On April 9, communication resumes — but not in the way anyone expected.

After days of silence, my father responds with a single, overwhelming letter. At more than 2,500 words, it is not a conversation, but a performance: expansive, accusatory, self-justifying, and meticulously constructed to control the narrative.

This episode contains only two letters.
First, my mother’s measured attempt to reach him.
Then, my father’s response — read in full, exactly as it was written and sent.

What unfolds is not an exchange, but a monologue. One voice dominates the page, reframing events, assigning blame, and recasting himself as both victim and authority. It marks a clear escalation in tone, and a turning point in how this conflict is being documented — and weaponized.

As with all of Season 2, this episode contains no commentary or analysis. Just the letters themselves, in chronological order.

For background and behind-the-scenes context for this episode, listen to April 9… Continued on Patreon.

⚠️ Content Note:
This series discusses sensitive themes and adult content, including suicide, abuse and coercive control, and may not be suitable for all listeners. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 in the U.S. for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

🔒 Link to Patreon episode

🎵 Music Credit:
Opening and closing music features Moonlight Sonata performed with permission by Paul Pitman. This piece is used intentionally. My father often played Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven on our piano at home, and I remember sitting in the hallway listening as a young child. Its presence in this podcast reflects the emotional atmosphere of these events — restrained, familiar, and unresolved.

🌐 mjmaeyers.com

🌐 mjmaeyers.com

After a day of confusing silence, April 8 brings an avalanche of communication.

Five letters arrive by mail — all written before my father left, all delivered to our mailbox at the same time. For the first time since he disappeared, we hear directly from him, not in conversation, but through pages of explanation, accusation, and justification.

April 8 — Controlling the Narrative consists only of these letters, read in full and in the order they were received. There is no commentary or interpretation — just the words themselves, as my father attempts to define what has happened, assign blame, and shape how his departure will be understood.

This episode marks a clear shift. Silence gives way to saturation, and the story begins to be told loudly, repeatedly, and on his terms.

April 8… Continued is available free right now on Patreon.
The letters in this episode tell only part of the story. What we discovered when we entered his office at the school tells another.

⚠️ Content Note:
This series discusses sensitive themes and adult content, including suicide, abuse and coercive control, and may not be suitable for all listeners. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 in the U.S. for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

🔒 Link to Patreon episode

🎵 Music Credit:
Opening and closing music features Moonlight Sonata performed with permission by Paul Pitman. This piece is used intentionally. My father often played Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven on our piano at home, and I remember sitting in the hallway listening as a young child. Its presence in this podcast reflects the emotional atmosphere of these events — restrained, familiar, and unresolved.

🌐 mjmaeyers.com

April 7 begins with uncertainty.

After my father’s disappearance the day before, my family is left trying to piece together what has happened — where he is, what he intends to do next, and how seriously to take the letter he posted on the school door the day before.

As concern spreads beyond the immediate family, communication widens and the narrative begins to shift. What started as a private dispute is now pulling in others, adding urgency and confusion to the situation.

This brief episode continues Season 2 of Vassalage: Truth, Lies, and Power with the next set of letters, presented exactly as we received them. There is no commentary or analysis — only the documents themselves, read in full and in chronological order. For background and behind-the-scenes context for this episode, listen to April 7… Continued on Patreon.

⚠️ Content Note:
This series discusses sensitive themes and adult content, including suicide, abuse and coercive control, and may not be suitable for all listeners. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 in the U.S. for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

🔒 Link to Patreon episode

🎵 Music Credit:
Opening and closing music features Moonlight Sonata performed with permission by Paul Pitman. This piece is used intentionally. My father often played Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven on our piano at home, and I remember sitting in the hallway listening as a young child. Its presence in this podcast reflects the emotional atmosphere of these events — restrained, familiar, and unresolved.

🌐 mjmaeyers.com

After weeks of escalating conflict and a proposal he titled Operation: Divide and Move On, my father walks out without warning. He doesn’t return home. He doesn’t explain himself face to face. Instead, he disappears — and communication stops.

April 6 — Abandoned consists only of the letters from that day, read in full and in the order they were received. There is no commentary, no analysis, and no hindsight — just the words exchanged as a family is left to reckon with sudden absence, uncertainty, and what happens when leaving becomes another form of control.

This episode marks a turning point. What begins here will unfold over the next nine days, revealing how control is maintained not just through confrontation, but through withdrawal, timing, and what is deliberately left unsaid.

For background and behind-the-scenes context for this episode, listen to April 6... Continued for FREE, right now on Patreon.

⚠️ Content Note:
This series discusses sensitive themes and adult content, including suicide, abuse and coercive control, and may not be suitable for all listeners. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 in the U.S. for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

🔒 Link to Patreon episode

🎵 Music Credit:
Opening and closing music features Moonlight Sonata performed with permission by Paul Pitman. This piece is used intentionally. My father often played Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven on our piano at home, and I remember sitting in the hallway listening as a young child. Its presence in this podcast reflects the emotional atmosphere of these events — restrained, familiar, and unresolved.

🌐 mjmaeyers.com

Season Two of Vassalage: Truth, Lies, and Power begins with a disappearance.

