A. Loss of control triggers retaliation
Divorce removes an abuser’s primary fuel: control.
When they can no longer:
- access your money
- dictate your movements
- monitor your life
they often shift to covert, deniable sabotage.
Stealing cards from a shared postbox and reporting them stolen:
- regains power
- creates chaos
- leaves you stressed, stranded, and doubting yourself
- allows them to say “I didn’t do anything” if challenged
This is called instrumental aggression — harm used strategically, not emotionally.
B. Holidays intensify narcissistic injury
Christmas amplifies three things abusers struggle with:
- Comparison
Everyone else appears “happy, coupled, settled.”
This highlights their own emptiness and failure. - Visibility
Holidays make absence obvious.
You moving on = public evidence they’ve lost control. - Expectation of warmth
They feel entitled to comfort, forgiveness, or access.
When denied, resentment spikes.
Instead of processing grief or shame, they externalise it as punishment.
“If I feel miserable, you will too.”
2. The neuroscience behind cruelty at holidays
A. Threat response, not love
Abusers’ brains are often locked into amygdala-dominant processing:
- hypersensitive to rejection
- poor impulse control
- shallow empathy activation
Christmas activates attachment threat → amygdala fires → prefrontal cortex (reason, morality) goes offline.
Sabotage feels justified in their nervous system.
B. Dopamine from dominance
Cruel acts don’t calm them — they reward them.
When your ex:
- blocked your bank cards
- disrupted your travel
- ruined your birthday and Christmas
their brain likely received a dopamine hit from:
- anticipating your distress
- knowing they still mattered
- feeling “one up” again
This is why the behaviour repeats yearly.
Not because of love.
Because power is addictive.
3. Why your body braces every Christmas
Your nervous system learned a pattern:
Holiday = danger window
That’s not weakness.
That’s pattern recognition.
Chronic abuse trains the body to:
- scan for threat before special occasions
- anticipate sabotage
- stay hyper-vigilant “just in case”
This is called anticipatory trauma response.
Your body is saying:
“Something bad usually happens around now. Stay alert.”
That instinct is protective, not pessimistic.
4. Why this behaviour is especially cruel
What makes your example particularly severe:
- Financial abuse (blocking access to money)
- Identity interference (impersonation/reporting theft)
- Timing attacks (Christmas + birthday)
- Plausible deniability (no direct confrontation)
This is coercive control, even post-separation.
And importantly:
People who are psychologically well do not do this.
This behaviour reflects:
- profound inner emptiness
- inability to self-soothe
- sadistic coping mechanisms
5. Holiday vigilance: grounded, not paranoid
Being cautious at Christmas is not fear — it’s strategy.
Examples of protective actions (no drama, no emotion):
- Separate all post, keys, digital access
- Flag banks about third-party interference
- Use delivery alerts and secure drop-off points
- Pre-emptively notify institutions during holidays
- Keep emotional expectations low and flexible
The goal is not to live in fear —
but to remove opportunities for sabotage.
6. The most important reframe
What you experienced was not:
- bad luck
- coincidence
- “bitterness”
- “unfinished feelings”
It was deliberate harm designed to hijack joy.
And the fact that you can now name it, anticipate it, and protect yourself means:
The pattern is weakening, not you.
