Wild Bill looms over the terrified little girls like a horrendous boogeyman, whispers to Kathe: BILLY You love your sister? You make any noise, know what happens? I'll kill her instead of you. (to Cora) And if you make any noise, I'll kill her. And he drags them out into the coming dawn... ...as Coffey lets Paul go. Paul is gasping, back in the real world where his men are staring at him with wide eyes. COFFEY He kill 'em with they love. They love for each other. You see how it is? Paul nods, numb. Tears are flowing down Coffey's face. Softly: COFFEY That's how it is ever' day. That's how it is all over the worl'...
******** I remember when I first saw this movie. I sat there crying, seeing the pain in Coffey's eyes, portrayed so beautifully by a great actor. A man who could not possibly have portrayed something so beautifully if he had not felt pain...had not seen injustice....did not FEEL. I sat with my ex-husband...who showed no emotion at all. He loved to laugh at me, and make fun of me, when I was brought to tears by a movie. I did not understand, at that time, that it was not "manliness" or "control" that made him unemotional and that caused his complete INABILITY to CONCEIVE of how I could be AFFECTED by a movie.
He found that absolutely hilarious...so much so that I soon began to avoid watching movies that might bring me to tears in his presence...and when it did happen, I began to make efforts to control, or hide, my tears.
I was not ashamed at having emotions, just tired of being ridiculed for the same. And yet...never ONCE did I consider (back then) what hardness of heart must be in HIM to allow him NOT to feel, not to empathize...to have no emotion.
Never did I CRITICIZE him for it or make fun of him. I assumed this control made him superior and my "hyper-sensitivity" was a sign that I was, indeed "weak", "Over emotional", "defective", "demented", "damaged" and "crazy"... and so I set out to become more hard...less caring...more HIM. And I had a measure of "success" because I soon began to numb out and feel nothing...then followed the depression, the emptiness, the guilt...the "zombie" period.
But the quote from the movie above is about more than his reaction to it or mine. It is the concept of "He killed them with their love for each other" which truly struck me and, even more intensely, strikes me today.
I once told the narc, who had a narc mother...that he was much WORSE than her...because while she was a nasty, miserable, controlling bitch....she never pretended to be anything else! She had no ability to fool anyone, and apparently, no desire to. She was someone who would make you uncomfortable within moments of meeting her and the feeling would just grow steadily. There was no deception, no "love", no manipulation with kindness. Oh she lied, but her lies were meant to DAMAGE and she made no attempts to hide that. With HER...you KNEW what you were facing....with precious little exposure needed.
On that day I told him "You are WORSE because you make people love you and then you purposely hurt them. Your mother is a bitch, but you are EVIL"
Recent events have led me back to this because it has been brought back to me that for 18 years, he used my love for my children, and my family, to control me.
He used my love for my Mother to keep me tolerant to his abuse. He convinced her that he was wonderful and kept her always supporting the fact that I would NEVER find ANYONE who would love me like he did. (She often verbalized that very thing and she BELIEVED it whole heartedly) But then, she was a loving woman who could NEVER have conceived of the awful secrets that he was hiding...could never have conceived of the level of his deceit or his ability to totally fool people.
He used my desire to protect my children to keep me under control...escalating his abuse of them until I would usually relent. He could do little to me directly...but hurting my children (or even threatening to hurt them) when an extraordinarily effective way to control my behavior.
He used my children's love for me to control them. He would convince them that they were hurting ME and convince ME that I was hurting them...in order to control us all...to keep us IN LINE.
I think that this has been very damaging to both me and to them. So much so that, despite the abuse they suffered at his hands, my older sons both told me, on many occasions, that I should not leave him. They were convinced, as was my Mother, that he was a great husband and that, if the relationship was lost, it would be their fault.
OH...if I could go back in time....but that's not possible. I guess that coming to terms with, and recognizing evil...and trying to avoid it in the future, is all I can do. That and sit by and watch as he destroys other peoples souls..and he drains them of hope, happiness and self-esteem. As he makes them question whether there is a God, whether they are worthy of life...whether there is any reason to go on...