In April 2004, my father abruptly walks away from his family, his marriage, and the private school he helped build — leaving behind confusion, fear, and a trail of letters that tell a very different story than the one he presents to the world.

Season Two, The Departure, unfolds over just nine days.
Twenty letters exchanged during seven of those days.
More than 8,500 words.
All written in real time as my family scrambles to keep a school alive, protect one another, and make sense of a man who insists he is not abandoning anyone — even as he disappears.

This season is told largely through the letters themselves, allowing you to experience events as we did: without hindsight, without resolution, and without knowing what comes next.

If you’ve ever watched power shift the moment someone stops playing along…
If you’ve ever seen love used as leverage…
If you’ve ever wondered how control survives even after someone leaves…

Season Two begins January 27

🎵 Music Credit:
Opening and closing music features Moonlight Sonata performed with permission by Paul Pitman. This piece is used intentionally. My father often played Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven on our piano at home, and I remember sitting in the hallway listening as a young child. Its presence in this podcast reflects the emotional atmosphere of these events — restrained, familiar, and unresolved.

🌐 mjmaeyers.com

On the season finale of Vassalage: Truth, Lies, and Power, my father’s next move shocks everyone.

Yes, it is the long-awaited progress toward separation — but not the kind of progress we were expecting. Instead of negotiation or resolution, my father suddenly disappears. He walks away from his family, his business, and everything he has built, leaving everything — and everyone — hanging in the balance.

It feels like the ultimate temper tantrum. One so extreme that his family begins questioning his mental health. But was it really a breakdown? Or was it just another power play — another attempt to control the game by leaving it entirely?

In Goodbye, I Love You, I read the letters that mark this moment: a calm, detailed response from my mother, followed by silence, panic, and finally a goodbye letter framed as love and sacrifice.

This episode sets the stage for Season 2, where the story unfolds over just seven days, across twenty letters and more than 8,500 words, as my father’s family desperately tries to get him to come home before it’s too late — only to discover that when the dust settles, he emerges more powerful than when he left.

⚠️ Content Note:
This episode discusses sensitive themes and adult content, including suicide, abuse and coercive control, and may not be suitable for all listeners. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 in the U.S. for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

🔒 Link to Patreon episode

🎵 Music Credit:
Opening and closing music features Moonlight Sonata performed with permission by Paul Pitman. This piece is used intentionally. My father often played Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven on our piano at home, and I remember sitting in the hallway listening as a young child. Its presence in this podcast reflects the emotional atmosphere of these events — restrained, familiar, and unresolved.

🌐 mjmaeyers.com

In this episode of Vassalage: Truth, Lies, and Power, I confront my father's self-importance. For years, my father positioned himself as the most important person in our family — the provider, the authority, and the one who set the rules. And for a long time, I believed it. In this episode, I unpack how that belief took root, how culture reinforces it, and how power is maintained by making everyone else feel small. My sister and I stop trying to stay neutral and take a clear stand together. We challenge the idea that authority automatically equals importance — and for the first time, we speak as equals instead of pawns.

Along the way, I reflect on the stories that shaped our hope at the time — from Dead Poets Society and its message about solidarity challenging rigid authority, to real-world examples like the Jackson family and the Britney Spears conservatorship, where unity and collective voices disrupted long-standing control. As Season 1 nears its end, Not That Important lays the groundwork for what comes next. Because when everything is in writing, truth has nowhere to hide.

⚠️ Content Note:
This episode discusses sensitive themes and adult content, including suicide, abuse and coercive control, and may not be suitable for all listeners. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 in the U.S. for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

🔒 Link to Patreon episode

🎵 Music Credit:
Opening and closing music features Moonlight Sonata performed with permission by Paul Pitman. This piece is used intentionally. My father often played Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven on our piano at home, and I remember sitting in the hallway listening as a young child. Its presence in this podcast reflects the emotional atmosphere of these events — restrained, familiar, and unresolved.

🌐 mjmaeyers.com

After more than a year of silence, my father finally makes his next move — not by compromise, but by decree. In his latest letter, he lays out exactly how the divorce should go, what each person will receive, and why his plan is the only “fair” option. But it is control disguised as generosity. In this episode, I break down how he positioned himself as judge, jury, and king of the castle… and why he believed he deserved to decide everyone else’s fate. And to illuminate these dynamics, I look at familiar archetypes — the Wizard hiding behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz, the Beast whose “gifts” keep Belle trapped in Beauty and the Beast, and even in characters like The Joker, where control is maintained through chaos, threat, and sudden shifts in the rules of the game. Because in families ruled by power, truth doesn’t rise to the surface — it has to be dragged into the light.

⚠️ Content Note:
This episode discusses sensitive themes and adult content, including abuse and coercive control, and may not be suitable for all listeners. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 in the U.S. for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

🔒 Link to Patreon episode

🎵 Music Credit:
Opening and closing music features Moonlight Sonata performed with permission by Paul Pitman. This piece is used intentionally. My father often played Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven on our piano at home, and I remember sitting in the hallway listening as a young child. Its presence in this podcast reflects the emotional atmosphere of these events — restrained, familiar, and unresolved.

🌐 mjmaeyers.com