26. From Love Bombs and Hoovering to Ghosting and Flying Monkeys; Decoding Divorce and Relationship Jargon

Have you ever found yourself grappling with terms like "gaslighting," "ghosting," or "trauma bonds," unsure of their meanings or implications? 

If so, you're not alone.

In this episode, we delve into the complex world of divorce and relationship terminology and lingo…. A bit like an alternative dictionary.

There is so much of this language that has seeped into everyday conversations but often it leaves us feeling confused as to what the hell it all means. From "breadcrumbing" to "gaslighting," this episode is a bit like having your own translator. 

TW: Some of the words and terms are complex and can be re-traumatising. If you are experiencing any of the abuse we talked about in today’s episode, please please please seek support.

These are some UK services for supporting domestic abuse:

https://www.womensaid.org.uk/

https://refuge.org.uk/

Remember, you deserve to live a fulfilling and healthy life, free from toxic relationships and abuse.

Sending you SO much love

Sarah 🌸

Chapters

• 0:00 A whole new language needing an interpreter
• 4:09 Closure to Co-dependency to Limerence
• 7:34 Red flags, Pink flags....it's like a poxy circus
• 10:42 Ghosting, Haunting and being on the bench
• 11:56 Gaslighting and toxic relationships
• 14:16 Pain Shopping.... no Gucci in sight
• 16:33 Blame Shifting into Acronyms
• 18:22 No Contact (and grey or yellow rock if you must)
• 19:44 Love-Bombing to Hoovering
• 22:23 Narcissists and The Cycle of Abuse
• 27:23 Trauma Bonds
• 30:06 Word Salad, Flying Monkeys and Triangulation
• 32:12 Breadcrumbing and never getting the whole loaf.... onto baiting as reactive abuse
• 33:39 Coercive Control
• 36:00 Support from each other and from services
• 37:57 New level, new Devil

Transcript

00:00

Have you been hoovered up after being breadcrumbed? Or have the flying monkeys been given you word salad? Maybe you've been ghosted or haunted, and in going pain shopping, you don't seem to see the pink flags, let alone the red ones. Still with me? I wouldn't frigging blame you if you weren't. And that's not blame shifting, by the way. There are so many words and phrases that have filtered into our everyday communications, like this whole new language. Except we don't understand it, which can make us feel bloody confused, right? So think of this episode as your own personal Duolingo, which is a site to learn foreign languages, by the way, like a divorce dictionary, if you like. Now with the legal jargon through the actual divorce process, there's all sorts of fancy glossy leaflets to explain, you know, things like no fault, or petition or order and the like. But outside court, there's all this terminology and lingo floating around, particularly on social media. Now, a bit of a disclaimer at the start, because many of these words and terms have their origins in psychology and therapeutic work. So there's a fair bit of criticism in the psychologist world, that a lot of these terms have been misunderstood, and or exaggerated, as they've crept into everyday use. And that consequently, they are overused, inappropriately, and out of context. Like everyone's ex seems to be a narcissist, for example. And that's not minimising it, by the way as I also genuinely believe my last ex has a very high number of narcissistic traits. But I think generally, some of these words, potentially are a tad misunderstood at times. And I'm also conscious that I can use some of these terms myself, and I know when I talked about gaslighting in the lying episode, for example, people hadn't understood the origin. Now, I'm not claiming to have invented these words or any such shit. And, you know, give your gal  break in trying to explain them as best I can 'ere, no coming at me, but we need a bit of interpreter. Okay. So regardless of rights and wrongs, they have crept into more everyday use, particularly in relation to abusive relationships, and, or divorces. And I think that's the thing, right, the words get bandied around in everyday use, and we just haven't got a fucking clue what they mean, let alone the possible context to use them in. So that's why I thought it would be helpful. If I went through a few today to help if these are thrown at you, at any point in your divorce journey. Though be warned, I started with a list of about 10 in my head, and it sort of grew as I was making some notes to plan out this week's episode. So bear with, I'll try and whizz through, as quick as I can, but you know, get yourself a brew and hunker down just in case. And also a bit of a trigger warning that we'll be covering abuse and narcissism. So just a heads up, although actually trigger warning in itself might need a bloody explanation. It basically means what's coming may contain something that might upset or re traumatise some people who've experienced what's been discussed. So, a trigger warning for narcissism, for example, could be traumatic for a victim of one. Okay, so, with that covered, let's go on to the lingo. 

