Abused No More

"What Would Happen If I Stop Letting My Abusive Partner Get To Me"

Dear Annie,

 

I would like to know what would happen if you all of a sudden just stop letting the abuser get to you? To take whatever sick pleasure they get from abusing you away from them.  How do you think they would react? I truly love this man, and I do stand up for myself when he verbally attacks me, because fortunately, I have not let him ruin my self esteem.  I recognize that he is mentally ill, but I let him know that I won't be treated that way.  He will be better for awhile, but eventually the abusive behavior comes back.  I was just wondering if I stop reacting to it, would it take all the fun out of it for him?  I would appreciate any input that you may have on this matter. Thanks so much!  M

 

Hi M,

Not letting an abusive partner get to you is a great idea.  But unless you were born a saint it probably won't happen.  An abuser will always up his game to make sure he does get to you.  

 

(And then there is the point that he might just turn more aggressive and/or physically violent in the attempt to get his most desired reaction.)

What do you truly love about this man who takes a 'sick pleasure' (your words) from abusing you?

And how do you know he is mentally ill?  People who perpetrate domestic violence - which includes emotional abuse - may be 'bad', but there is nothing to suggest they are mad.

You say you let him know you won't be treated that way.  And each time he does it again.  Could it be that he is letting you know that he has no intention of paying attention to you long term and stopping?

If you stop reacting to his abusive behaviour, what will happen to you? 

What do you really gain by staying in this relationship? 

What might you lose if you left it?

And what might happen if you made it very, very clear to him that you will not stay to be treated that way any more?  Of course, you would have to prove to him - and yourself - that you are prepared to follow through.

I'd love to be able to offer you the honey words of reassurance that I am sure that you want; especially since you say that you love him.  But it would be irresponsible of me to do so. 

Nobody has ever yet transformed an abusive relationship into a functional one by sticking around to try and take away from the abuser the 'sick pleasure they get' from abusing.  

That, unfortunately, is the way it is.

One more thing: you suffer from the typical abused woman's syndrome of focusing exclusively on your partner.  Don't you think it would be more constructive to focus on yourself?  

Try as you may, you will never change him.  But work on yourself, and you may well find your path to happiness.  

Just don't imagine that he will be walking down that path with you, holding your hand.  More likely he will be lying on the ground, grabbing your ankles and doing everything he can to either immobilize you, or knock you to the ground.

I'm sorry.  That's the best I can offer you.  If someone had said that to me when I was where you are now, I would have absolutely loathed them.  but weeks, months or years later, I would have acknowledged that brutal as what they said had sounded, the advice was accurate.

Warm wishes,

Annie 

 

 

 

"Thank you for being you"

This week I've been working with a client who has done a lot of healing from an abusive relationship.  When she spoke to me this week, she was quite tearful about something her new partner had said to her.   

With her permission, I am sharing the essence her story with you, since her experience may be valuable for you also.

Here is what she said: 

"Today my lover thanked me for being me. 

He thanked me for being me. 

He didn't tell me I wasn't good enough.  He didn't reproach me for not being loving enough.  He didn't humiliate me for not being thin enough.  He didn't ridicule me for not being clever enough.   

He did not reprimand me for not measuring up to his fantasy of the woman who would validate him. 

He simply thanked me... 

For being me. 

It was his way of saying that being me was more than good enough, as far as he was concerned.  In fact, it was something that he felt was well worth celebrating. 

That was almost too overwhelming to take on board. 

I get along with myself reasonably well these days.  I know my flaws and I can co-exist with them comfortably enough.  I respect my strengths.   Most of the time I feel happy in my skin.  I laugh and smile a lot.  I am mostly positive about myself and world. 

Between me, myself and I, things are not too bad at all. 

I've done a lot of work on my own healing.  I may not be perfect, but I know I have a lot going for me. 

Still, it's hard to see myself through my lover's eyes.   

It's hard to view myself in that uncritical light.  It's hard to believe I can be a person who inspires gratitude simply by being herself...  Hard to internalize all the differences between my past and present experience..." 

We are so used to criticism, are we not?  Over the months and years, abused women internalize all the criticisms that an abusive partner, and other 'near and dear ones', visited on us. 

