Wednesday, 21 December 2011
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Stuck in an Abusive Relationship
I just got off the phone with a girl who was distraught after what can only be described as a traumatic altercation with her boyfriend. The things she described were eerily similar to what another friend of mine went through earlier this year. They are all young, in their early twenties, and in my naive mind this sort of thing didn't occur to people our age.
"I feel guilty because I made him this way"
"He blames me for causing his anger"
"He denies ever laying a hand on me and tells me I must have done it to myself"
"I'm embarrassed, I wish I was stronger"
"No one believes me"
These are just a few of the things I have heard from friends who were the victims of abuse, yet something about the way they describe it is confusing. It's something I have trouble understanding. How could you feel guilty about someone else causing you pain? How does one person have so much power over another person, to the point where the victim feels bad for their attacker? It's hard to see things from their perspective because from an outsider's point of view I can only give one piece of advice—Leave now and don't look back. You deserve better and you know it.
In one of those relationships, it took until she was sent to the hospital and the police got involved for her to eventually leave him. And even then she was still reluctant to do so. I only hope that whatever little insight I have to help this new friend will be enough for her to not reach that point.
This reminded me of my first post here with Datingish, 6 Tips on Giving Relationship Advice:
5. Love is Blind
Couples involved in a toxic relationship always get back together because they feel their is something intangible that exists between them that their friends will never understand. Unfortunately, we the friends, are simply trying to show you something that is very tangible and unhealthy that everyone other than you is able to see. When you finally do, it will be like waking up from a bad dream. As a friend, you have to know where to draw the line and when to stop getting involved. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink"
Some of you responded to this list of advice and particularly this bit, stating exceptions when it came to abusive relationships—I do agree with you. I only specifically mentioned that last part because I had gotten to a point where I felt frustrated from seeing someone I was trying to help repeatedly go back into a harmful environment. It's not that I had given up, it was more that I, too, felt defeated in knowing that nothing I said or did would get her to change her mind.
Have you ever felt helpless when trying to help a friend in need? How were you able to break through to them?
And because I think this is important:
SIGNS THAT YOU’RE IN AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP Your Inner Thoughts and Feelings Your Partner’s Belittling Behavior Do you:
- feel afraid of your partner much of the time?
- avoid certain topics out of fear of angering your partner?
- feel that you can’t do anything right for your partner?
- believe that you deserve to be hurt or mistreated?
- wonder if you’re the one who is crazy?
- feel emotionally numb or helpless?
Does your partner:
- humiliate or yell at you?
- criticize you and put you down?
- treat you so badly that you’re embarrassed for your friends or family to see?
- ignore or put down your opinions or accomplishments?
- blame you for their own abusive behavior?
- see you as property or a sex object, rather than as a person?
Your Partner’s Violent Behavior or Threats Your Partner’s Controlling Behavior Does your partner:
- have a bad and unpredictable temper?
- hurt you, or threaten to hurt or kill you?
- threaten to take your children away or harm them?
- threaten to commit suicide if you leave?
- force you to have sex?
- destroy your belongings?
Does your partner:
- act excessively jealous and possessive?
- control where you go or what you do?
- keep you from seeing your friends or family?
- limit your access to money, the phone, or the car?
- constantly check up on you?
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- From: MikeyS
- Name: MikeyS
- Location: Long Island, New York, United States
- About Me: Here to share my relationship successes, blunders, downright failures, and thoughts about dating in general. Some of it is embarrassing, some of it is funny, some of it I'm not proud of, and some of it I've never shared with anyone. I'm just going to tell it the way I see it. (Friend, subscribe, or ask me anything. I'd love to hear your thoughts about past topics and your ideas about future ones!)
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Comments (25)
Abuse them back. It's the only way!
Much as I have sympathy for anyone in an abusive relationship, I'd just like to say that too much emphasis is put on physically abusive relationships and not enough on emotionally or psychologically abusive ones. It took me months to realize that I was in an emotionally and psychologically abusive relationship, and even longer to admit that fact to myself, in part because I was thinking "It's not like he hits me or puts me down in front of his friends" or "He's not controlling."