04:10

So number one, I thought I'd start with a, perhaps a more simple one, closure. Closure is about the emotional ending of a relationship. So when people might say something like, You need to get some closure. What it means is that whilst physically, practically, the relationship has ended, in our heads and our hearts it hasn't. So it's coming to that point of acceptance. I guess, though, that can be really fucking hard when they are still unanswered questions I hear ya. But that's the essential gist of what's meant by closure. Next up codependency. Now this is common in relationships where one of them has an addiction or a dependency on something like a substance, for example, and the other person believes it's their job to save that person, and they become co dependent. And everything they do is for the other person and their dependency, even when that means they get hurt themselves. So the codependent is dependent on someone else's dependency, if that makes sense. It's basically an addiction in itself a bit like a relationship addiction, I suppose. Which also kind of brings me on to the next term limerence. Now limerence, or to be limerent is to be infatuated, or obsessed with another person who becomes the limerent object. It's a pretty complex state of mind and goes way, way beyond the usual falling in love stage. Because its focus is an obsession to getting the feelings reciprocated, which often can then mean that this might be a one sided infatuation. And that can be a hugely damaging experience in itself if the infatuation is reciprocated, because of course, that level of intensity is neither sustainable or indeed healthy, right? And ironically, many married people can become limerent of others while still married, which for those of us who've experienced infidelity is a bit of a fucked up mindfuck in itself that our exes may have had other limerent objects before or as well as the affairs it just wasn't always reciprocated, which feels a bit like opening a Pandora's box about that one I think. But anyway, the term itself was coined by a psychologist called Dorothy Tennov and there's a couple of books on the subject, but because it's a pretty complex one, I won't go into too much more detail here. Save to say, I thought it was worth the lingo explanation as when I first heard this word a few years back, I didn't have a clue what it meant. So I'm may well do a whole episode on limerence if that's something you'd like to understand about more, so let me know let me know. 

07:34

So back to a less complex one now. Red flags and pink flags. Well, I say less complex, but fuck me. As it turns out, there's actually similar things about yellow flags, grey flags, blue flags, purple flags, the entire fucking rainbow's got a flag, it seems; each having a slightly different meaning just to confuse us. So for the purposes of this episode, I'll keep it to the most commonly used as in red and pink flags. Now red flags are essentially like the red flags you get at the beach when it's warning of danger, danger, danger. These are behaviours in someone which should, in theory, alert us to seriously not okay, behaviours, you know, like a shark, especially in air quotes, toxic relationships. I'll come on to that one a bit later on my list. But a red flag is a behaviour which either is or could escalate into abuse, like extreme jealousy, controlling behaviour, name calling, or gaslighting, which I'll also come on to if you did miss that episode. emotional manipulation criticising you putting you down. Those types of behaviours indicate a red flag. A pink flag, though, is something that potentially could be a red flag. But maybe when you realise the context, behind the behaviours, it might be something that could be addressed. The issue being is of course, that often we're too far in by the time it gets to a red flag, and we missed the bloody warning signs. But things like being secretive or they might be inconsistent, or you're never quite sure where they are or where you are. They might be frequently on social media and ignore you. But they also might be just things that nag at you a bit and every time it happens, it could become increasingly a deal breaker. Like for example, I hate rudeness, I hate it. And I went on a date once a few years back and the guy was really rude to the waitress and then demanded to be re-seated and To me, there's just no need for that. There's just no need for that shit. And that and he then told me that maybe because I was pretty independent in my marriage. That's why I'm divorced. He was a dick. But generally he was showing all these kinds of maybe perhaps lower level nagging things that were maybe not red flags per se, but too much for me and quite honestly, I could see him becoming controlling. They were sort of pink bordering red flags, but like I said, there's a whole friggin rainbow of flags. It's like a bloody circus if you want to look them up. 

