On Being Invisible And In The Dark

Have you ever had a growing feeling that something in your life is amiss but you just don't know what it is? It's a collection of little signs which, individually in and of themselves, don't seem to mean much at all. And yet.....

It was all so long ago now that it seems hardly worth the bother of mentioning, and yet if it can help somebody else the pain of discovery by avoiding the pitfalls in the first place, well then maybe yes, it is a story worth telling.

I had always got on very well with my ex father in law, almost as if I was the son he'd always wanted but never had. He did have a son, but the boy was an unmitigated disaster. So there I was for the best part of twenty years the successful surrogate son, until one day......

One day my father in law telephoned from where he lived in Spain to speak to my wife, who happened to be out at the time. At times like this my father in law and I would have a chummy old natter anyway about his job abroad, my job, our three children who were his grandchildren. Only this time my father in law came across as really quite snarky and snarly. "Well tell our Brenda I called." he growled before cutting me off. When my wife got home I mentioned the call and how unfriendly her father seemed and she accused me of being over sensitive. We left it at that.

Around about the same time I sensed a tone of unfriendliness from neighbours and friends. Again my wife accused me of being over sensitive and paranoid. The fact that I am knowingly by nature one of life's sensitive souls had me again accepting the criticism.

In a very short time Christmas was upon us and a neighbour who was a very close friend invited us to her house for New Year's Eve. As we had nobody to babysit my wife and I agreed that one of us could go for a short spell whilst the other stayed at home, and then after an hour the other could go. My lovely wife chose to go first.

At eleven thirty, already half an hour after our agreed time of eleven o'clock my wife had still not returned. In those pre-mobile phone days there was no way of calling or texting my wife, so I just had to sit it out. Eventually she returned home at one o'clock in the morning.

I have to say I was none too pleased at the lack of consideration. When I asked her why she had come home so late and left me waiting so long she simply replied "Oh, I forgot all about you." Well who did you think was looking after the children then, Marley's ghost?"

"The party is still in full swing, you can go now if you get your skates on."

So as not to be a party pooper I put my shoes on and walked the hundred yards to the neighbour's house. Even as I tapped on the door I could see thew house was in complete darkness. Sue came to the door in her dressing gown and asked what I wanted.

"Well Brenda said the New Year's party is still in full swing?"

The party finished half an hour ago Liam, you've just got me out of bed."

I had never felt so stupid knocking on somebody's door at that hour when the big party was all over. I simply slunk off back into the darkness towards home with my tail between my legs. When I got home my wife was guiltily putting down the telephone. I was later to discover she had been making a call to a certain male.

Up until that time I had always thought that narcissism was something to do with narcotics or some sort of exotic coffee fetish. I soon realised that it was a condition whereby the narcissist treated their partner as an invisible door mat.

Over the ensuing months the cold unfriendliness of family, friends and neighbours grew to the point that I felt like Billy no mates, a piece of dog shit in the street to be stepped around at all costs.

In time, little by little, it all came out. For over a year my lovely wife had been badmouthing me to all and sundry. Clearly she had been very busy rallying the troops to her cause in anticipation of a divorce which at the time I had not the slightest clue about.

Things with my father in law reached a melting point the following summer. I was out visiting my mother and getting ready to get back to our home town in time to collect our three children from school. Suddenly my wife telephoned to tell me not to bother with the children as her mother and father would collect them. She then told me not to go home as her parents would be there. There was no explanation as to why that might be a problem.

I put the phone down and told my mother what had transpired and she told me "It's your home, you're the one who lives there and pays the bills. If you don't go home you're not the son I thought you were Liam." I totally agreed with my mother and left to go home immediately, home to a violent in-law attack I had no idea was coming my way.

The journey took an hour by motorway and all the way home I was curious to know what might transpire when I arrived. I parked my car on the drive and headed on into the house. That's when things got very unpleasant indeed and I feared for my life.

"What are you doing here." snarled my father in law.

"It's my house Paco, I live here. Perhaps I can ask what are doing here and why you're asking me why I'm here in such an angry tone?"

My father in law grabbed a big kitchen knife and started to wave it at me. My five year old daughter took fright and grabbed a hold of my hand.

"Right Mister, from where we are standing you have not been pulling your weight."

This surprised me not least of all because they lived in Spain all year round. So he could only go off what he had been told by my wife. Speaking of whom, if anybody wasn't pulling their weight it was his daughter. For a full year she had been leading a secret double life having an extra marital affair with her boss whilst I was slogging my guts out working and bringing up our three children.

Paco stepped towards me with the kitchen knife and put too close to my face for comfort."Our Brenda is getting this house, and the three children and you boy are going to hell if I've got anything to do with it."

My daughter gripped my hand tighter. "You don't know the half of it Paco, you know nothing." And with that I turned to leave the kitchen and went to the back garden with my daughter. For her sake I simply disconnected and started to play ball with her.

After a minute or two Paco came out after me and threatened me some more before he and his insipid little wife left the house and got in their car to drive off in a huff.

When my wife came home I related everything that had happened to her and she shrugged it off with "Oh, I don't know what that was all about. He's getting old now and feeling grumpy."

"GRUMPY!!!???" I yelled. "He was going to freeking kill me in front of our daughter you idiot."

"Whatever." she replied and simply turned and walked off. It was at this point I suddenly understood all that had gone before, the cold unfriendliness of family, friends and neighbours, now it all made sense, my lovely wife had been selling me down the river for a whole year. After that it was all over bar the shouting as they say.

My advice is that if you feel a deep sense of there being something seriously amiss it is because there usually is something shitty going on behind your back and you should be on your guard.