Something Was Wrong - S3 Ep2: Their Little Counselor

Episode Date: October 25, 2019

*Content Warning: gaslighting, domestic abuse, emotional and physical abuse, suicide, suicidal ideation, distressing themes. Music from Glad Rags album Wonder Under Source: Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People--and Break Free by Dr. Stephanie Sarkis

This podcast is intended for mature audiences and discusses topics that could be triggering to some. Opinions expressed by guests on the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of this podcast. I am not a therapist or a doctor. All resources, books, and sources mentioned on the podcast can be found linked in the episode notes. Please note, names have been changed in this story for anonymity purposes. If you or someone you love is being abused, please contact the National National domestic violence hotline at 1-800-799-7233. If you or someone you love is struggling with a suicidal crisis or emotional distress, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 24-7 at

1-800-273-8255. Thank you so much for listening. This season, I'll be referencing Dr. Stephanie Moulton's Sarkis book, Gaslighting, a lot. I have read this book. I have read this book, at least three times, and it has not only been extremely beneficial in understanding this story, but also opened my eyes to a gaslighter in my own life and gave me the confidence and knowledge to know how to end said relationship. This book will be linked in the episode notes, and is also available on Audible. No one is paying me to endorse this book or anything like that. I just simply believe it's amazing and can help a lot of people. The term gaslight was coined by Patrick Hamilton in his 1938 play, Gaslight, and first made popular in the 1944 movie of the same name.

In 2004, the term was added to the Oxford English Dictionary as follows, to manipulate a person by psychological means into questioning his or her own sanity. Gaslighters have a number of characteristics that are important to know. When enough of these qualities are present and persistent in a person, chances are you're dealing with a gaslighter. They are masters of the conditional apology. When someone says, I'm sorry you feel that way, that's not an apology, nor is it taking responsibility for their behavior. This simply manipulates you into feeling seen by acknowledging your feelings.

But be sure, gas lighters will only apologize if they are trying to get something out of you. They use triangulation and splitting. Triangulation is a psychological term for communicating with some, through other people. Instead of directly talking with you, they send a message through a mutual family member or friend. Gaslighters love pitting people against each other. This is known as splitting. It gives a gaslighter a sense of power and control. Gaslighters are the ultimate agitators and instigators. They get a power boost when they get people riled up and fighting with one another. Gaslighters also know that splitting and triangulation will draw you closer to them.

and distance you from the person that they're pitting you against. Gaslighters use triangulation and splitting for the following reasons. To pit people against each other, to get people to align with them, to avoid direct confrontation, responsibility for their own actions, to smear your character, to spread lies, and to create chaos. They use blatant attempts to curry favor. Gaslighters are masters at buttering people up and will use flattery to get what they want from you.

As soon as they've got what they want, they'll drop their mask of niceness. They expect special treatment. Gaslighters feel that standard social rules such as politeness, respect, timeliness, and patience don't apply to them. Yet they expect these things from others. They mistreat people who have less power than them. You can tell a lot about people by how they treat a person with less power than they have. For example, look at how someone treats weight staff at a lot. a restaurant. Another indication is how they behave toward children and animals. They love to use your

weaknesses against you. Many times, you begin a relationship with a gaslighter feeling very safe and seen. Thus, your walls come down and you trust them with your intimate thoughts and feelings. Meanwhile, the information you share will soon be getting used against you in fights. It becomes psychological ammunition. They compare you to others. Gaslighters use compare. as a way to drive a wedge between people and gain control. Parents who gaslight frequently compare their children to each other in unrealistic and blatant ways. In this dynamic, there is typically a golden child and a scapegoat child. This is not only emotionally abusive, but it pits siblings unnecessarily against one another.