10:41

Okay, next up, ghosting, which can lead to haunting. Yeah, I know, right. Let's start with ghosting. So, this is when someone is all in one minute and completely disappears the next moving swiftly and unseen like a ghost. Bit like we talked about in the runaway husbands episodes, just disappear without trace, and any attempt to contact them just is ignored. The problem then comes even more when they decide to haunt you so haunting is when they've completely ghosted you. But yet, they'll still like watch your Instagram stories and like your posts and shit. It's like, they're not there, but they're there haunting you. And then there's benching too, which is when they're clearly interested in someone else, but they're keeping you warm as a backup with very little likelihood you're ever going to get on the bloody pitch, a bit like my ex husband was doing when he was trying to get me back whilst with a new girlfriend. Though actually, I was never quite sure whether it was me or her on the bench at the time. And in any event, we both got substituted but hey, ho. 

11:57

So on to a gaslighting then, now we touched on this in the red flag section, and obviously in a previous episode too, but to recap for the purposes of this episode on the lingo. gaslighting emerged as a term from a film in the 1940s called gaslighting where a husband made his wife think she was going absolutely nuts. By him pissing about with gas lights in the house when she thought he wasn't home, it was making her think she was mad. This was all in an attempt to basically get her committed, as was in those days, so that he could nick all her money. And I guess this is the criticism of the overuse of gaslighting nowadays in that it seems to have become a bit of a colloquial term for lying, which isn't really what it is like at its core. It's the deliberate manipulation of someone's mind with the intent of controlling their reality, which goes way beyond lying in itself. It's really fucking cruel. And it's psychological abuse. So I won't go too much more into it here. But do go back and check out the previous episode on this. And onto toxic relationships too, now I also touched on this in the red flag one and this is where the relationship is characterised by behaviours that make you feel really goddamn shit. Red flag behaviours like controlling disrespect dishonesty, which is all absolutely valid as toxic. But the criticism of this is that by overusing it for behaviours that maybe aren't abusive. This can then minimise the impact for those who are in a truly toxic relationship. I guess it comes back to the word toxic coming from poison as in continued sustained use will destroy that recipient, I suppose. So it's probably just one to watch the appropriateness of the context when using it. 

14:16

And next up pain shopping. I did a social media post an email on this a few weeks back I was basically saying that pre divorce shopping was all about you know, new look Gucci ASOS, Armani, it was pleasure shopping. Whereas post divorce shopping replaces this with what is known as pain shopping. So what is pain shopping? Basically, instead of trawling the malls for the goodies, you're hunting down information that you know, will hurt you all over again. But you just can't stop. So it's things like examining your ex's Facebook page like you're the FBI or re-reading old texts and emails over and over and over again as though the words might have somehow changed, or going on the Doom scroll for anything to do with his new partner and hunting for possible answers down all sorts of rabbit holes. It can be that you know, it has no use, but it helps you process some of the lies and the bullshit. Or it could be to find evidence to confirm what he's completely fogged you over on the legal side. But it's about when you keep going back to the same shit over and over and over again, it can start to feel like it's a form of self harm rather than healing. And that's when it turns into a pain shopping problem. And part of the issue with this term is in itself that some blokes who've cheated and then their wives have given them another chance these lovely characters NOT then accuse their wives of pain shopping, when they're asking questions about the affair, like the poor cow is trying to make sense of it and understanding it and he then totally turns it around - it's totally their crap. And trying to shift the blame onto the wife. Like, if the relationship then fails, it's because the wife was pain shopping and not because he's a cheating, lying wanker. 

16:32

Which does lead me on quite nicely to the next term on the list, blame shifting. Now, this is when someone literally attempts to shift the blame onto someone else in a deliberate effort to conceal their shitty behaviour. But in doing so, it's intended to make the target of this I suppose, feel shame and guilt and so almost like shifting the spotlight of blame and fault on to the victim rather than the perpetrator. It's so manipulative, like so when they blame you for them cheating it's a deliberate measure for you to end up feeling in the wrong and end up feeling fucking sorry for them, making excuses for them. It's another form of abuse and manipulation when it's done in this intentional way. Okay, a couple of quick infidelity acronyms now just before going back to the lingo because you kinda see these around and about; you see them anywhere actually. So AP for example, AP stands for affair partner. BS means betrayed spouse or can also mean bullshit obviously. And FW is for fuckwit also known as cheating bastard. You can use WS for wayward spouse though I prefer fuckwit. D-Day is discovery day, the day you found out what the fuckwit was up to. And another one is STBX, which stands for soon to be ex and is used often by those in divorce proceedings. 

