The Psychology of Dexter - Bella DePaulo [87]
As far as Dexter was concerned, Paul was a serious problem. So Dexter solved it. After he framed Paul for violating his parole, Rita was theoretically free to lead a more normal life. But by removing him from the picture, Dexter was not giving Rita back control over her interactions with Paul. He was taking that control for himself, one of Dexter’s first acts of emotional abuse. While Dexter appeared to save Rita from Paul’s abuse, their relationship was, in fact, just another turn on the abuse carousel.
Dexter’s Psychological Abuse
One of the most gripping aspects of Dexter is its psychological realism, made all the more remarkable by the highly unusual situations in which the protagonist finds himself. Dexter, of course, is a sociopath who lacks the capacity for feeling normal emotions of love and grief. Some of the most poignant moments in the series come when he grapples with visible displays of emotion in the other characters and tries to make sense of what they would be feeling. Emotionally stunted himself, he could not offer Rita a normal relationship. He amused himself by playing with the children and kept her at a distance, romantically speaking. When Dexter’s deficient emotional system and Rita’s fractured psyche were brought together, it was inevitable that their relationship would be psychologically abusive. Rita’s experiences with Paul made her the perfect woman for Dexter, and not just because previous sexual abuse at Paul’s hands made her initially uninterested in sex—something that was particularly attractive to a man who does not feel emotionally capable of making love. Rita’s own emotional numbness made her an ideal candidate for Dexter’s kind of psychological abuse.
Though on the outside Paul and Dexter appear to be diametrically opposed, they share dark, troubled sides. As Dexter commented in regard to Rita, “Her husband was a crackhead and her boyfriend was a serial killer. It’s kinda hard to not take that personally” (“Return to Sender”). Though Dexter was never physically abusive to Rita, his lies and manipulation added up to emotional abuse. Dexter had an affair, continuously lied to Rita, and murdered numerous people over the course of their relationship. Worse, Rita had no idea what she was mixed up with. At least with Paul, his abuse was easy to recognize. It’s harder to fight back against abuse you can’t clearly identify.
Rita’s first inkling of Dexter’s darker side came from Paul, who attempted to explain how he was framed. “He’s not the man you think he is,” warned Paul (“Born Free,” 1-12). But Rita chose to ignore Paul’s warnings and became even more involved with Dexter. When she later confronted Dexter about Paul’s story, Dexter admitted that he impulsively struck Paul over the head, then carried him to a nearby motel and injected him with heroin. Rita asked Dexter where he got the heroin, and leapt to the conclusion that Dexter was a junkie, just like Paul. Evasive as ever, Dexter responded, “I have an addiction,” and allowed Rita to push him into a Narcotics Anonymous program he didn’t actually intend to complete (“Waiting to Exhale,” 2-2).
He attended the NA meeting for five minutes, hoping to lie his way out of the situation. Rita knew NA procedures from her previous experience with Paul’s addiction and caught Dexter in his lie when she asked to see his newcomer’s pin. “You’re a terrible liar,” she said. “I can’t go through this again” (“An Inconvenient Lie,” 2-3). Forced to follow through with the program, Dexter committed to attending the meetings, where he encountered Lila, his sponsor.
As sponsors go, Lila was rather unconventional. For one of their first therapeutic escapades, Dexter lied to Rita and went to Naples, Florida, with Lila to track down one of his mother’s killers. Rita later discovered Dexter’s deception and learned that Lila and Dexter “spent the night together in a hotel” (“Dex, Lies, and Videotape,” 2-6). Rita assumed that Dexter was cheating on her with his attractive sponsor and yelled, “I thought that you were different than Paul,