She is alright. She is tired and teary, she is suffering from the effects of what could be described as PTSD. She is trying to rebuild her life and make sense of what happened to her now that the scales have fallen from her eyes. She is half the girl she used to be, but we've got her back into the safety of the fold and that is the main thing.
She was young and naive when she first met, let's call him Mick, and on first sight he seemed to be a very charming and well rounded individual. He won the family over with his easy, chatty temperament and they seemed very happy together.
It did not take long for us to notice his true nature, and we were disturbed by what we were witnessing.
He had extreme delusions of grandeur, and he loved to belittle everyone on their opinions that he asked for. He even had the audacity to openly ask me about my finances in front of an audience, and then became disgruntled in the extreme when I refused to answer his questions.
He was obsessed with money and making a fast buck, tempered with flights of fancy as he wanted to be an actor and really thought he could make it, to my daughters detriment.
This behaviour was brought in so subtly we sometimes thought we were losing our minds. Nevertheless, he started manipulating and controlling our daughter.
Our daughter who was a staunch feminist, our daughter who was so head strong, our daughter who was intelligent and surely would see those red flags.
She didn't and let me tell you what he did to her and to us.
I have two children. My eldest, my son, lives in New York City and visits for Christmas every few years or so, with my wife and I visiting him in between. The year after Mick arrived on the scene, my son was due his visit, staying with us.
Remarkably, a large amount of his holiday money went missing, shortly after Mick had discovered him taking some out of an envelope in his room as he passed by to go to the toilet.
Less than ten minutes after Mick had used the loo and we were all assembled in the lounge, ready to go out, he announces that he needed to go again. Off he goes, returning five minutes later and we all go out.
On our return, my son goes to his room and discovers the money is missing. Whilst we don't have any evidence to the fact, it doesn't take Einstein to work out what happened.
There is so much more.
He one day announced that he was taking my daughter to the Royal Welsh Show in Builth Wells and suggested that her mum come along too as a family day out. He then sent my daughter begging that he use my car, even though he had a car himself. His reason? It would be far too expensive for him to pay for the petrol his car would use on such a trip. Of course, I didn't want either of my girls disappointed and let him use the car, but he used all of the petrol and didn't offer to put any back in.
Or how about the time my son bought us all tickets to a show one Christmas when he was visiting. He gave us about six months notice to make sure we were all available, but an hour before we were due to go, I receive a phone call from my daughter asking if she could catch a lift to the venue with us as Mick had decided not to come.
This greatly irritated my son, who had gone to considerable thought and effort in purchasing the tickets. With only an hour to spare we couldn't find anyone to take his place so it was wasted.
We sat in a restaurant before the show with a very tearful girl, and discovered that they'd had a row about the tickets. Mick had even stated that it was highly inconsiderate to think that someone would want a ticket to a show as a Christmas present, and that he should have been consulted before hand so that he could tell my son what he actually wanted as a gift.
The three of us watched her heart break, stony faced and silent, as she apologised for his behaviour. Mick on the otherhand, believed he had done no wrong and that an apology was owed to him.
Then came the affairs. He had many. One with a girl that they both worked with. She had to watch their sickening displays from her office window, he really enjoyed rubbing her face in it. She knew something was wrong, but any questions were shot down and shot down hard. Twisting the knife of 'you're stupid if you think that.' 'We're just friends and you are jealous.'
During this time, I might add that her mother and I went through a number of very serious health issues. To her, and my nieces credit, they were here practically every night, attending to us, making sure we were eating and looking after us.
Because she wasn't at home hero-worshipping the low life, he took it upon himself to blame her and us for the affair. She wasn't there to look after his needs. She was spending too much time with her parents. He needed someone because 'he wasn't well.'
Yes, that's right, when the proverbial hit the fan and there was nowhere to hide with lies, he then tried to veil his misdemeanours with a pathetic 'I am depressed' cover up story.
Then came the revelation that a friend of my daughter, who happens to be a Police Officer, discovered him down an isolated country lane at 3.00am, he was in his car with another woman.
When the friend reprimanded him, she of course received attitude that she had to warn him about, and was told he was merely giving a lift home to a friend.
A lift home. Stopped down a country lane. With the lights off and windows steamed up. Yes, of course.
When he returned home, preempting that the friend would contact my daughter, he proceeded to scream at her to wake her up. He invented an outrageous story of how he was minding his own business when her friend had accosted him for no reason except that she's never liked him, you know how it goes.
Sadly, by this time, we had collectively lost our girl. His claws were so deep into her, she swallowed his lies, hook, line and sinker. We watched, horrified as she withdrew further and further, whilst he became the braggart in the extreme.
He enjoyed her sadness as he openly commented on the size of her friends breasts at parties. He feasted upon her discomfort as he mentioned how attractive her friends were and made comparisons. He devoured her soul and there was nothing we could do but wait for the day when she would leave.
He made her feel crazy, twisting her words whenever she tried to defend herself. Making her feel worthless, that he was the only one who could ever love her and that she should be thankful.
Then, a glimmer of hope. Another affair found out and she left. Confronting not him, but his parents this time, smart move, my darling girl. She moved out, and we all held our breath.
