Systematic Assertiveness - Abusive Relationships Post 3 of 5

Well I seem to have more to write on this subject than I originally thought and this is turning into a 5-post theme (I feel a book coming on) - in the final post I'm going to use the Systems Model to bring everything 'under control' but in this post I'm discussing the idea of how 'victims' of abuse (people who voluntarily seem to stay in relationships obviously harmful to them when they do have an option of leaving) end up in that position.

Victims Who Won't See Themselves as 'Victims'

I was speaking to a lady in her late 50's - she had left her husband six months before due to the fact he'd started beating her.  She told me she was 'stuck', she couldn't move on with her life, because she couldn't figure out how she had caused her husband to start hitting her in the first place.

Prior to the hitting he had been bringing prostitutes back to the house while she was still in it.  He'd also taken to leaving soiled condoms under her pillow for her to find and had spent a couple of years before that criticising her continuously. She told me he was a devout Catholic but had 'gone funny'.  As I listened to the history of their relationship unfolding it was obvious she felt responsible for the whole thing.

This was a lovely, gentle, highly intelligent lady who finished off by asking me to explain how she had caused him to become like this (he had moved on to another relationship at the time, so no confused state of conscience for him then - another common thing I see happen in such relationships).  She told me she needed a 'man's point of view'.

I told her 'your ex-husband's a vicious individual who may actually be insane and there's nothing you could ever have done to stop how things progressed - you've put up with years of abuse without realising it and he was the only one who could have stopped it.  The only thing you could do is what you have done which was to leave'.

My response surprised her - she told me no-one had ever said anything like that in such a straight-forward manner before (which surprised me).  This was a victim who didn't realise she was allowed to be a victim.  I left her with a bemused smile on her face.

I see this a lot.  Here's another example:

A 17 year old lady who's mother had just died became homeless as a result and went to live with her older brother who, when the weather was cold, would come into her bedroom at night, pull her nightgown off her, put it on himself and go back to his own bed - he was doing things like this to her on a regular basis and she seemed to have no privacy or rights.  When I pointed out she needed to do something to get out of the situation her response was 'oh no, we just have to put up with these things in life and we've always known there was something wrong with my brother anyway'.  How would you expect that relationship to turn out? Her overall attitude was she had a duty to look after him.  He was much older than her and I'm sure her mother, had she been alive would have had a different view.

Psychologically abusive relationships don't just happen to women, of course, I've been in a couple myself and they're difficult to escape the affects of once you're locked into the relationship cycle.  I have seen men leave jobs due to nervous breakdowns after female managers have done 'their thing' on them - so gender is no indicator of who a victim will be; we're all open to this threat.

What kind of common indicators should we look for in ourselves to ensure we don't end up turning into 'Victims Who Won't be Victims'?

Justifications

The victims of psychological abuse quite often come out with justifications as to why their being abused is OK - they rationalise it as a logical thing:

'I'm too sensitive'

(what, you mean it's OK to be belittled, humiliated, shouted at, unsupported, have who you are stifled, have your wants and needs denied - the real problem is the fact you're actually noticing those behaviours rather than the behaviour itself, is it?  Are you sure about that?)

'This is how families are'

(no, no, no - look, if we're talking about The Walton's then maybe we're being unrealistic, but when it comes to families YOU CAN HAVE WHATEVER TYPE OF FAMILY YOU CHOOSE AND IF YOU'RE BEING HURT SOME SO AND SO iS CHOOSING THAT FOR YOU - there are nice families out there; families who don't bring prostitutes home, don't steal your pension money; don't think it's OK to have an aggressive, threatening atmosphere that forces you to keep your thoughts to yourself - it might be that it would be better to live alone and get some decent friends instead - there are always alternatives)

Here are a few others:

'They couldn't live without me and they know it really' (they don't actually care)
'At least they were honest - they sat down and told me straight they sympathised with me, I was obviously needing the relationship to work at a deeper level but they needed their own space and I needed to to go make some new friends.  But we could still have sex three times a week if I wanted and I think at least we've got a platform for the relationship to start up again in the future - it's about time, really, we've been together 5 years now' (what?)