They are obsessed with their own accomplishments. Gasliders put an extreme amount of importance on their own accomplishments, regardless of how long ago the accomplishment was or how delusional these accomplishments and attributes may be. They prefer to associate with people who fawn over them. Gaslighters will associate only with people who put them up on a pedestal, the way they feel they deserve to be treated. The second gaslighters feel you no longer admire and cater to them, they will drop you. They put you in double binds.

situations in which you are forced to choose between two undesirable options or you're given conflicting messages. Example, a spouse that tells you that you need to lose weight and then serves various desserts that night at dinner. Gaslighters like to place people in emotional dilemmas. Your uncertainty is a sign to them that they have control over you. They are obsessed with their image. Perfection is their goal. Gaslighters are obsessed with how to they look to others. They tend to spend large amounts of money on grooming products and a lot of time looking at themselves in the mirror. They're obsessed with your image. Not only are they obsessed with how they look, they're also very particular about how you look. Body weight tends to be a target

for gaslighters. The underlying message, you are not good enough. They con people. Everything is a competition to gaslighters, and conning is an essential part of their game. Gaslighters want to see how much they can swindle you, either emotionally or financially. They cause fear in others. Family and friends of the gaslighter may defend them against people that have the audacity to call them out. They may also avoid confronting the gaslighter themselves. Family and friends become accustomed to the gaslighter's behavior and consider it normal. They have a bad temper. Because gaslighters feel they are owed loyalty by others, and because they have fragile egos, any behavior is taken personally by the gaslighter, with disastrous consequences to their victims.

The first time you see a gaslighter drop their mask, it can be quite startling. Punishment doesn't affect them. Punishment and rewards tend to have less effect, which makes gasliders more likely to, quote, do their own thing without concern about the reactions of others. They practice cognitive empathy. Gaslighters have a robotic quality to their expressions of empathy. Their reactions may seem flat or pre-recorded. There is no real emotion behind their words.

Gaslighters are experts at using cognitive empathy, which is acting as if you have empathy without actually feeling it. They refuse personal responsibility. It's always someone else's fault, and they are always right. They feel their behavior is perfectly acceptable and meets the need of their ego. They wear you down over time. Gaslighters bank on the idea that with enough time, they can break your spirit. They also expect that if they gradually ramp up their manipulative behavior, you won't see it coming.

They habitually lie. Even if caught red-handed, they will look you right in the eye and lie. This makes you question your sanity, which is what they want, for you to become dependent on their version of reality. They are terrible teasers. Gaslighters are often terrible teasers, and when you say their comments are bothering you, they tell you're being too sensitive. Their compliments are not really. Gaslighters are pro at complaisals, a combination of a compliment and an insult. It is always backhanded and passive-aggressive. They project their emotions. Gaslighters have such a poor sense of their own emotions and actions that they have no idea that they're projecting their own behavior

onto someone else. They isolate you. Gaslighters tend to tell you that your friends and family are bad influences on you. They may also refuse to go to your family events because your family makes them uncomfortable or some other vague, substance-less excuse. They use flying monkeys. They use flying monkeys. Gaslighters will try to send messages to you through other people, especially when you take the courageous step to cut off contact with them. They tell others that you're crazy. Gaslighters drive wedges between you and other people in all sorts of clever and manipulative ways. There is no more effective way to discredit you than to tell people that you're crazy. You're now seen as fragile and unstable. They don't keep promises. For gaslighters, promises

are made to be broken. Loyalty is required but not reciprocated. Gaslighters require complete and unrealistic loyalty, but do not expect loyalty from them. They are notorious for their compulsive infidelity. They kick people when they're down. They get sick pleasure from watching other people suffer. They especially get excited when they know someone is suffering because of them. They bait and switch. Gaslighters love to bring people in by promising them one thing, then switch it on them once they accept it. They avoid admitting problems that they have caused. Gaslighters will say that you or people around them are irrational and have things all wrong, when in reality they are avoiding having to explain themselves or take responsibility for their actions and lies.

