. In doing this, he’d establish trust. Bit by bit, he’d erase boundaries. You wouldn’t even notice it at first as he crept closer and closer and closer...”

“But then what would happen?”

“Once he had settled in, you’d start to notice a rise in petty conflicts. Those conflicts would be between me and my wife, or me and my kids, or my wife and my kids. They’d be minor at first, and, without even knowing why, we’d turn to my father for the answers. You see, all that gift giving and all those favors established him as the generous patriarch. Naturally he’d have the answers. So, he’d contrive times to be alone with all the members of my family, and he’d whisper things to them.”

“What kind of things?”

“He’d whisper things that would make them doubt me. Eventually, they’d come to me with confused expressions and make statements like, ‘Why don’t you spend more time with your dad, if you did so, maybe you’d discover that he’s really nice?’”

Eventually, I had to cut off contact with that cousin too.

When I turn 52, I will have spent half of my life estranged from my father. During those years, there have been moments of weakness. There have been times when the pressure of the flying monkeys was almost enough to make me doubt myself. But I’ve stayed the course, and today I’m very proud of the respectful relationship I have with my wife and kids.

Even under the best of circumstances, life is challenging. You’re going to get sick, you’re going to have petty arguments, you’re going to be short of money, you’re going to wake up in a bad mood. People who are operating in good faith can struggle with these obstacles. But when you allow a bad faith actor into your sphere, he needs only to wait to take advantage of the naturally occurring moments of conflict.

He’s always the savior. You’re always the cause.

If you let him go to work long enough, he’ll drive all your loved ones away from you. He’ll gather them up for himself, and he’ll spend the rest of his days sadly shaking his head and lamenting all the people who were “too stubborn to listen.” Eventually, he’ll stop saying “stubborn” and start saying “insane.”

Abusive people are hard to spot. The one talent they’re good at is blaming others for their crimes. They can be charismatic, they can be successful, they can even be funny and charming. But no matter how good they are at all these other skills, there will always be something about them that makes you feel uneasy.

Listen to your instincts.

If you’re uncertain, you don’t have to cut it off at once. You can simply say, “I’d like to take some time for myself.” Go on a long trip. Get away from them. See if the storm clouds start to retreat when they are not near. Wait for the sun to come out.

We’re all made fearful because we’ve been conditioned to believe that only toxic people have the solutions for all our problems. However, the truth that toxic people are desperate to prevent you from recognizing is that they are the cause of all our problems.

Step away. Take a moment to breathe. The good people will meet you with open arms when you’re ready to return. The magnetism of toxic people reverses its polarity with the combination of distance and time. Escape is both more complicated and easier than you can imagine. Once the clouds begin to retreat, you’ll start to inherit your power. Only then will you begin to realize how much those toxic people drained you.

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Toxic People Bring Problems Into Your Life, and Disguise That They Are the Cause