Self Criticism and Over-Responsibility


The next thing I've noticed victim's who won't be victims do is self-criticise and do the Over-Responsibility thing.

'If I were just more attractive'; 'If I weren't so demanding'; 'If I could just stop being angry about the way they treat me', 'I'm a mess, how could anyone want to be with me when I'm like this?' (er, have you considered their behaviour has caused that?).

Over-responsibility is where you're taking on responsibility for managing the whole relationship - you cannot, for example, ensure the other person meets their agreements with you.  That's their job.  If you're trying to get them to think about how they see the relationship in the future because you've noticed they're completely and deliberately ignoring you (eg 'sending you to Coventry') and you're worried about the relationship coming to an end - what are they doing about it?  (PS if they're using that as a permanent approach when you try speaking to them the relationship has already ended - the purpose of a relationship is to relate - a similar relationship avoidance technique is to go in the opposite direction and scream abuse at you when you ask if you can talk about the relationship).

Outrageous Hope; Mother Duck Complex and Moral Ties

Victims who won't be seen as victims live in Hopeland. They have a dream in their left fore-brain, possibly based on watching too many episodes of the Waltons, on what an ideal relationship should be and they're hoping that's how things will turn out.  They may have been hoping for years but find the reality emotionally unbearable.  (Question:  what's the other person hoping for?).  Hope of this nature usually develops because the other person isn't communicating - the victim who wants the relationship to work is starting to fill in the gaps with their imagination.

Mother Duck Complex - you know when the duck emerges from the egg and sees its mum and that's it - bonded!?  That happens in relationships such as first-love for people too.  Suddenly you're so admiring of the other person and they're so wonderful that when you catch them in bed with the neighbour it's so obviously your not being good enough that caused that.  Watch out for Mother Duck Complex, won't you?

Moral Ties

Got children?  We'd do anything to remain with them, right?  We'd even put up with 20 years of having the other parent continually putting us down in front of them and watching our children gradually lose all respect for us purely because we believe in the two-parent family model and nothing's going to stop you from meeting your moral responsibilities (apart from when you get home one day and find your co-parent in bed with the neighbour; but don't forget that will be your fault and your responsibility).

Boiling Frog Syndrome

This is one of the most important and difficult things to acknowledge in my view - it's a bit like brainwashing.

The principle of it is that if you put a frog in cool water and then slowly heat the water the frog will boil to death without realising it's happening - if you boil the water first and drop the frog in it will immediately jump out.  The difference being that it can tell the difference.  How true is this?  I remember one long-term relationship I was in where I'd got so used to the 'silent treatment' when I got home from work that if I felt like talking about it I thought there was something wrong with me - but then I started at college for two years and everyone there looked really happy to see me all the time.  Hold on a minute, I thought.

Get used to a minor level of poor treatment and you're more open to getting the next level, and then the next, until you're being completely emotionally and physically abused whilst thinking 'is it me?  How did I cause this?'.

Negative Interpretation of Sensitivity

'I must be too sensitive' does not mean we are too sensitive.  It means 'oh shoot I've completely ignored my intuition, which told me to get out weeks ago, but I ignored it and now my emotions are at war with each other and one part of me wants to stay because I've invested so much of myself in the relationship, and I stand to lose so much by leaving, but another part wants me to leave because I'm in so much pain and I'm confused.  I really wish I could just ignore that my feelings are tellng me to leave.  I'm so irritated by them!'.

We need to be more sensitive so we don't get our hopeful desires pushing us into this trap - if we don't learn this lesson until it's too late we risk being 'emotionally scarred' (which can be healed but takes a lot of work).

We are given our intuition for a reason and are meant to listen to it. Our intuition is in tune with who we are - when we refuse to acknowledge this we are damaging our relationship with ourselves; we end up not trusting ourselves to make any worthwhile decisions and as a result get pulled into the self-criticism cycle.

We need to be who we actually are - there's no such thing as being 'too sensitive'. I've avoided many potential relationships because my intuition said 'wait' and then seen the reasons why it told me to wait appear sometimes months afterwards.  Our gut instinct often takes better care of us than the grey stuff in our skulls - if we could just learn to trust it.

Next post: Abusers Who Won't See Themselves as Abusers