18:19

So back to the lingo now. Okay, no contact means exactly what it says on the tin and cutting all contact with the ex and I mean, all zero contact, no contact. So blocking phone numbers, emails, social media, the lot, you block the lot and give him absolutely no way of getting to you. Obviously, it's very difficult to go no contact if you've got younger kids, though, there are some really good apps for this nowadays that can at least minimise and manage the contact. And if you do have to have contact with your ex, you need to learn to grey rock them. Grey Rock. This is about being unresponsive and completely indifferent. as though you were just a lump of cold grey rock. Although just like with the flags, it seems like we've got other bloody colours jumping in on this now and all, so yellow rocking yellow rock is being apparently ever so slightly warmer than a grey rock. I don't I don't know if rocks feel warmer but anyway, you now, know at least what it means apparently. So from grey rock and yellow rock to the other extreme... 

19:45

love bombing. So love bombing is when someone literally bombs you with extreme affection, attention, maybe gifts, and the key word being extreme. And whilst it may sound all lovely, just a bit of a warning, this is a tactic often used by really manipulative individuals in an attempt to gain your trust so that they can control you. It's a term that originated in psychology in about the 70s, I think and describe the types of behaviours used by cults, to draw people in. So in relationships, it can be things like intense declarations of love telling you that they're your soulmate within three minutes of knowing you, you know, pressuring you to commit to them. It can also lead to extreme jealousy with them wanting to know your every move, and it's really fucking hard to tell the difference between love bombing and falling in love, especially when we're feeling rejected and unloved because we want to feel wanted, right. But this is next level shit. It's intense. It's overwhelming. And it's with the intention of hooking you in.... and talking about being sucked in; hoovering. You know, like a Dyson or maybe more apt a Shark, hoovering is a manipulation tactic used to suck victims into toxic and abusive relationship cycles. So you might have finally broken free and escaped a really toxic partner and they hate it. They hate losing control, and they will not have you getting away from them. So they might try love bombing you or they might suddenly have some crisis that only you can help them with. Or worse, they'll stalk you, which is a crime by the way. And it's all designed as an attempt to suck you back in into the shitty dusty dirty hoover bag. Hoovering's often considered part of a narcissist cycle of abuse. 

22:24

So we should probably talk about the narcissist. What is one and why do we hear so much about them? So in its truest form, the word narcissist evolved from someone diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder or NPD. It's a mental health disorder that along with other types of personality disorders, is diagnosed by a psychiatrist. And the criticism of this term narcissist, being air quotes overused, is that only a very, very, very minor number of people are actually diagnosed with NPD. That's the criticism. But when you can understand the narcissist, it makes sense as to why so few people are diagnosed because these individuals are seriously seriously manipulative, and very often charming. Which means that even if, even if you were able to get a narcissist in front of a psychiatrist, they just manipulate the whole fucking thing. But you know, even if the psych world doesn't want us using the word Narcissist, it cannot be disputed that there are an awful lot of people out there who have the personality of a narcissist with significant narcissistic traits. So what are some of those? They've got an unreasonably high sense of self importance, they require constant and excessive admiration. They feel like they deserve privilege and special treatment and they expect to be recognised as superior because they genuinely believe they are better than everyone else. They like to fantasise about how successful and powerful and brilliant they are. And then, consequently, they look down on anyone they feel is less than them, which is pretty much everyone. And so they take advantage of others to get what they want, and have a real inability to understand the needs and feelings of others. There's zero empathy whatsoever. And it's more complicated in that you can get a covert narcissist, and an overt narcissist. Now an overt narcissist is clearly and explicitly openly all of what I've just said, and everyone can see their arrogance and how superior they think they are. But covert narcissists, they're much harder to spot as they can hide the more obvious narcissistic traits, which makes it then easier for them to Hoover you and love bomb you into their cycle of abuse. So this cycle of abuse with narcissist, it starts with love bombing, as I previously described, where they intensely come at you with all the affection all the attention, and then once they've got you in, you go to the next stage which is known as the devaluation phase. And that means that their idealisation bullshit is starting to fall away, it's like the mask comes off. And this is where the gaslighting types of behaviour starts, the cruel comments, the belittling you, criticising you, basically doing all they can to destroy your self esteem. And this is when they'll be hot and cold with you, you know that horrible bit when they've just you never quite know where you are with them. And this is also where trauma bonds are formed, which I'll come on to as well. But after this devaluation phase comes the discard stage, and they just discard you dump you like you're nothing. The narcissist views the victims as a devalued negative objects that must be ejected from their grandiose presence, it's likely to be dramatic and really fucking nasty. And they will often sadly, try and destroy you with smear campaigns and such bullshit at that stage. Because then when you can't take any more, they then see themselves as the one in control of this because of how important they think they fucking are. Which takes you back into the reengagement phase where they'll try and Hoover you back up again, and suck you back in, and go back to the start and then love bombing and back around again. And so the cycle continues. And it's really fucking hard because of the trauma bonds that are formed as a consequence of this cycle of abuse. 

