Pathetic!!

(Warning... I might use the C-word. I almost never use the C-word. It is reserved for very special people).

I have been flying under the idiot step-mother's radar for a while now. Long enough to get comfortable and stop looking for the minefields of manipulation. Or maybe I just got used to her pathetic attempts to make me think I don't know my own child. That I am an oblivious fool. Or maybe she was just bored and I was an available target. Maybe she was looking for information... or all of the above. Whatever.

I talked to her for about ten minutes last night and in that ten minutes she made four direct hits - 2 about my parenting and 2 about That Bad Bad Man. Here's how she works - she lulls you into thinking it's just another normal conversation and then she makes her first strike. This one is just a warning shot; she's testing the waters. The first one takes you a second to process, because whatever she said was delivered with a smile. And she's so good at it that I didn't see the first hit coming. We're just chatting along and I'm not even really listening to her and then BOOM! The second was a few seconds later, as I was thinking, "wow, that was out of line." Then suddenly she has shifted topics and I remembered something important: if you stop moving, the T-Rex can't see you.

I stopped moving.
I put on my bored face.
I made non-committal noises and said, "I don't know" a lot.

Here's the thing that pisses me off: she got to me. She fucking got to me. She knows where my insecurities lie - either from memory or instinct - and she made it in. I don't think she knows she got me, and I take some small measure of comfort from that.

And I don't know what is more pathetic... the fact that she still needs to hurt me and manipulate me or the fact that she still can. I know her to be a lying, manipulative cunt and somehow the things she says (oh so sweetly) get through anyway.

This behavior is one of the biggest reasons I worked so hard to get her out of my life. (That and the fucking my husband thing). I don't need the drama, and I undermine my own self-confidence very well all by myself, thank you very much.

I talked to the ex-husband today (about something else entirely) and he mentioned that her doctor is changing her meds around. I told him to count her pills... I've been through this downward spiral with her more than once. It's not fun and she does not make it easy. He said, "I knew what I was getting into when I married her."
Oh really? Think so, huh? Aren't you cute.
I almost feel bad for him.
Almost.