I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is something was. wrong. When C.J. first started dating Brad's parents, Ted and Victoria, she was impressed with how close the family was with Patty and Kurt O'Brien and their five kids. Though the Johnson's, a.k.a. the O'Brien's shadows are an element to this story, it's ultimately about the Bishops and the O'Brien's decade-plus friendship and its demise. Here's C.J. Bishop. I had thought of her Patty for many years as a friend. And I even remember thinking to myself, is that odd that I have a friend that could pretty much be my mother, you know, that I'm friends with this person that is best friends with my mother-in-law, but her and I had, we did. I mean, I felt we had a friendship for the

longest time. I thought that her and I connected in a way I could vent to her about, you know, any issues I was having with my in-laws, and because she, she knew them all, and any issues that there were, she heard about it all. They shared everything together. Actually, it was, I don't want to say they shared everything together was pretty much my in-laws sharing with Patty and not the other way around. Patty would share with me really odd things that she didn't want my in-laws to know. And I thought, why are you sharing with me and you don't feel comfortable sharing that with your best friends? And it was always things that, you know, if she was having a hardship at work or with one of her kids or if one of her kids got into something, they shouldn't. She would always say, like,

Please don't tell, you know, please don't tell Victoria or Ted because I don't want them knowing. And I thought, well, my God, what kind of friends do you think you have if you can't tell them this stuff? It was just the weirdest thing. Patty loved to make her family look perfect. You know, she would share with me one of her kids got into some trouble at school one night and she had sent me pictures. He got kind of hurt. And I had showed that to my mother-in-law after all this came out. And she's like, I never saw this.

I never heard of this. Now, that was her godson. You know, I mean, my in-laws were the godparents, too, Patty and Kurt's children. Yet they didn't know of, like, certain things that would happen with them. There was so much that Victoria was like, I never knew that. She never mentioned it to me. No, she never mentioned it because she loved to completely bash Victoria's kids and their spouses and make her family seem completely perfect and innocent. Her relationship with her husband,

to me, always seemed like they were the best of friends. I mean, they seemed like they got along well. She would always just boast about, oh, I just love my life. Her oldest son, I know, she had a lot of strain between her and her oldest son. And I know that, like, for a while, you know, he had some rough times as kids do. Like when you're a young, dumb teenager, like, you sometimes get into trouble. And, like, that doesn't define who you are as a person. He is an amazing father. He's an amazing kid. Like, but she never let up on him because of a couple instances where he got into trouble in the past. And she would just bash him, like for years, even like years and years after this incident happened. I mean, he's an adult now. And she would still bring it up. She just,

could never let it go. And after I kind of became friends with his wife, which is, you know, Patty's now daughter-in-law, and her daughter-in-law would say to me like these ways that she could be with them, like very controlling, very, you know, was very concerned and always wanting to butt in about how they spent their money. And like, they would just put Patty in her place. So now that I look back at it, I'm like, ah, that makes sense. Like, her oldest son probably has somewhat of a grip on the type of person that she is. Maybe not to this depth that we're talking about. But I think that he has a good grab on the kind of person that his mother is. And I think that Patty knows that. And that's why she's always so hard on him and always felt like she needed to kind of undermine him and bash him to

her friends and even my husband and I for a while. I will say I always had noticed, even since I was a young adult, that like she had her favorites. And I would always say that's so wrong. She obviously had her favorites. And let's be honest, her favorite was never her oldest son. I mean, I hate saying that because he's an amazing guy. Like, you know, like I said, he was a great friend to us for the longest time. But yeah, she had her favorite. It's like I said, like they have triplets and you can tell which one the favorite is. And she has a daughter. I think that the older, it seemed like the older her daughter got the more close that they got to,

especially once her daughter got married and had a baby. And, you know, you can plan for showers and weddings and like you get closer then. But I will say between the kids, you can definitely tell who she favored. My mother-in-law was seeing like a counselor or a therapist. purpose for years because Patty was telling her, like, you have, you have issues. You have, you have issues lying, you know, you tell me one thing and then you change your story the next day. And I think you're a compulsive liar. In between that and with, you know, the troubles that my mother and father-in-law were having within their marriage, but the counselor at one point had

