My husband, Gwith, and I got married when I was 20 years old. Shortly after he moved to Colorado from New Zealand, my parents invested in a start-up entertainment website company in Los Angeles. They thought they were helping me, an aspiring editor, with an opportunity to break into the business. Little did they know, the emotional manipulation that would transpire.
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Shortly after we got married, I began working for the company. While Gwith waited for his permanent residency to go back to working as a chef, he volunteered his time at the company and ended up managing the soundstage. When it began, it was wonderful. I was eager and excited to begin my new career. Not to mention, my boss and his wife, an actress, treated us like we were not just an integral part of the team, but like family.
When the business first began, we would all sit around in the office together, eating Chinese food, and brainstorming ideas as a creative team. My input was valued and I felt like an integral member of the team. Together with our boss, we drove around looking at potential sound stages for the company. Afterwards, we would all go back to his house, play with their kids, drink wine, and eat together.
Being away from our families and newly married, my husband and I really clung to having my boss and his wife take us in. My boss would tell my husband he was like a brother and his wife would tell me I was like a sister to her. The more they asked for our opinions over huge decisions, the more validated I felt. Which was a feeling I was desperately chasing. I dropped out of high school at 16 and felt a strong need to prove my potential.
My boss thrived on mine and Gwith’s wavering confidence. He could smell that we spent years being told we weren’t good enough from authority figures in our lives. At some point, dinner at their house turned into ranting sessions about my family. Almost every moment he complimented us, it would be intertwined with a dig at other members of my family. He made it feel like I was the special one.
We swam with pirates
“The Family Archive” by Justine Thomas
Spreading their virus
We hung with manipulators
Parading as fucking savors
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However, as the months progressed, my boss began treating me differently. His compliments towards me quickly turned into random jabs. My head would spin from the emotional manipulation and I began to feel like I was walking on eggshells and any wrong move would make me a disappointment to him, or worse, get me into trouble.
Around the same time, he began sending my husband out for various tasks. A tactic to keep us separated as much as possible. He would slide in comments about how important it was for us to be independent for each other. He’d tell me that to be a “strong, confident, independent woman”, I shouldn’t have such a strong connection with my husband.
The moment I began to question his actions, he would flip a switch. Invite us for another “family” dinner or a casual “fun” lunch out during the day.
At the office, I continued to try and prove my worth over and over. I’d work sixteen hour days, seven days a week. Originally, Gwith and I would go out for our one hour lunch break together. Over time though, our boss started making snide remarks about us taking lunch breaks and we eventually stopped.
When I began eating lunch at the office, I’d wait until my boss was out so I could sneak downstairs to the mini fridge and gobble down my lunch before my boss had the chance to see me and lecture me about being away from my desk. Sometimes I didn’t think there was time to heat up my food in the microwave so I’d skip lunch all together. The few times I got up from my desk just to use the bathroom while my boss was at the office, he’d yell at me. I was in constant fear of him “catching” me.
Once the soundstage was built and my husband was managing it, our boss would make sure I was working from our separate office space. More often than not, it would just be me there, with him randomly popping in to make sure I was working. I’d beg to work from the soundstage or from home but every time I asked, he berated me for lacking a work ethic.
And I got in my head
“Cellophane” by Justine Thomas
With the words that they said
And I began to perceive
I’m not enough to achieve
On a public holiday, I came into the office without realizing and worked half the day before realizing nobody else was coming in. As a 20-year old woman, alone in an office in a very dodgy part of Van Nuys, I called him to ask why nobody was there. He laughed and told me it was a holiday so nobody was working. When I responded, “Oh! I didn’t realize. I guess I’ll go home,” he yelled at me and told me I was immature and irresponsible for assuming I could just go home. I was already at work and he expected me to stay there until the end of the day.
The Consequences I Didn’t See Coming from Emotional Manipulation
Over time, I began to suffer from severe wrist pain due to the endless hours working on my laptop. I asked repeatedly for a better work set up, or to work off of my very powerful Mac Studio at home, but he denied me every time. When he finally did get a full computer set up at the soundstage, he gave it to his newest hire, a male editor, instead of me.
It reached the point where I developed a ganglion cyst on my wrist. One I still have till this day, 15 years later. As the pain worsened and I had trouble working, my boss would tell me I was lazy and unmotivated. Then, when I was just about ready to quit, he’d send his wife in as a new tactic of emotional manipulation to cry and tell me how important I was for the company.
The Attempts at Dismantling My Support System Through Emotional Manipulation
At home, I would confide in Gwith about how I was being treated. But when my boss started to sense Gwith’s fury over the situation, he’d build him up, remind him he was like a brother, and tell him not to listen to me. He’d tell him I was trying to turn him against his in-laws company and how either of us leaving would ruin the business. He’d then insist that we stop talking to each other because we were affecting each other’s attitude at work. He’d tell us both that it wasn’t normal for a couple to lean on each other so much.
It was our first year of marriage and we were constantly being manipulated and told how our marriage should be. I’m not going to lie. There were times it really tested us. There were times we were both being treated horribly but convincing the other to stay because we had my boss and his wife whispering in our ears. There were times we questioned if it was wrong to confide in each other.
Thankfully, we came out the other side. Because our relationship was long distance for nearly two years, talking was one of our strongest skills. We never stopped confiding in each other and eventually we both quit. In the end, our love was stronger than their emotional manipulation.
Unfortunately, I still live with the pain in my wrists. For years, I couldn’t sit at a computer without immense pain. I still can’t use a laptop till this day for more than 10 minutes. While the pain isn’t as bad as it once was and I’m able to use the computer again, I still have flair ups a couple times a year. These flair ups are so bad that for a few weeks, I have a brace on my wrist and I can’t even drive to pick up my kids from school. I’ll never be able to work as an editor again. Or any job that requires a computer for that matter because my wrists are too unreliable.
The Lasting Lessons After Suffering Emotional Manipulation
Looking back, I wish I had the confidence to stand up for myself sooner. I wish I saw the signs. But the fact is, life is an endless series of lessons and I choose to believe everything happens for a reason.
My career as an editor wasn’t meant to be. Clearly, I was meant to go on and experience other adventures. In the years after, my husband and I opened a restaurant. We had two kids. We moved across the world. Now, we’re here in New Zealand where I’m finally recording my album and following a dream that long predated my dreams as an editor.
Sometimes I wonder why this happened though. As I sit here, trying to think of some profound life lesson to wrap this up with, all I’m left with is this.
My lack of confidence has always been my biggest hurdle. I fear never being “good enough”. But good enough for who? I wrecked my body to make sure I was “good enough” for this boss. This horrible, abusive, manipulative boss. Maybe the lesson is just this:
Recognize your worth and be proud of who you are. If you have to constantly prove yourself to someone, ask yourself this: what have they done to prove themselves to you?
So here’s my reminder to myself and to anyone struggling with the same feeling: don’t let someone else define who you are and what you can achieve. Believe in yourself and follow your gut.
I hope my story can serve as a cautionary tale for how to spot abuse. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize until it was too late and I had to give up on certain dreams. Don’t let that happen to you. If my story helps even one person recognize this and get out of the situation they’re in, then it was worth it. I’ll continue to share my story, hoping that it helps somebody else because too many people sit in silence experiencing abuse, and it can be so hard to recognize the signs.
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