9 Guilt as Currency

By mid-summer, any hope that the turbulence would ease was gone. New lines were being drawn. Not in courtrooms, but in living rooms, campgrounds, and car rides home.

His weekend time continued, but so did the unpredictability. There were lake trips and family outings, sure. But there were also remarks and behaviors that suggested more was going on beneath the surface. No context. No oversight. Just more questions I wasn’t supposed to ask.

Then came the police.

A very disrespectful exchange took place, far beyond what was okay and well worth a consequence. I restricted privileges and took their phone. A normal parenting boundary.
Not harsh. Not explosive. Just a line.

Soon after, a vehicle came flying into my driveway. A few people tied to him emerged.

One, calm and collected. The other, frantic. Talking fast, eyes darting, already escalated before I said a word. The frantic one asked to take the one I had set a boundary with. I said no.

She looked at me, incredulous, and repeated it back, “No??”. As if the answer wasn’t hers to receive, but mine to correct.

Calmly. Firmly. I had every legal and moral right to set that boundary in my own home.

As we stood there, a police car rolled up.

And instantly, I knew.

I turned to the one being disciplined and asked, “Did you call the police?”

“Yes,” they said. “I was advised to.”

That line hit hard.

That line. I’d heard it before. He’d said it to me several times, usually when trying to justify something that barely made sense.

I knew immediately whose words those were. The same person who once hinted a wishful scenario, just so he could press charges, had now primed someone else to do it for him.

I sensed a setup in slow motion.

This wasn’t a decision they made independently. That phrase wasn’t a slip. It was a breadcrumb back to him.

He didn’t need to make the call himself. He just needed someone else to do it for him. Someone more believable.

So when the police were called, not because anything unlawful had occurred, but because I enforced a totally appropriate boundary, I saw the game.

It wasn’t about safety. It was about humiliation. About showing me I wasn’t allowed to say no without consequences.

It felt like a staged act, designed to get a rise out of me.

And it sends the worst possible message to a young person. That consequences can be dodged if you just go high enough up the chain.

The officers were kind. Professional. Confused why they were even there. They asked a few questions and left. No incident. No report. No wrongdoing.

But the damage wasn’t in the paperwork. It was in the message that it’s “brave” to escalate rather than reflect or to report rather than relate.

One of the others who arrived even praised the call for “standing up for themselves.” I calmly replied: “Calling the police over phone privileges isn’t bravery. It’s confusion.”

And they were confused. Subtly, steadily, the lessons were that protecting someone else’s pride was more important than understanding their own emotions. That loyalty meant acting out someone else’s shame.

It was clearly time for the visitors to leave. As they pulled out of my driveway, a smug comment was tossed at me: “You should get some counseling.”

The irony hung in the air.

And it wasn’t the first time I had been quietly undercut. He had already suggested they could come to his place whenever they wanted, regardless of a schedule.

It wasn’t framed as interference. It was framed as freedom.

But it set a dangerous example. That structure is optional, and rules only matter when they’re convenient.

Later, things settled down a bit. But I began to notice something. That guilt was becoming a kind of currency. Moments appeared where guilt seemed to override choice.

One weekend after returning home, they seemed deflated. They’d been expected to spend time with visitors they hadn’t asked for, and when they tried to say no, it left them feeling like a disappointment.

Their boundary wasn’t rejected outright, but it was quietly overwritten. Overwritten for someone else’s emotional comfort. But it left them holding the weight of someone else’s fragility.

There were still bright spots. Summer activities, friends, and festivals. But they were just pauses in an unstable rhythm.

He began finding other ways to push boundaries, like keeping them for trips that overlapped my time. I let it go sometimes for their sake. I wasn’t trying to win. I was trying to be steady. I tried to eat the stress instead of passing it down.

Looking back, I should have pushed back harder. It became clearer than I wanted to admit. At the time, walking that tightrope made every inch feel like miles.

His focus wasn’t really on building something steady for everyone, but steadily undoing anything I tried to put in place. It wasn’t always loud or direct, but it was deliberate. A quiet resistance dressed up as freedom.

I kept trying to create space for peace. Little things. Moments that might anchor us. Not as a distraction, but as an offering. Even when plans fell through, the intention was always there. Something to say that you’re allowed to feel good in your own life.

And then, without ceremony, without asking for it, I started seeing flickers of something shift.

A soft apology. Moments of honesty.

It wasn’t a full turn. But it was a turn.

And maybe that’s all healing ever is: A slow return to your own voice.

Personal Note

I saw your pain.
I fought for and honored your worth.
And I’ll never regret either.

This is my personal account and reflection.