I'm grateful for the points you address, and appreciate the second portion of the post including Signs of an Abusive Relationship.I would be pleased if Datingish addressed the issues associated with other types of abuse as well.i am sympathetic towards women who are in these kinds of relationships, but i always can't help but wonder why they stay on so long, just to be physically and mentally abused by someone who clearly doesn't love them?
if a man laid so much as finger on me, i'd be out of that door faster than you can blink, and i honestly believe that if all women did this, domestic abuse would be virtually non-existent.
you can't let a man smack you around for years on end and then call your friends up in tears everytime it happens. of course it's a difficult situation, but if you walked out the first time he did it, it would not be a re-occuring issue.
i know the police can sometimes be a little hard to deal with, but if you are a woman with gashes and bruises all over her body that goes in to report a case of domestic violence, law enforcement will have to sit up and take notice.
sorry if this sounds harsh, but it's the truth; i don't think there's such a thing as being "stuck" in an abusive relationship.
@kidoncocaine@xanga - I completely agree. The most common words I've heard from abused women: "I love him" "I can't be alone". It's hard to learn to be alone, it's harder to live in an abusive relationship... and if he really loved you, he wouldn't want you to hurt like this.
It's hard for me to feel sympathy for women who don't ever leave an abusive relationship, because when I was in one, I was able to do it right away. Neither my friends, nor I saw any abusive red flags before, but once he shoved me and gave me bruises I was done. And I just think "If I can do it, why can't they?" I understand situations where husbands (or wives) actually threaten lives and the abused person has to do a lot of planning to get out. But I've had more than one friend feel this guilt over being abused and it angers me because I hate to see a good friend who deserves so much more than to be hit over and over again whether physically or emotionally. It breaks my heart.
@temporarilyinnocent@xanga - exactly. you are so right. i appreciate you agreeing with me, as before when i have voiced my opinion on the subject of abusive relationships, i have been met with negative responses, from people who perceived my views to be 'wrong'. so thank you!
get out! No man should ever put his hands on a woman and vice versa.
@AftonJoanne@xanga -
I can fully relate with your feelings and I myself am currently going through something similar.
Thank you for being so brave.
I wish I had been lucky enough to have had a friend to pull me out of my last
relationship. Physically abusive relationships are certainly nothing to laugh at but that type of relationship is obvious. The emotional and mental pain that someone can drag you
through can make you go blind to everything around you. I have spent the last
ten months piecing myself together and what do I have to do all the time? I
have to face the facts. The damage was and is vast and it took me a while to
realize just how much there was and is. It had gotten so bad I was on autopilot
and now that I’m on the right track I have forgotten three years of my life!
Not a joke I literally cannot remember but I am dealing with all my problems
one at a time. Will I ever be 100% again? The honest answer to any person who
suffers this is unfortunately a big fat NO. However, it is up to the person to
learn and accept that it is okay and that there is no shame in having dealt
with hell. Wear the scars proudly but make sure you do your best each and every
day to not fall down into that abysmal hole.
In terms of friends helping people believe it or not the only type I think people
can help in is physical abuse because mental and emotional will not even
register to the person suffering until long term damage is done. No one can
help you see the light to that. In reality that person has to figure it out on
their own and I wish I could give them all the strength to help them rise from
that dark pit because it is honestly the hardest thing I have ever had to do in
my life.
It kind of reminds me of Stockholm Syndrome in a way.
@kidoncocaine@xanga - Or you always thought that you'd leave if they hit you. But you fall in love with someone who's got something like borderline personality disorder, and they really do love you back, they just have a mental illness that makes the simple things more difficult.
Until you're in this type of relationship you will NEVER understand why women can't and sometimes don't leave.
Don't just assume she's staying for one reason or another.... It can be extraordinarily difficult to walk out of a home thats abusive and even harder to admit/stay away from it. It's easy as anything to say you'd leave.... Until you're 5 years in to the relationship "just" dealing with verbal abuse (that you don't even realize is happening) and then one day he smacks you.
@LoveL@lovelyish - I would have to agree with you and I think the commenters are being extremelyharsh.
@kidoncocaine@xanga - Lucky people like you for being so strong but some people need to learn the hard way, unfortunately.