asked if Patty could come in for a counseling session. So the counselor must have, I don't know, she must have thought something was a little off. And the complaints that Patty had about Victoria was that she just felt that she lied a lot, that she had trouble telling the truth and keeping the truth and that she didn't like, this is something so stupid. I guess that my mother-in-law wouldn't eat other people's food at like picnic. or holidays, which seems really, like, I'm kind of, I mean, I laugh at that because it's like, who cares what you eat? Like, who is bothered by what you're eating? So what if you don't want to eat somebody else's dish at a damn potluck? Who cares? Why should Patty care about that?

But Patty did. She questioned Patty a lot. And I guess she just kind of kept grilling her, like, well, I'm confused as to why you care about this. I'm confused as to why this bothers you so much. Why is it that you care about this? And they left that counseling, session and I guess Patty told Victoria, well, I think that you need to go see another counselor because I don't think that counselor is doing you any good. Here's Victoria. She only went to one session. And in that session, the counselor was talking with her and wanted to understand why does this

triangle of me, Ted, and her, how does it fit in? How does it work? Because she didn't understand it. She was wanting to hear Patty explain it. And she's like, well, and for better terms, I'm kind of like their little counselor. I really helped Ted through a lot of things. And she's like, oh, really? Well, why don't you explain some of that?

Well, some of it is, you know, how Victoria lies about things. And she's like, well, give me some examples. And she couldn't give her any examples. She said, so explain to me, where do you see? Victoria in this. And she's like, well, and Patty would say, well, I just feel that if she would just stop lying, and she's like, again, validate what you're saying. Tell me. She goes, well, they weren't really lies. They're kind of like half-truths. And she's like, so now you're saying she's not lying. The following week when I went, my counselor said, had said, yeah, she is very different and this is a very

weird, weird arrangement. And I don't think it's healthy. And I don't think Patty should be talking to Ted any more about your relationship. Say Victoria went to her with, you know, for advice on something. Or something even as stupid as my mother-in-law saying, oh, like, you know what, I want to have a family dinner this Sunday for my family. Patty hated that, for one, which she would just grow my mother-in-law about doing family dinners. I don't know why. So once my mother-in-law stopped doing family dinners because Patty complained about it and then my father-in-law, I guess, just didn't push the issue of a simple family dinner. Once my mother-in-law stopped doing it, Patty started doing her own family dinners with her family to like rub that in to my mother-in-law's face, which seems stupid. Like,

it just, it seems silly. But that's just how it was. My mother-in-law had like, asked Patty for advice or if Patty recommended something to my mother-in-law and she did the opposite, I would get a text from Patty saying, oh, I don't know why I bother talking to her. I am seeing red. I can tell that my blood pressure is up. She makes me so infuriated over the stupidest stuff. It's like, oh, okay, what? So you recommended that she didn't do a family dinner this Sunday and she's doing it anyway?

And now you're pissed at that? Why? What do you care? How does it affect you? Apparently a lot because it would just make her blood pressure go crazy. It didn't take too long. Here's Brad. How long is long?

I don't know. A year, two years. I can't remember. But it didn't take long for CJ. Start calling Patty out on stuff. Like they're such a, you know, important part of their life. But yet Patty just completely just would railroad my family any chance, you know, just nitpick at everything and this and that. And, you know, my wife's like, well, I don't understand.

If you don't like him so much, why do you even hang out with them? Like, I guess after time, and again, I don't know exactly when that time was. You know, and I'm even seeing her emails, and I'm like, yeah, I don't know what to tell you, C.J. Like, I don't know what, you know, I guess I started kind of seeing that Patty was, she was two-faced, you know, and started kind of seeing that happen, see that transition. But I think that transition just was such a long transition. It just took years. It just kind of like, yeah, she talks crap on my family.

family all the time you know CJ always said like you know if we ever like get a chance to like rekindle anything with your parents like I have all these emails from Patty like I have no problem dropping the bomb and being like you see what your your best friend thinks of you or what she's saying about little did we know you know just kind of like a pulling the strings you know type of thing like a like a puppet but but I never like when they first started talking like I I didn't think anything of it. I know Patty my whole life, so it wasn't that big a deal. And then just seeing things kind of gradually escalate.

