When the manipulator becomes the manipulated

I have never spent a particularly large amount of time not in a relationship. If I were to go back and scan my entire adult history, from ages 18 to 40, I think it is possible that I have spent less than one year, total, in a state that could be described as "completely single". There were stretches where things were messy, but there was always someone, or more than one someone, in the picture. So it should not be surprising that, a few short months after things disintegrated between MR and myself, I started seeing someone new - another LC, so this time we'll call her LC2. MR apparently had cheated on me prior to our breakup, though we were in such a state of apathy that it hardly affected me - she then went on to marry the guy with whom she cheated, so at least I can feel some satisfaction to know that it was worth her effort.

LC2 is one where I am going to leave out a lot of unnecessary details. It was an extremely tumultuous 2 year relationship. There was a lot of intensity, with some good things, but also a lot of very bad things. We both engaged in emotional interactions that were damaging. The reason why I cannot omit her entirely is because she represented the first relationship where the fetish became an open and integral component, in a not-particularly-healthy fashion.

Shortly after we'd met, I believe that I told her that I had a smoking fetish. I am not sure why I told her, but I did. It is interesting to me, thinking back, to try to remember what my thought process was regarding the decisions of how to broach the subject with various people. I think it was probably related to my perception of how well they would accept the topic.

She was not a smoker, but she had done it in the past socially, and was from a culture that was not averse to smoking (Latin American). When I brought it up, she said that she would absolutely be happy to do it "for me". And in this situation, compared to the one with MR, the realization of the fantasy was more successful. It was something that became an occasional part of the relationship. Sometimes it was private. Sometimes it happened in the presence of friends, in either public or private. It remained under control, though, and was not something that was escalating into a more frequent event. And it also did not consume our relationship. So this was something different and new. It felt less bad and less shameful, because it was not a secret, and because it was not being manifested through covert manipulations on my part. I am not sure if that means I was coming to accept it.

So. It sounds like paradise, right?

Well, I am leaving out the fact that we had a lot of pressures in the relationship, and there came to be a progressive increase in frequency of fighting over big issues that could not be resolved. Commitment issues. I cannot say that I was in the right, either. But the relationship was headed in a direction that would undoubtedly bring about its dissolution. And as things went downhill, the fetish began to take on a different role. LC2 began to use the fetish to change the course of arguments. She knew the power of the fetish, and that despite any level of stress or anger, I could effectively be "hypnotized" by its use. So, when we were entrenched in a major battle, or had descended into the depths of stony silence, she would "use" smoking as a means to change the subject. And it was effective. No matter how angry I was, or how checked out I was, it was never so much that I would turn my back on it. I couldn't. I liken it to the chemical communication that ants use. When one ant produces a certain chemical transmission, it is like a command that must be obeyed. And that was the effect the smoking had on me. And to some extent it made me feel powerless. But it was a willing powerlessness. And that felt even more powerless.

Things deteriorated even further from there. There were a series of breakups, including my moving out. And the manipulation via the fetish grew ever increasingly. She would call up with some random question or point to make, and then the subject of her smoking would be brought up, by one of us, and suddenly we were back to "needing to break up all over again." You get the picture. Whenever I went over there to address some issue, or to try to have some type of "break-up discussion" (which, one could argue, was just asking for trouble), she would always do whatever she could to bring about a result that she wanted, which was for us to stay together.

After we finally broke up "cold turkey", which is really a misnomer, since it would more aptly be described as repeatedly dining on "old turkey" until it finally became rotten and inedible, there were still repercussions, fetish-related, down the road. We needed to have some discussion about either finances, or logistics, or something, months later, and she indicated that she had started smoking heavily. This may have been a lie. It seemed implausible because she had never done it more than a couple or few times a week, and she did not, by any means, have an addictive personality. But whether she said it in truth, or as a manipulation, the effect was the same. It made me feel both extreme guilt, and a non-negligible amount of interest, which were both bad things. Eventually, the connection was severed completely. About 5 years later, we spoke for the first time. All seemed to have been forgiven, and she'd moved on with her life, having married, and had a couple of children. I suspect that she was a non-smoker, and would feel comfort knowing that to be true. I did not, and do not, really want to have on my conscience the guilt of having participated in someone's addiction, as a result of my fetish.

So, in the span of 5 years, I had gone from being the manipulator (with LC1) to the manipulated (with LC2). Neither one of those positions, I think, was good for my self-esteem. Manipulation is never a good thing in a relationship. I guess, if I had to choose, then being manipulated was better. Less guilt. But I am not sure it was any less damaging to me. When you are manipulating, you have the power to recognize your actions and cease. When you are manipulated, it's a little trickier, because then you need to have a lot of willpower to not surrender to the manipulation. I am certain that between those ages of 18 and 23, I did not have much capacity for properly managing either side of that coin.