There are, apparently, two types of battered women; those who grow up in a climate of abuse, and those who grow up in functional families, enjoy a healthy relationship but then become vulnerable either from grief or another major life crisis.
Of the many, many women who have spoken to or written to me over the years, I can suddenly think of only two that fall into the second category.
However different their past relationship experiences may have been, however, in the course of their abusive relationship, the beliefs of these two groups of women become tragically indistinguishable.
This happens because abused women go to great lengths to learn from their relationships. They are desperate to know what they are doing wrong so they can change it.
There are basically two ways to learn. The first is from what your partner says. The second is from your interpretation of your behavior.
An abusive partner quickly becomes the most influential person in your life.
He has the power to take them to dizzying heights of happiness (although the statistical odds of this happening dramatically decrease the longer the relationship limps).
It has the power to plunge them into the depths of despair, and it usually does. When you do, your partner needs to explain what has happened to you. She has been constantly programmed to believe that he is a precious diamond (albeit a diamond in the rough). Therefore, the problems in the relationship cannot really be yours. That being the case, they must be hers, right?
Theoretically, here’s good news: If the responsibility for what goes wrong in the relationship falls on her, then she just has to figure out what she’s doing wrong in order to change it. Then he will shed the toughness that he sometimes exhibits and forever after they will live a life of incomparable joy and delight …
(Yeah right.)
Last night I saw the wonderful Derren Brown illustrate how susceptible human beings are to suspicion. He created a situation that encouraged 5 people, of proven intelligence, to believe that their random and senseless acts could produce the result they wanted.
Best of all, these 5 resourceful individuals became so obsessed with useless behaviors and looking for useless meanings, that they missed the solution that he had shown, quite prominently, hidden from view; if only they had the full attention to watch. They did not.
I guess you’ve probably done that in your relationship. I know I did.
So here are some of the lies that blind abused women to the reality of their relationship that is hidden from view.
“Everything is my fault”. Is your partner, perhaps, a newborn baby who can shirk all responsibility for his own behavior? When you yell obscenities, foam at the mouth, poke holes in the wall, or worse yet, do you have absolutely no control? Are you really that powerful? (If so, how come you generally feel so helpless in the situation?)
“I’m being stupid.” Yes, you are, but not for the reasons you think. If you can totally dismiss your deep feelings of unhappiness, I must admit it is a kind of emotional stupidity. If you are not happy with him, the message to hear is that being around him makes you feel miserable. You can be so much happier without it; once you get over the belief that you need it to make you happy.
“He doesn’t mean it / he doesn’t want to hurt me.” Maybe, just maybe, if he had only said the hurtful things once, that might be true. But when they become a regular part of your repertoire, you’d better believe that:
a) He doesn’t care what he says to exert control over you
b) He refers to them
“He has had a very bad time.” Ok, so that one can be true. The thing is, you too. And you are putting all your energy into trying to make her life sweeter. This means that you have made the decision to create something meaningful precisely because of your past unhappiness. Sure, it’ll be even better when you start to focus on doing it for yourself rather than for another wounded soldier. But if you are capable of making that decision, how come he is not?
“I just know that we can be happy together.” So, it’s funny, isn’t it, that you are saying this at a time when you feel as bad as ever in your life, and he has a lot to do with it? If he had the slightest chance, I know, he will tell me how happy he was at first. (If I had a penny for every time I heard that story, I would be writing this from my palazzo in Venice, watching the gondolas glide up and down the Grand Canal.) But here’s the thing: your happy spiel is the redacted version. Behind it is a less attractive story about the things that worried you about him from the word “forward”. I mean, before he went to work hypnotizing you with his silver lies about knowing you were so wonderful that you could make his life perfect. (Now there is a difficult task. If you are not prepared to do it yourself, it just is not going to happen. That is an unspoken law of the universe).
“It has a lot of potential.” Maybe it has and maybe not. You are not their teacher, their boss or their agent. Even less are you his father or his psychotherapist. Unless you are under 16, and I sincerely hope you are not, realizing your potential is your responsibility. Also, I don’t think you’re talking about his potential to make it big in the world. What worries him is his potential to become a great life partner. He clearly does not share that concern.
“I am ruining / have ruined the best relationship I can hope for.” There are two glaring inaccuracies in this short sentence. First, the best relationship? Yes, you may have had other dreadful relationships, but you wouldn’t be in a state of emotional collapse right now if this was a good relationship. You would be happy, relaxed, confident. Everything about you screams “bad relationship”, and you know it. As for what’s the best you can hope for, that’s what he told you, right? Then it must be correct. Because abusive men are never wrong. Forever. Are they? About everything. Sure, some of them present themselves very credibly to the outside world, but you know as well as I do that within the confines of their home they have a pretty skewed view of most things.
“It’s not him, it’s me.” Well, at least you two agree on something; your hopelessness. It can be the foundation of a relationship, as you have already discovered. It is certainly not the basis for a happy and functional.
These are not the only lies abused women tell themselves, but they are some of the most destructive. If they are lies that you have been telling yourself, now is the time to seriously think about getting out. Your relationship is a sow’s ear, it will never be a silk purse. More specifically, your partner may be a frog, but he will never be a prince.
You, on the other hand, have so many generous and loving qualities. They are the ones who got you into this relationship in the first place. They are still with you. It’s time you seriously thought about going out and lavishing a little of your love on yourself. You will be amazed at how rich the rewards will be.
(C) 2008 Annie Kaszina