I don't know if I didn't fully trust her. I knew she had like a streak about her that she would talk bad about everybody, including my family and stuff like that. Patty would even like dive into my sister-in-law's life and put in her input about like what my sister-in-law, how she raises her kids. Like one time my sister-in-law took her oldest son to a movie. and I guess Patty saw that on Facebook

and just ripped into Victoria saying I didn't know that she was taking him to a move today. What do you care? So what happened? Victoria called my sister-in-law and said, you didn't tell me you were taking him to a movie but you know, Patty just called

and told me she saw it on Facebook. And my sister-in-law's response to that was well, you can tell Patty that I'm a big girl and I don't need your permission or hers to take my kid to a movie. just stuff that was so not her place and why should she care she cared about. And my sister-in-law was even catching on to it. So whether this all happened or not, she would have been figured out at some point.

Our daughter, she was kind of stuck in the middle and she said, I'm Switzerland, just leave me out of all of it. She kept telling me to pull away from Patty because Patty seems, you know, always make me upset and I'm always crying. and just kept escalating and getting worse and worse and worse. My father-in-law started backing away from us. My mother-in-law started to as well. There wasn't anything, like, there wasn't any one argument or one thing that happened that we could look back on and say, okay, you've been funny since this happened. Like, are you still not over it?

It wasn't like that. It was just a very immediate but yet slow disconnect between my husband and I, we had met with him so many times privately to say, okay, like, let's figure this out. What is going on? And it would always be the same thing. I don't know. You know, nothing. There's nothing wrong. Everything's fine. My father-in-law not being as close with me and trying to like push me away. And then since he did that, like things got so bad that my husband finally stepped in saying, okay, dad, like, what is going on? Why are you being this way with her? And it wasn't until things got bad enough that my husband finally said to his dad, okay, like, this is it, I'm sick of it. You either

accept her and you either like start being nice to her or else like we just, you know, he's like, my wife and I come with a package deal. We just didn't understand why my father-in-law was suddenly just shutting me out. So once things got bad enough and my husband started to get on his ass about it, then he started pushing my husband away too. So it wasn't until, after that separation of my father-in-law and Brad that, I mean, my God, like, Patty would kind of counsel us with this situation. Like, I can remember so many times my husband standing on our back deck talking to her on the phone saying, like, I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's wrong. You know, and she would kind of counsel him as to like, I don't know what it is. I don't know what

is. I don't know why he's acting this way. Keep trying. Like, I'm not sure what's going on, but she would just kind of, she would just kind of hear him out. And it seemed like let him know, like, he wasn't the problem, but she didn't know what the problem was. But yet she would never, didn't seem like she would ever do anything to talk to my in-laws about it. For the longest time, I had zero suspicion about Patty. I thought that everything that came from Patty, I thought I could take her for her word. You know, at one point we still kind of sought after Patty to try to help things with my family, help things with my dad.

I mean, I went to Patty at least I know one in particular. I was on the phone with her for a good while to try to like hash things out with my dad. Like, do you know of anything? Like, what's going on? What's this, that, and the other? And she just thought CJ and I were so great and just, you know, we're just great kids. And we just, she loves us to death. And she doesn't know what's going on.

And, you know, she would try to do X, Y, and Z or try to do whatever. I'll try to talk to him, what I... You know, and it's just like, looking back, it's just like, wow, that is like, that's pretty evil. That's pretty evil. That is very manipulative and deceptive. Pretty much just going into the belly of the beast. And, you know, it was just, you know, it's pretty messed up.