We come to believe that those criticisms are the truth, the ugly bedrock truth that you can never ever hide from.  Can you? 

We become so good at hearing these 'truthful' criticisms that we reach the point of not needing the external prompting of a critical partner.  We can do it all ourselves.   

We can rehearse our many faults without the slightest prompting, more or less at the drop of a hat.  We do it with as much distaste as ever our partner expressed. 

Only put us in a situation that is at all familiar and we will, singlehandedly, recite all the criticisms that were ever directed towards us.  We will list all the ways in which we fell short of our partner's idea of 'perfection' in that situation. 

Old programming exerts a powerful hold. 

It can be almost like having the old abusive partner hover close at hand, his arm raised, constantly poised to plunge his dagger into the heart of the new, functional relationship in which, by rights, he has no part.   

Sadly, we do not expunge an abusive partner from our head just because we have removed him from our life.  There is no natural limit to the shelf-life of his voice inside your head until you do the work of evicting him from there also.  

My client said: "I can be with my lover and find myself shrinking at the soundtrack in my own head.  I can find that I am beating myself up, foisting on myself all the old shame and self-loathing."   

Left to itself, the old destructive soundtrack can run in tandem with a very different reality.   

Can it only be persuasive! 

At times my client has to pinch herself, metaphorically speaking.  She has to remind herself that that was then, and this is now.   

A partner and/or other important people in your life can rejoice at the person that you are.  That is both wonderful and an enormous thing for you to take on board.   

The first thing you have to do is hear their delight in you for yourself.   

But it can never be enough to heal you.  You still have to do that for yourself.  You have to be able to give thanks, sincerely - to yourself -  for being you.   

"Yes, but..." you might say.   

Yes, but what? 

We always, always, have options.  You can wait until you feel you are good enough to give thanks for being you - and it may well be a long wait.  Not because you are not worthy - you are always worthy enough - but because you have been programmed so successfully to undervalue yourself.   

Or you can start to give thanks now. 

It's curious, is it not, how all the things that a loving partner would celebrate wholeheartedly, your energy, joy, motivation and achievement, all waned in an abusive relationship. 

Nothing fails like failure. 

When you focus on your failure, all that you will generate, or at least all that you see, is failure.  So, if you focus on waiting, it will be one long wait. 

Why not start giving thanks for being you?  Or, if that is too much of a stretch right now, start that bit smaller.  Start by imagining the time when someone says that to you and really means it.  Take the time out NOW to see what you will see, hear what you will hear, and feel what you will feel when someone that matters says that to you. 

Simply thinking about it, often, is enough to improve the relationship you have with yourself and bring that day closer.

"Abusive 'love' is..."

 

This email landed in my Inbox:

 

Hi Annie. I just read your article about recovering from an emotionally abusive relationship. I am in one right now and have been for almost two years. He is a very loving man and tells me all the time how beautiful I am and he always talks about marrying me and having children. When he gets angry is when he starts bringing up things I've done in the past and makes me feel bad about myself. He gets angry if I imply he is controlling and says that he isn't. He professes and shows so much love to me, but he is also very emotionally abusive when he is angry or I do something he doesn't like. I basically live in isolation with no car or phone and I can't go anywhere without him. We share an email address and I don't have my own myspace/facebook page. He tells me I can do things but I don't because I know that in reality it will make him upset. He doesn't insult my looks and he is completely dedicated to me, so is he still considered emotionally abusive? 

 

There are no prizes for the correct answer. 

 

Two things about this email are interesting:

 

1) The questioner clearly already knows the answer to her question.  But she is exercising a massive amount of denial. She starts by stating – correctly – that she is in an abusive relationship.  She ends by asking ‘is he still considered emotionally abusive?’ if he says the right things and is ‘dedicated’.  I take ‘dedicated’ to mean that he focuses a lot of his attention on her.  Most likely, he is obsessive, or ‘all over her like a rash’, rather than devoted.

 

2) How the writer defines a ‘loving’ man.

