Truth Bomb #2: You've Been Bamboozled

Bamboozled. Hm...it's not a word I would commonly use. Let's use it in a sentence. I've learned that I've been bamboozled by my manipulative and narcissistic ex-husband over and over again. In short, bamboozled means tricked. I was a player in a game I didn't know I wanted to play.

News flash...I lost for a minute, but the game isn't over yet. 😞

I must admit, the word bamboozled haunts me just a bit. It harkens me back to October 2010. It was hotter than Haiti outside and I was massively pregnant. I was sweaty, my feet looked like two sausages and I was carrying my little guy so low that my friends and family thought he might actually land in the toilet. It was not the prettiest time in my life. My sweet Elizabeth was four years old and we were joined by her dad at our dear friend's son's four-year-old birthday party.

Let's set the scene. A four year old's birthday party, outside in the hot sun, with only 20 of their closest friends and family. For months, I had known that my then husband had been having a full-blown affair with a client of his, we will call her Allison. She was tall, thin, blonde, single and successful. I was a short, largely pregnant suburban mom with a four-year-old on my hip. He was renovating her house, and apparently her private parts, too! I had known about the affair for months, but didn't tell anyone because I was carrying his son at the time, and I wanted so badly to sustain the "faux family" I was working hard to portray.

During the party, he indulged in lots of hard liquor, because of course that's appropriate at a toddler's birthday party. The next thing I know, he walks straight up to my face in front of the entire group and yells "I never wanted this baby you bitch! You bamboozled me and I want nothing to do with it, I'm buying a motorcycle and you can't stop me!"

Um. Mic drop.

I scooped up Elizabeth, feverishly speeding back to our house in Madeira while he screamed the word bamboozled over and over again all the way home. The rest of the night is a blur, but somehow the stress of the moment didn't end with Andrew falling out into the toilet. 🚽

When you think about that moment, and the word bamboozled, it's ironic now. He said he didn't even want Andrew. Now he is asking for full custody of my children. Andrew is 11 and Elizabeth is almost 16,. He bamboozled me into a collaborative divorce in 2013, making false promises of co-parenting and support only to rush the process to reach his second mistress (more on that another day!). He bamboozled two parenting coordinators who were assigned by the court to help us "co-parent.:" And he even bamboozled the assigned guardian ad lidem into thinking he was the "safe" and "stable" parent who promised to go to "co-parenting therapy" only to switch gears six months later and try to take away my rights. Whew. He's pretty great at the bamboozling game.

One thing I've learned about bamboozlement...it's a manipulative, gaslighting tactic designed to help the person get what they ultimately want and then pull the rug out from underneath you later. I've been bamboozled, sure. But I haven't lost yet. And I won't be bamboozled anymore.

Have you ever been bamboozled? If it feels like you have, you are probably also a victim. I know the feeling.