But she most certainly had a way of... She could turn one side on, know who she's talking to, shut it off, turn right around, talk to someone else, turn something completely else on. You know what I mean? Like it was just a game. It was an absolute sick, manipulative game. In the line of work that I'm in, you know, in the places I've worked, I've seen some pretty heinous crimes. I've seen homicides. I've seen, you know, I've seen suicides. You know, I've seen people do horrible things to each other physically. I've seen horrible things done, you know,

things that I'll never forget. It's like, man, somebody did this to somebody else. Like, you know, this is crazy, you know. But this has to take the cake on something mental, at least for my life. at least even the things I've even heard in my lifetime, 10, 12 years of manipulating, pulling this string, seeing what happens, planting a seat over here to see what that happens, telling this person that part, she definitely had a chessboard. I mean, it was unreal. I've never, ever, ever heard anything like this, and it happened to us.

Well, finally, at one point, I met my father-in-law alone at a local bar to try to get this stuff figured out, and that meeting was initiated by my husband because he basically said, okay, like, dad, you guys need to talk and you need to figure this out because I'm not going to do this the rest of my life. And nothing, I left that meeting with him, came home, my husband said, how to go, and I said, it went fine for me, but I can tell you not a thing's going to change.

He's going to still be the same way. I could just tell. And during that meeting, I had ended up saying to him, what is it, like, what is your problem? What is it that I'm doing that's made? making you be so distant with me. And all he really said was, well, I just want to make sure, like, you do love Brad. It was the weirdest question. It was the weirdest question. It wasn't long after we were married that we had this conversation. It's not like anything had happened.

And I'm like, where is he getting this? Where's this coming from? And I'm like, well, yeah, of course. He's like, oh, I just want to make sure that he's like being taken care of and blah, blah, blah. And he was still being reserved about something. And I finally ended up saying, okay, Ted, like, what is it? Because I have a feeling that the problems here aren't me. So what's the problem? Is it because you had a health scare the other year? Is it because you moved your parents down here and your stress at that? Is it because you turned 50? Like, what is going on? And my father-in-law, a macho man who never shows any emotion, like tough through and through, look like he wanted to ball and just said, I don't know. I don't know what my problem.

is, I just don't know. I mean, he just looked like he was going to break down and cry. I had never, ever seen him like that. And I said, okay, well, then I can't help you if you don't tell me what the problem is. He started alienating my son, our son. He kept blaming it on my son, uh, trying to build a garage and didn't want his opinion. And then all of a sudden, Patty kept saying how bad of a person that CJ was. and she was awful and she was a terrible person. And she was saying all these things about us and saying these things about her family. And Ted kept flooding me with this. And he's like, what kind of son have we raised?

We didn't raise our son to be like this. And he says, that wench that is married to him, he says, I want nothing to do with her. You know, she's the root cause of all of this. And I says, this is still your son. What are you talking about? I says, go over there and talk to your son. Who cares if you don't get along with your daughter-in-law? That's still your son, and that would start a huge, huge fight between us.

We would argue and argue and argue to the point where we go days without speaking to each other. My dad, I'm talking overnight, just stopped talking to my wife, just stop talking to her. I mean, they would talk all the time. I mean, my dad and CJ were two peas in a pod. I mean, they had a bunch of stuff in common TV shows, all this stuff. And he just started doing one-word answers, just literally stop talking. She finally came to me. She's like, what's up with your dad?

He's not really talking to me. I'm like, I don't know. I have no idea. It literally wasn't a month, two months. I can't remember. Again, overnight, stopped talking to me. He stopped talking to me. I actually, I'll never forget going through my phone one year, or when it happened.

