Our Lessons From history

My daughter and I spent the New Year in Venice, Italy. Those of you who have visited my website might remember that Venice is where my marriage finally fell apart. 

The then husband threw yet another temper tantrum and I finally recognized I had a choice. Either I would stay in the marriage, lose what little strength I had and be resoundingly miserable anytime, any place, anywhere, or I could leave and be free to have as much pleasure in my life as anyone else had; starting with Venice. 

‘Old history’, you might say. Yes, and...

I never go back to Venice without giving thanks for the life I now have, the joy I feel, and the miracle that is Venice.

It is often said that history repeats itself until you learn the lessons from it. 

Shortly after New Year my daughter and I were sitting in a restaurant waiting for our meal. People were talking quietly. Suddenly a Frenchwoman’s voice rose above the general chatter. “I want you to apologise for the way you treated me. Is that too much to ask?”

The woman was white faced, angry, so caught up in forcing her partner to acknowledge her grievance that she wasn’t aware how loudly she was speaking. She carried on speaking in loud urgent tones. Her husband had offered her no support during her pregnancy. His driving had put her and their unborn child at risk. She wanted him to acknowledge her feelings. Above all, she wanted him to care.

Silently the husband got up and walked round the table to where his wife sat. He was, I hoped, going to put his arm round her, kiss her and say the words she clearly longed to hear. 

Instead he reached up, took his coat from the hook above her head and simply walked out. 

The wife was reduced to calling out his name to his receding back: “Alex”. 

What she said next I didn’t hear. As well as his behaviour, he shared his name with my ex-husband.

How I felt for that woman. By now the whole restaurant was watching. I thought seriously about going over to talk to her in my somewhat rusty French. I empathized with the isolation and humiliation she must have been feeling. Not to mention the misery. I imagined her feeling that nobody else could possibly understand or know what she was going through. 

She got up and left with as much dignity as she could muster.

I wondered whether that was truly the end for them, or whether that night or in the next day or two they would patch up the relationship and limp on until the next explosion.

The following day we saw Alex sitting on his own, scowling. We could only hope that his wife was back in France consulting a lawyer and clearing his things from the apartment.

So what were the lessons to be learned from this incident? 

• That      abusers show no respect for people or place? Certainly. 
• That      abusers all use the same script and the same behaviours regardless of      their language, place of origin, socio-economic group and upbringing? Undoubtedly. 
• That      in a relationship with an abuser you are never, ever, safe from attack?      Sure.
• That      your distress cuts no ice with an abuser? Of course.
• That      you can expect to be privately and publicly humiliated? Naturally.

The list goes on and on. And yet, you and I both know the likely outcome if Alex had only bothered to do a bit of swift back-peddling, if he had apologized to his wife, told her how much he loved her and he didn’t know what had come over him… 

She would have been further tortured by wondering whether she could leave a man with so much ‘potential’, when she could never, ever, hope to find anyone else as wonderful, and as loving…

We’ve all been there. But when it’s not your head that is being messed with, doesn’t it make you want to vomit? It does me.

So here’s the thing. I believe we have to learn from the lessons of our own history, and also that of our peers. 

Not that there is only one lesson to be learned. There are many lessons, all of them useful.

Only learn.

Any one lesson that you draw from events will help set you free. What happens when you are with an abusive man, aka a Crazy Maker, is that you become so focused on your own hurts you can’t look beyond them. You can’t even think to make sense of your history with him. 

Right now I’m reading “Change or Die” by Alan Deutschman. The book explains that, generally, even in circumstances that they know to be life threatening only 1 in 10 people will actually make the necessary changes. This happens because they try to use fear, fact or force to create change. They end up overwhelmed and in denial.

However that changes from a 90% failure rate to a 90% success rate, when they are given the appropriate tools for change. These are:

• Having      someone believe in you
• Having      someone show you repeatedly how to do things, and think, differently
• Discovering      how to view your past and present in a different light.

The work I do with abused women is entirely focused on raising their success rate to 90% and beyond. My ebook “The Woman You Want To Be” guides women along that success for journey for a whole year.

Had we really known that someone believed we could build a great life without an abusive partner, how long would we have settled for crumbs?

Comments

[Helen]

Even years later, I enjoyed reading the story of your a-ha moment, Annie. (Did read elsewhere about the painting.) It's almost as if inside us we're gradually working toward that "final" moment (for years in my case) and then one particular event suddenly seals the deal. Done. That moment is breathtaking.

[Annie Kaszina]

Hi Wendy, how can I resist? It's funny the way you edit website copy and then forget what you have done.

Briefly, my then husband took me to Venice Italy to celebrate a landmark birthday. Because he knew he had been a very bad boy for months before my birthday - endless sulks, threats, verbal abuse, temper tantrums - he realized he would do well to pull out all the stops for once. So he took me to a fabulous hotel. (It was the one and only time he ever did.) Having settled for crumbs for so long, I was over the moon. Venice was, and is, the place I love most in the world,

However, I don't think he could handle:
a) playing Mr Nice Guy
b) my obvious delight
for very long. (He managed 36 hours.)

Then he found a great pretext: something I wanted to buy and intended to buy with my own money.
He made dire warnings, dark threats and sat through an exquisite meal in beautiful surroundings in stony, furious silence.

Then another round of threats, anger, sulks and silence. He even stumped off to sleep on the floor of our luxurious room to punish me. (For what precisely? you might well ask.)

At the time I could not have been more humiliated and devastated.

By the next morning, after yet more fury and screaming, when we sat in stony silence, staring out over the beautiful lagoon, him chomping through a large breakfast, me choking on a Latte, I finally got it.

We were not like other couples, the people who enjoy spending time together and sharing great experiences. He needed to sabotage whatever I enjoyed. If I stayed with him at that point, I would be giving him free rein to make me miserable for ever after. I finally understood that it wasn't going to get any better, it would only get worse.

I also realized that I had been so worn down by it all that if I didn't follow through then, I would never again have the strength to do so. I think, at that point, I would have become a broken woman.

He gave me two great gifts that landmark birthday. The first was clarity; the message he gave me was so clear that even I understood it. The second was that he didn't bother to apologize and say he would try to make it up to me.

Happily, that is old history now.

I have never, ever regretted the decision I made that day. The things I worried I might lose, proved to be so much less important than the quality of life I gained.

[Wendy]

Annie,

I would like to read more about your story/relationship as you indicated that it is available on your website about your Venice trip where you realized it needed to end..I am in a very abusive relationship, verbally, for the last 10 years and it seems to be getting worse and not better. I would like to read your story if possible but couldn't find it on your website.

thank you