I even held counsel with Mick's father who was dispairing of his son.
'He's a bully, and this relationship is never going to work because he is a nasty bully. I should have thrashed him more as a kid.'
All I could do was sit slack jawed as this man poured out his heart and a few home truths about his son, the very person I was trying to protect my daughter from.
I discovered that when he met my daughter, he was already engaged to another girl. Her parents had been building an extension on their house for them both to live there.
Strange, he had told our daughter that he was single after his previous girlfriend had been cheating on him with a girl she had met in America. In fact, he had run his previous partner into the ground, spinning stories of how controlling and psychotic she was. That she was a manipulator, a liar, and that he was broken after her revelations of infidelity. Then there was the girlfriend before her, whose family all abused him, who was also a manipulator and controlling. How the lovelorn Mick used his last of his pay packet to travel to university to see her, only to find that she had been cheating on him with a guy she lived with in halls.
Watch out for this - you'll see a pattern emerging.
Mick's father continued, lamenting over how he had unmercifully bullied all of his previous girlfriends and how he even bullied his own mother. Turning up at hospital after she had lifesaving surgery to harass her for money to take a girl out for dinner.
The split didn't last. Within three weeks she was back in his clutches and a dark cloud descended on all of us. As far as we are aware, he continued this affair for another few months. Yet again twisting his proverbial knife into her guts as the lies came thick and fast.
'I'm not well' he professed for the umpteenth time. She called his bluff, telling him that he should go to counselling. He claimed he did, but whenever she asked how his sessions were progressing, he bizarrely retorted that the counsellor was also blaming her for his misdemeanours.
He stated that she had to accept the blame for him to move on with his healing.
We watched as she became stressed, anxious, and as we have recently discovered, borderline suicidal.
That wasn't the end of it.
She came into some money and somehow he spent it all. He gained control over her bank account and had access to it, regularly leaving her with no money whilst he spent it all. She planned to go on foreign holidays, hiding money to enable her to do so. He managed to thwart all attempts, finding the money saved and spending it on himself.
We organised a family holiday in South Wales for us all. Everything was paid and at the eleventh hour he refused to come, saying that he was not going to drive the distance and was not going to sit in a car and be driven. He made her pay him back for his share of the holiday as he didn't go.
He made her apply for a huge loan as his credit rating was deplorable. She could not refuse as he had started screaming and shouting about how he needed the money to buy a new car, causing a scene in her new workplace, embarrassing her deeply. Half of that money went on the car, and the other half - well we don't know what that went on, but she didn't not see or benefit from a single penny of it, even though she begged and pleaded to use some for a holiday.
'You know I am deathly afraid of heights. So I'm not getting on a plane.' Was the reply from the despicable person who we had all witnessed helping a theatre technician up a very large ladder in the lighting rigging at one of his am-dram performances.
His other misdemeanours are so many I will be here forever spilling my rotund guts and detoxing myself of the bile that rises when I think on him. Vile, disgusting things that no person should have to put up with ever. Things that make me wonder if he actually has a soul. I am convinced that he does not.
We were losing hope, thinking that she would never come to her senses.
But then. Then came the light. I caught wind from my son that she had confessed the relationship was over. She had even confronted Mick about it and was working her way to a point where she had enough money to move out, which would take several months.
We danced jigs. Celebrated with champagne and started planning to help her covertly.
Mick had, of course taken her news badly, and, seeing that he no longer had power over her, tried more and more desperate ways to gain the control he desired.
He accused her of cheating, with everyone. Friends, colleagues, distant relatives, male, female, it didn't matter.
He tried crying and playing for her sympathy. He loved her, didn't she know that? No one would ever love her the way he did. No one would want her.
He got angry, blaming her for everything. Ranting and raving. All to no avail, she stood steadfast.
She moved out way before she said she would, after she found him doing unspeakables in the kitchen with the neighbour. She decided she needed out and left that night. Running to a friends house and calling us from there to let us know.
We tried to act like concerned parents, but honestly we could not contain our delight and excitement. She was free.
The fallout has been spectacular. He has accused her of cheating. Of being manipulative, controlling, psychotic.
He's stated that he has descended into depression, that he lives with constant anxiety. Garnering support of their mutual friends, and they are swallowing his lies.
Let them.
Let the monkeys dance to his tune. We know the truth and we've witnessed the horror and devastation he leaves in his wake.
He's done it every. Single. Time. To every single girl he has been attached to.
He is a monster, he is unrelenting, but he is gone. Out of our lives forever.
And, do you know something?
Even if his allegations of infidelity ARE true, I would be cheering my daughter on, fully, wholeheartedly, with my blessing.
Furthermore, I'd take the hand of the man she cheated on him with, I would shake it warmly, take him to my heart for being the man who led her away from that gutless, soulless being and buy him several pints.
So, Mick.
This is to you, your lies and your continuing efforts to discredit my flesh and bone.
We know who you are. We know what you're about and someday, maybe not soon, but someday, everyone else will see you plainly for the lowlife, pathetic scum you are.
If you are still with me, please, I beg you to make yourself familiar with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Check out this link, be on high alert for those red flags:
God bless.
D