Like, man, what was the last time I said it texted? the dad or I even called him or he called me. I actually went into his office, sat down when he was on duty and he was like, hey, what's up? I'm like, I don't know, you're telling me, is your phone broke? Well, no, what do you mean? I'm like, dude, I don't even talk to you and I don't know how long. Well, I'm fine. I'm like, are you sure? I haven't really heard from you. Yeah, I'm here. I'm like, all right. Well, everything, all right? Yeah, everything's good. Didn't help. Didn't help. That was the first thing. That was the very first thing. I built something here at the house. I was doing, you know, projects and stuff like that. I didn't even bother to call him.

I mean, it was getting that bad. He just would not talk to me. So I'm like, forget it. Why would I even, like, he won't talk to me for any other thing else. Well, that kind of stuck. Well, you built the garage without me. It's like, listen, man, don't pull that card on me. You've been a ghost for a while now.

This has been going on for a while. I almost didn't talk to him for a whole single year. And the man lived a mile away from my house. We went to a restaurant together. I'm like, listen, man, I don't care. I just want things to get back to normal. I mean, he would pull frivolous arguments. out as to why or what and, you know, holidays were awry. I mean, everything was about the O'Brien's.

Everything was about the O'Brien's. And the funny thing is, is he has to pass my house to get to the O'Brien's. He has to pass my house to get to them. You know, like holidays and stuff. He just wouldn't show up. I mean, I remember him screaming to me on the phone one time, like, because we invited him for Christmas Eve, and Christmas is a big deal with our family, always has been. And he, like, berated me. You know we go to the O'Brien's every year. You know, you know, for a fact, this is what we do. It was just kind of like one of those, you know, I'm starting to lose respect for my dad, so I'm like, all right,

man, sounds good, click and hang up. Like, I don't know who this guy is anymore. My mom had her own absolute war. I mean, she would tell us, and it pains me to even say that. She never really even told us kids during it. She'd pull in from work, and she'd be like, she didn't even want to go in the house. You know, my dad was just so miserable to be around

and treating my mom like crap. Never physical, nothing like that. Just all mental. Just treating her like crap. just didn't want to be around, you know, all that stuff. And it was around 16 or 17. I met with my dad for the last time, face to face to try to hash things out. You know, the holidays were a disaster. Everything was just in shambles.

And I'm like, listen, man, I want things to go back to normal. Barry the hatchet, water under the bridge. I don't care what you call it. I want things to get back to normal. And he would just kind of like blow it off and talk about something else or whatever. And it was just kind of weird. And then that year, that Christmas, New Year's and stuff, I think we got like a text message like, hey, Merry Christmas.

It was just like, well, this didn't work. You know, that was just an absolute disaster. If I would come over to see Brad and CJ, I got to the point where I wouldn't even tell them because it would start a huge fight because I wouldn't tell them what I was doing. And so I was lying to them. I invited Brad and CJ to Thanksgiving,

and Ted exploded on me. exploded. And when I say explode, I mean he all but struck me, that how dare I make him feel so uncomfortable in his home by bringing our son and his wife for Thanksgiving that I had no right to do that in my own home. And Patty had said, well, you know, if you're making him feel that uncomfortable, maybe you should rethink it. Instead of encouraging me to bring my son and my husband together, she was siding with him. And that's why I didn't want my mother-in-law in my life for a couple years because I thought she was allowing this family's dynamic to continue the way it was. And I'm like, she's happy with it. Like she has to be, she must be okay that her son is out of the picture.

She must be okay that we're not included in things. Like she's discluding us. So she must be fine with it. And all this time, that's not how it was. And I finally got to a point where I said, you know what? We don't know what's going on behind closed doors. And sure enough, she was fighting like hell to fix things. You know, and Brad took the brunt of it. I mean, I couldn't imagine not being invited by my own parents for Christmas or Thanksgiving.

But it was like there was this problem between us all, but we had no idea what the problem was. no clue. We just knew there was a disconnect and we had no idea what started it. Next time. Something was wrong is written, recorded, edited and produced by me, Tiffany Reese. Thank you so much to the Bishop family for participating in this series. To reference sources, resources, and links that are mentioned on the podcast, check out the show and episode notes. Music on this series by Gladrags.

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