 

Some years ago now, I had my face read by Face Reader Glenna Trout.  Glenna introduced me to the Three Rings of Relationships, and planted a comforting hand on my shoulder as she spoke of true intimacy (the First Ring) and the illusion of intimacy that occurs with Second Ringers.  These are the people with whom you share an experience, an agenda, or a need. 

 

Glenna’s hand stayed planted firmly on my shoulder as two painful revelations sank in.  The first was that my abusive husband had only ever been a Second Ringer, whose need (for a partner) was an unfortunately good match for mine. The second revelation was even more painful: I had never experienced a true First Ring relationship.

 

Sadly, I don’t think I was alone in this. 

 

Abused women email me all the time to talk about the love they share with an abusive, loving partner, and I find myself becoming increasingly crabby.  Not with them, but with the persistence of the toxic notion that you can truly love someone and treat them badly.

 

I remember in a church at a friend’s wedding years ago and being rocked to my core when I first heard these words from Corinthians:

 

Love is patient, Love is kind,
It does not envy, it does not boast,
It is not proud, it is not rude,
It is not self-seeking,
It is not easily angered,
It keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil,
but rejoices with the truth.

Love always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.

Love bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.

Love never fails.

(Corinthians 13:4-8)

 

That didn’t sound too much like my abusive ‘other half’.  I don’t suppose it sounds like yours either.

 

But suppose you wrote about abusive ‘love’.  It would read something like this:

 

Abusive love is rarely patient, Abusive love is rarely kind,
It does envy, it does boast,
It is proud, it is rude,
It is self-seeking,
It is easily angered,
It keeps a detailed record of wrongs.

Abusive love delights in destruction,
but does not rejoice with the truth.

Abusive love rarely protects, rarely trusts,
rarely hopes, rarely perseveres.

Abusive love bears nothing, believes nothing,
hopes nothing, endures nothing.

Abusive love soon ends.

Abusive love fails.

 

Now that sounds just like my abusive ex-partner and, I’m guessing, it sounds like yours also.

  

When you said: “I love you” to your abusive partner, you doubtless surrendered your heart and your independence. 

  

When he said: “I love you”, he took possession of your heart and your independence.

What did he give in return? 

  

The most charitable answer is that he gave as much as he was capable of giving – which, over time, was destined to embody the law of diminishing returns.

 

A more cynical, but probably accurate, answer was that he gave just as much as he needed to give, in order to get what he wanted. 

  

As to what he wanted, that was not you, but the use-value you represented. 

  

If it had been you that he wanted, why would he have worked to deprive you of your freedom, your safety, your self-worth, your trust, your confidence, your dreams, your vitality and your vitality?

 

Why would he not have celebrated you?

 

And when will you start to celebrate you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skipping In The Car Park For Joy!

Someone contacted me last week to tell me how worried her family were about her. 

 

You see, they found out that she had been skipping in a car park, one evening.

 

This woman had completed the June Healing Journey Teleclass Program, finally closed the door on her abusive relationship, once and for all, and was feeling a wellspring of happiness inside her. 

 

That was what led her to skip in that car park; a feeling of joy at being alive that she hadn't had in years, and years.  A belief that she had a life ahead of her.

 

Her family didn't recognize her.  They wondered if she had become 'unstable'.  They had become so used to the 'ground down' version of her, that anything else seemed odd, worrisome.

 

How sad is that? 

 

What took her from depressed, downtrodden and despairing, to the kind of person who could skip spontaneously for joy? 

 

It was all the things she discovered on the Healing Journey Program. 

 

If you had told her what would happen when she signed up for the program, she would never have believed it.  She'd thought that just maybe there was an outside chance it might help.  Instead, it transformed her life.

 

I'd love to help you to get the same result in just 10 weeks. 

 

Okay, so maybe you don't want to skip in car parks.  How about singing out loud, for joy?  Or laughing out loud because something strikes you as funny?  Or enjoying feeling liked, and likeable?

 

If you want to feel more happiness now, I'd urge you to join the Healing Journey Teleclass Program that started this Monday, November 2nd.  You're still in time to hear all the teleclasses and reap the benefits.

 

CLICK HERE to sign up to your Emotional Abuse Healing Journey Teleprogram.