27:23

So let's move on to trauma bonds. This is where an attachment, a bond is formed with someone who then goes on to abuse you. And as I said, it comes from that cycle of abuse that I just talked about. They've shown you intense love by way of love bombing, and you've been taken in by their affection and fallen for them. But then just as I talked about in the devaluing phase, they'll then belittle you and criticise you and basically make you feel utter shit. This is like them blowing hot and cold, right? So they'll put you down because you now trust them and love them. And then they'll do something, air quotes nice, which to you feels like a reward, right? So you crave more of that reward, and then they'll go cold again, and you'll do anything to get that reward back again. And there's just, there's a whole lot of sciency stuff here about hormones and shit like oxytocin being released in the love bombing stage, which is a love hormone. So you're craving that, again, like it's a drug. And so it continues until they discard you. But because your bond to them, your attachment to them, is now reinforced over and over by the odd reward that they've thrown you. You can't let go. So when they get past discarding you and need to Hoover you back up again, you're open to it because now you're basically like seeking safety in the person that you have the bond with, even though they are the one hurting you. It's another really complex psychological phenomenon. And it's characterised by these feelings of loyalty and dependency towards the abuser despite the harm and suffering that they've inflicted on you. So I've gone a bit more in depth on narcissism and trauma bonds there because I realised from bitter experience the impact of this and I don't believe my ex husband was a narcissist. He was just a cheating lying wanker. But my most recent relationship was unfortunately with someone who is a narcissist, and I just didn't see it. There was actually I think the trauma of him on top of the unhealed trauma for my ex husband on top of then a commitment phobe avoidant and then the narcissist that all ultimately led to my my breaking point I guess and what led to me then training as a coach to the healing that I had to go through from all fucking three of 'em, so I'm not minimising narcissism at all. And whilst the psych world may well be critical. I don't give a shit. Because for those of us who are victims of this bollocks, we know right? 

30:06

So let's move on to a few more. We've got word salad. And that's when when they're feeling threatened or bored, a narcissist will often use what's called word salad in an attempt to keep your mind occupied. Basically, it's a conversation from hell, they actually aren't saying anything at all, they're just talking at you imagine like a tossed salad, you're just throwing everything in there before you can even like respond to one outrageous statement, and they're already on to the next, like, you're just focusing on the cucumber and they're just going back to the tomato, you know, it's fucked up. And it's typically just one of the many tools in the narcissistic box. Or flying monkeys. That's another term that crops up again, particularly when we're talking about narcissists. And flying monkeys refer to people who carry out the work of a narcissist or an abusive person on their behalf. And it comes from the Wizard of Oz, in which the Wicked Witch puts Flying Monkeys under her spell, right? Remember the witch? She got all the monkeys doing her wickedness for her. So a narcissist might use their friends or family or even yours as sort of spies or to spread rumours, essentially making them fucking puppets of theirs. They'll always side with the narcissist against you. And it's really fucking hard, because often they too will have been groomed and manipulated by the narcissist they're charmers remember. And another way in which narcissists might use flying monkeys, or as well as is something called triangulation. And that's where an abusive person will bring in a third person, hence the name triangle. And it's essentially a tactic to divide and rule, make them right, because they've got someone backing them, they've got evidence here, right that this other person can say that you're wrong as well. So you are the one that's wrong, they have to be superior. And what better way to get someone else supporting them against you. 

