Some time ago Bethany shared with us the term the military uses for assessing the potential risk of a particular situation–operational risk assessment. It got me to thinking about how much I’ve learned post-separation. It got me to thinking about how I’ve been able to read the signs and pull my troops out of hostile territory.
About four or five weeks after R left I began helping a neighbor in his gun shop. I attended a gun auction and ran background checks and watched the store when he had to attend gun shows and auctions out of the area. It was a lot of fun.
It did bother me that he harshly scolded someone else’s child at the auction. I thought it odd that he talked constantly about his ex-wife, seven years after their divorce. It was a little offensive that he regularly compared me to her even though it was always meant to be a compliment to me. He fluctuated between coddling his fifteen year old son and alienating him with his cut downs and controlling behavior. Though the boy didn’t live with him he still insisted upon a strict and rigid code of behavior and demonstrated respect for himself as the father. Yet, at the same time he expected the neighborhood kids to all give D extra or make concessions for him because he’d had a major surgery as an infant.
Still, he seemed nice enough. Until…..
I was preparing to lock up the shop. I was behind the counter, closing out the till, when he came in from a trip out of town. He was smiling, so I thought he must have made some good deals at the show. He kept coming toward me. As he approached me he reached his arms out and puckered up his lips. I took his hands in mine and raised my right knee to crotch level. I smiled and asked questions about the trip, but my body language was saying, “Buddy, come one step closer, and this knee is going between your legs….HARD.”
I could tell he wasn’t happy with my response, and I felt that it was important to back away a bit. He texted me throughout the day, complimenting me on my salsa and my cookies and just keeping me informed of his every move. I didn’t respond to most of them, not wanting to lead him on yet not wanting to lose my opportunity to re-enter the work force either. I walked a fine line.
One evening I texted him and asked him if the offer still stood to serve R the restraining order and divorce papers. I’d just found out that R had petitioned the court to overturn his conviction; he was coming to town. The shop owner was immediately intensely angry. He said that all he’d ever shown me was respect and yet I ignored his texts throughout the day. But now, when I needed him, I knew how to text him. He had quite a few other choice words to say to me, too. I told him that I didn’t feel he had always respected me and certainly wasn’t at the moment, but that I understood and to please forget I’d even asked. I tried to diffuse his anger and stated that I wanted to be friends. He didn’t stop though. He texted and texted and texted one accusation after another all evening long. I told him that I was putting my children to bed and heading there soon myself, yet he continued. He wanted to call, so we could “talk about this.” I refused to answer.
I took off the pistol grips he’d put on my gun without asking me and returned them, along with the shop keys. I smiled and spoke nicely to the other men in the shop as I discreetly laid those items on the counter around the corner out of their sight. I noticed that he was wearing a beer T-shirt. We haven’t spoken since. I’ve smiled when I’ve passed him on the road, but he refuses to return a polite gesture.
I mulled over the experience in my mind. He moved really fast, just like my husband had. He talked incessantly about his ex, just like my husband had. He compared me to her, just like my husband had. He fluctuated between dictatorship and age inappropriate babying of his son, just like my husband had. He was harder on everyone else’s children, just like my husband was. He demanded my constant attention, just like my husband had. He took liberties with my property, just like my husband did. He was even wearing a party T-shirt, just like my husband did the first time he met my family.
Whew! I was proud of myself for adequately performing a little operational risk assessment before shots were actually fired.
To Be Continued…….
anewfreelife 
Good for you for seeing the Red Flags before he got his hooks into you!
I may be a slow learner, but at least I’m learning. : D
Ditto what Sofia said. Sometimes we can’t break the patterns that keep us stuck , but it sounds as if you are well on your way. I’m looking forward to part two.
Thank you; oh, I am determined to break them. I’m sure I’ll have my failures and set backs, but I have set it in my mind and in my heart firmly that I will not return to that state and that I will lead my children into a healthier way of living and relating.
Hang tight…..there are three parts! (I’m doing a lot of learning!) ; )
Spotting patterns and trends is one of the most important things in any form of risk management; I’m glad you recognised the signs and didn’t get involved with this guy. Listen to your intuition and be alert to negative patterns of behaviour you’ve seen before, doing so will keep you safe.
Yes, it may sound weird, but I’m almost grateful for my husband and the lessons I learned from him. That kind of behavior was so normalized to me by my mother that I would have spent my entire life uncomfortably comfortable being abused. My husband took things to such a higher level that it forced me to see it all for what it really is. Tough lesson to learn but very necessary.
Good, ANFL. However, I think I’ve mentioned before here, not all abusers are the same type. They are all abusers but they can come in very different disguises. Sounds like this shop owner was a similar type to your ex, uncannily so, in fact, but remember that some can be ‘Mr Sensitive’.
Another thing: you’ve described the red flags in this guy’s behavior. You might like to reflect on whether there were any red flags in your gut feelings, even before you could ‘nail’ the behaviour. Those early warning gut feelings are usually very subtle, almost whispering, but they are usually there too.
Yes, for sure. They certainly do come in all shapes and sizes, wearing all kinds of disguises. I’ve encountered those types post-separation as well.
I didn’t have any warnings in my gut. I thought he was a really super nice man. That is a little scary to me. I think perhaps because my mother was so abusive, I don’t have an intact radar. No doubt that can heal and I can learn, but, for now, I seem to be very dependent upon analyzing. I’ll relax a bit when the day comes that I know I can smell test them out without having to make lists and watch for subtle discrepancies and deceits.
Well done, friend! I am, though, angry with these men. Blech. Obviously, they don’t realize that you are not easy prey. Clearly, they don’t know who they are dealing with here!!
Exactly! That is exactly how I felt! Like easy prey! Ugh!
I’m Proud 🙂 I can’t wait for part 2&3. I am glad something I said got you thinking, usually its the opposite. like Barbara said there are other types and the type we don’t know can be very dangerous. Boy do I with there was some sort of fool proof test we could put everyone though to determine the abuser right off the bat.
You should be proud! The Lord uses you mightily in my life.
Yeah, me, too. Like litmus paper. We could stick it in their drink or brush it over the back of their hand, and it would turn black from their ugly sin!
Ew, what a creep! And scary, too.
That’s exactly how I refer to him now…..that creepy little man! LOL
I also find it scary that a guy like that owns a gun shop. He’s a stalker, and who knows what someone like that would do if he were turned down the wrong way.
Ya know, that’s an element to the abuse issue that I find really interesting and would love some answers to. I don’t know if it’s just my experiences and it isn’t actually a universal issue with abusers. But, my experience has been that the male abusers have all been obsessive with some form of self-defense. As you know, I’m very pro self-sufficiency and self-defense, but these guys are obsessive about whatever their chosen method is. My husband wasn’t into guns at all, but he was CONSUMED by martial arts. He got, not one, but two black belts in two different arts. And, he used that against me, even when I was big pregnant, and on guys at work. I know of others who “collect” knives and wear them strapped to their belts. My brother is a gun collector, and his garage looks like the stash on the second Terminator movie. They all come across paranoid. I wonder……are they paranoid because they know their true intentions toward others, or are they really actually always thinking about an offensive attack, not a defensive position?
You’ll have to let me know which shop this is so they don’t get my business. 😉
Well, without publicly slandering a business’s name…..ya know where I live? He’s a neighbor. ; )
I have read so many posts on the topic of the blogger lovers
however this post is truly a nice article, keep it up.
Thank you! 🙂