The Psychology of Dexter - Bella DePaulo [86]
The next morning, Paul strolled into Rita’s home during breakfast with a box of donuts. His casual attitude reflected the male privilege that he felt. When Rita started to tell Paul that he “can’t do this anymore,” he became angry, yelling, “What? What!? Help raise my kids?” (“Circle of Friends”). Each of his exclamations was accompanied by a forceful gesture. Not only was Paul using the children to his advantage, but he was also resorting to intimidation with his overt display of anger. He later tried some of the same tricks on Dexter while Dexter was babysitting the kids. Paul even went as far as taking a swing at Dexter only to stop short, inches from his face. (Dexter was somewhat less responsive to Paul’s bullying.)
Though Dexter was tempted to see that Paul disappeared permanently, Rita took matters into her own hands by confronting Paul herself. Their argument over visitation rights to the children addressed the key issue in all relationship abuse: control. In asking Paul to sign the divorce papers, Rita said to Paul, “A judge put me in control. I’m in control now, and I have the power to make sure that you never see your children unless you do exactly as I tell you” (“Circle of Friends”). Rita was responding to Paul’s abusive use of the children in kind by mirroring his devious manner of fighting. In the next episode, Rita remarked to Dexter, “I finally feel like I’m in control. I never felt that way with Paul” (“Shrink Wrap,” 1-8).
Her attempts to seize control did not go over well with Paul, unsurprisingly. In the next few episodes, Paul reverted to his old ways and expressed his abusive traits more freely before Rita and Dexter left town for a weekend in order to follow up on the death of Dexter’s biological father. The weekend trip meant that Paul would not be able to visit with the children, so Paul arrived at Rita’s house full of bluster. Rita firmly vetoed the visitation, and Paul responded by smacking a cup off the table. Once again, Paul resorted to intimidation in hopes of controlling Rita. During the trip, Paul drunkenly called Rita and started describing all the fun he could have had taking his kids to the circus, trying to make her feel guilty.
After Rita returned home, Paul showed up and stumbled in while the kids were sleeping. Rita told him, “It’s late, and you’re drunk, and you can’t keep coming by here unannounced.” Paul replied, “You don’t call the shots. Okay?” In turn Rita said, “Look, Paul, I want you to leave.” Paul started shouting, “I don’t give a fuck what you want. I want my fucking kids! . . . Those kids are going to remember who the head of this fucking family is” (“Father Knows Best,” 1-9). In this discussion, Paul’s anger revolved around his loss of control and he relied once again on the tactic of male privilege to try and regain his lost power.
Rita led Paul away from the kids’ room, ending up in her bedroom instead. Paul threw her down on the bed and started to disrobe, and Rita only managed to escape by hitting Paul with a baseball bat she had stowed under her bed. Paul struck back by pressing charges for assault, turning Rita’s life upside down in a petty legal act of retaliation. “I could drop the charges if you agree to unsupervised visitation,” said Paul (“Seeing Red,” 1-10), masterfully using threats and coercion once again