32:12

Bread crumbing. That's another word that often comes out in the narcissistic toolbox. This is where they basically drop you just enough crumbs of attention to keep you interested. They'll often use this in the devaluation phase where they're blowing hot and cold. So imagine a loaf of bread, you aren't getting the whole damn loaf, they'll just give you a crumb here and there, just keep you hungry for more. So a couple more then on the list, reactive abuse and baiting. Now, this is when the person being abused reacts to the abuse they're suffering, perhaps by choosing to argue back or by actually having to physically defend themselves from the person abusing them. And once they've done that, the abuser uses it as an example or proof, evidence that they are the ones being actually abused. And the person being abused is the one to blame. Reactive abuse can sometimes be used to bait others into acting out against them so that they can get this evidence as proof to hang over their head and further manipulate them into doing what they want, even so far as going to the police about them. And that's what's known as baiting. It's it's making the victim appear as though they are the perpetrator. 

33:39

And another very serious one that is used in abuse, coercive control. I've taken the women's aid definition for this one, as I think it's hugely important that this is very clearly and very properly understood. So women's aid define this as coercive control is an act of a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish or frighten the victim. This controlling behaviour is designed to make a person dependent by isolating them from support, exploiting them, depriving them of independence, and regulating their everyday behaviour. So some examples of this, isolating you from friends and family, depriving you of basic needs like food, monitoring your time, monitoring you via online communication tools or spyware. Taking control over aspects of your everyday life like who you can see, what you can wear, when you can sleep, depriving you access to support services like medical services. And repeatedly putting you down and saying you're worthless, humiliating you, degrading you, dehumanising you, controlling your finances, making threats, or intimidating you. And just to be clear, this is a crime. In the UK, the Serious Crime Act 2015 created the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship. And it's got a maximum penalty of five years in prison, right? So please, please, please, if you are experiencing any of this shit, please seek the help and support you need. I know, it's super hard, and it's it fucks with your head, I get it, I really, really do. And I'm gonna leave some links in the show notes to signpost you for additional support for this if you need it. And this is so important. 

35:58

We got a bit heavy that didn't we? It started off as a light touch on all the lingo and got a bit deep. I'm not gonna apologise for that, you know, because it's so important that we have awareness of all this stuff from all angles of it, even if you don't need some of the shittier ones. It might help you to support someone else in your life as well. And that's what we're all about over 'ere, right? Supporting each other through breakups, divorce, abusive behaviour, cheating, lying the lot. When we're going through this shit, it feels like we're on the floor. There's no getting up from it. And I guess maybe, I hope all of this is maybe a bit of a helping hand when you might need it. So that I think is probably as good a place as any is to finish up this week's episode. As I've said, I've left some links in the show notes for UK support for domestic abuse. Please, please, please reach out if you need it. If you're in another country, please look it up and get the help that you need. So that's it from me this week. Sorry it's been a bit of a longer one. Thank you as always for being here. It does mean the world to me. And as you know, you know, as I touched on earlier, I went through the divorce from my ex husband. And as you know, he hit me he cheated on me he financially fucked me over and instead of healing at that point, I went straight in wrapped up in my anxious attachment to a relationship with an avoidant commitment phobe who further damaged me and probably left me wide open to the narcissist and all of the trauma, quite frankly, that he created. And I was thankfully able somehow to crawl my way back out of that and start to heal. And in all honesty, I think that'd be something that I have to continuously learn and grow from.

37:56

I'm not sure if I've used this analogy before, but I see it a bit like a computer game. You know, like, if you imagine a computer game, it starts off quite easy, you get a bit of a monster to kill. And there's there's barriers to overcome, you go to the next level, it gets a bit harder. And as you go through each level, it gets harder and harder and harder with more monsters attacking you and more barriers that you need to get over and get rid of the monsters, you know. And I feel like I've mastered the last few levels and killed an awful lot of monsters that as they say, every level there's a new devil and I'm just very grateful that not I now have loads of tools to continue to kill the monsters and keep going up to the next level. And honestly, that's why I do this work so that you too can keep up levelling no matter where you are at right now. Because you my love deserve to live the most amazing life. You really truly do. So, on that note, it's a very unusual episode. It kind of turned but anyway, I really am going to go now. Thank you again with so much love from me.