Once you can see the lies, the next step is to see the truth. What are Mallory’s real intentions? The sad thing is you already know them. They are your deepest fears, the ones you’ve pushed aside since the first day. Mallory wants to use you then throw you away. He means to use your network to climb up the social ladder. He intends to empty your savings, and those of your family.
Mallory cares about one person, himself. He will do whatever benefits himself, without limit and without remorse. If he is not worse it is because that would be counter-productive. Your relationship is a sham. It is window dressing to hide the crimes.
Can it be so simple and so calculated? Yes, it can be, and it is.
So now you have a new Narrative. You could never have made the relationship work. Every time you invested in it, you made it worse. Good intentions pave the road to hell. You fed him and reinforced his bad behavior. So now you have your next action. You stop feeding Mallory.
Fixing the Economics
Even if you do not base your life decisions on economics, Mallory definitely does. She does play with people for practice. Yet when she creates an extended relationship, it is for her profit. Unlike a win-win social relationship, Mallory always builds win-lose relationships.
You should be able to measure how much it is costing you to give Mallory her profit. You can count your time, money, goodwill, and the cost of lost opportunities. It is worth putting a dollar figure on the damage, if you can bear to do this. Mallory has worked hard to make you undervalue yourself, so don’t be shy about adding zeros. It is not for a court, just for your own sanity.
Your next step is to close the taps. I call this "disabling." There is passive disabling, and active disabling. Use both, as you gain confidence and courage.
Passive disabling has a mantra. This is: "Every request is a test, and the answer is always No."
Mallory has a classic pattern of extracting resources from you. First she asks for a small favor, something small and innocent. This aligns you towards liking her, the Ben Franklin effect. Then she creates a problem that she cannot solve, and leaves it on the table for a while. Then she comes with a solution, in the form of a larger favor you must provide. If you do not agree to the larger favor she gets angry and brings the relationship to crisis.
By refusing the small favor, you break the pattern. Mallory has no backup. If she creates a crisis over a marginal issue she looks unstable. If she asks again you just refuse again. If she asks for something different, you refuse again.
You can refuse in different ways. An outright "no" is fine, if you can find the confidence. Or you can say "I’ll try" and then fail to deliver for random, complex reasons. Pretending to be incompetent is less healthy than rejecting Mallory’s request outright. Yet it can be more fun, as Mallory has no tools to deal with such trickery.
When Mallory threatens you, observe and take notes. Compare her threats to her actual actions. You will see that she rarely if ever does what she promises. If she does use violence, she gives no warning. When she uses violence, document it and use that against her. Emotional and psychological abuse are notoriously hard to prove. Bruises, bites, and broken bones can end in criminal charges.
Active disabling also has a mantra. This is: "If it is not locked down, expect to lose it."
Once you recognize Mallory, you must assume she will take whatever she wants. This means money and assets, for sure. It also means contacts, employees, documents, secrets. She may explain this using "yours, ours, mine" logic. Or she may deny it and blame someone else.
You must consider what assets you have that Mallory could divert. If you are business partners, and you are not in full control of money and decisions, abandon it. If you own property together, consult a lawyer. If you have joint accounts, close them. If she has access to your credit cards, get new ones. If she knows your passwords, change them. If you are a co-parent, keep the passports for your children locked up.
If you live with Mallory you must be careful and somewhat paranoid. Since she is opportunistic, this means locking things up. Do not be shy about using large locks, and hide the keys well. Do your research on identity theft. She may fake your signature and take out loans in your name. Assume she steals your post.
If she knows her way around computers, assume she tries to hack your computer and web accounts. Lock your PC screen when you are away. Use extra "two-factor" security on your web accounts. Do not let her borrow your phone. It takes only a few minutes to install spyware on a phone.
If Mallory is in your social circle, leave no money on the table. Expect her to use your friends and contacts for her own benefit. Warn them, and keep your most important contacts away from her. It is far better to warn your contacts about Mallory than to expose them to her.
When you start disabling Mallory, she will get hungry. This makes her more aggressive, and scarier. Yet it also makes it much easier to expose her. As you secure your boundaries, you can see when she violates them. This brings us to the next action, which is to collect evidence of her violations of norms and laws.
Collecting Evidence
Mallory is a genius at using rules the wrong way. "Here are these complex rules which apply to you, yet not to me because I’m special," he says. It is strange how few of us question such unfairness. Perhaps we’ve learned the habit of lopsided obedience from school and work.
Good rules are simple, and apply to everyone in the same way. Luckily, no matter what Mallory claims or argues, most of society works this way. So if you document his rule violations over a period of time, that gives you real power. Again, this does take time, and patience.
What "material evidence" means depends on your case, and whether you expect one day to show it to a judge. For criminal or civil cases, learn the rules of evidence for your jurisdiction. In general, evidence must be verifiable, and you must collect it using legal means.
If you are in a serious conflict, speak to a private investigator as well as a lawyer. Collecting evidence is an investigator’s main job. They will explain the rules and perhaps help.
Here are some hints for collecting evidence:
❂ Email is excellent as evidence. It is hard or impossible to fake and a service like Gmail does the backup for you. Again, care for your passwords. Print out any critical emails and store in a safe place.
❂ Use email to confirm agreements with Mallory. "Just to confirm, we agreed that…" Ask Mallory to correct you if you misunderstood. This gives you a written trail.
❂ Video recordings are good evidence in most courts, as they are hard to fake. If you need to prove a history of verbal or physical abuse, video is one of the best tools. You can use your smartphone, or small hidden video recorders.
❂ Audio recordings are poor evidence in most courts. They can be good material in non-legal situations. They are easy to make, and share. Just use your smartphone’s voice recorder. You can buy small, cheap USB pen recorders online.
❂ Phone calls are better evidence than audio clips, if you use a call recorder on your smartphone. Tracking caller ID and date and time provides a good record.
❂ Before you record Mallory at all, learn the law. You could be committing a crime if he did not consent. It depends on the jurisdiction.
❂ If there are neutral witnesses to an event, try to get a signed and dated statement from them. Make a digital copy and back that up.