@UnconventionalButterfly@xanga - I totally agree with you saying people are being harsh.Abuse can be a vicious cycle where one minute they're loving and kind and the next they're mean and nasty. Or it only happens when they're drunk. Or it only happens when their football team loses. And then after their fit of rage they apologize and say how much they love them and it'll never happen again but a month or a week later it does. Of COURSE you want to believe they love you and didn't mean it. If it's only a few months into a relationship I think it's much, MUCH easier to leave. But years? No way....this is someone you've come to trust. And don't think that you see everyone's true colors/nature right away...Sometimes it CAN take years before something definitive happens. It's not as easy as people think.
@TheMushyPear@xanga - That's absolutely terrible advice. And it's incredibly toxic. What are you, 8 years old? You leave the fucking relationship like an adult. That's the only advice worth a damn. Anyone saying that you should stick with a relationship and abuse back, is a powerless and childish dumbass. And anyone who views such advice as "empowering" for women is a moron as well.
@kidoncocaine@xanga - See... I like this. Exactly the view that everyone should have. I'm the same way as a guy. If a female so much as throws something at me, or slaps me in the back of the head sit-com style, I'm through with her.
Don't stand for abuse at all people. And while abused people have my sympathy, you push the limits of my sympathy if you "abuse back". If you want to show how truly empowered you are, walk out of the relationship and don't look back.
@AmorVomnia7@xanga - You're wrong there, friend. Life is about conflict. You either win it or you lose it. Don't want to lose.
@Jendog88@xanga - perhaps, but i'd struggle to believe someone loved me if they were knocking me about. they might have a mental disorder, but if your partner is harming you in anyway, it's not a healthy relationship, and not wise to stay in it.
@AmorVomnia7@xanga - thank you for agreeing! you're right-- it's whichever way around. girls should not be allowed to hit a guy either- abuse is wrong, in any way shape or form.
@UnconventionalButterfly@xanga - yeah, it's sad that some women can't break away from that. just hoping that someday they all find the strength to.
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sometimes there is no getting through to people like that, eventually it becomes all they know and end up loving it/them more than the real world. I've stopped being friends with people in unhealthy relationships, a few years later they come crying back to me telling me that everything i said was true and they finally broke free, and how sorry they are for not listening to me from the beginning. I don't shun them or anything but its harder for me to want to be friends with some one who refuses to see or hear the truth even if its punching them in the face.
tell them like it is and give them their options if they don't take it then it's their call and they like it. I have a hard time feeling symathetic to people men or women staying in abusive relationships, I'm sorry that I am like that.
This is a real sore point for me when comes to my perspective on women and dating.
Some women will not give certain guys a chance at all, will complain about the lack of good men, and they stay with guys who hit them. Boggles my mind. How can that be considered having standards of any kind?
I was in an abusive relationship for years. The epiphany came after he aimed a gun at my face. That's hatred in it's purest form. A friend in law enforcement reminded me that when drug dealers order "hits", the executioner shoots the victim in the back of the head. I was the mother of this asshole's children, and the court allows him to see his children.
I gave up trying to foster a normal loving relationship between him and our kids. He's mentally ill and alcoholic. He's got a list of medical conditions that he refuses to get treated. His family refers to me as "That cunt that stole his money."
At one point in time I wanted to be part of that family.
Now I'm divorced and free. My kids finagle as much extra time with me as they can. When they're with him they live in filth and squalor. The court does nothing.
Speak up. Don't let your friends stay in abusive relationships.
@kidoncocaine@xanga - I agree. While the man is at fault, what else can the woman expect if she stays?
I took several psychology classes and in my abnormal psych class, my teacher said that there has never really been, at least on a large scale, any success with abusers getting better. She said there was one specific treatment center where the men seemed to change for the better. But other than a few cases here and there, abusers never change their ways. That is scary.
Abuse is such a scary and difficult topic to talk about, especially if you're the one being abused in a relationship. Sometimes it's hard to see what's so wrong about the guy you're with hitting you for "being stupid", telling what not to wear, how to act, that no one will ever love you because you're not worth it, so he's doing you a favor. . . I speak from personal experience, and looking back I cannot believe how BLIND I was! How could someone ever take advantage of another person so cruelly? Yet it happens again and again. . .
I hope for the best for your friend(s) that are stuck in this situation. The best thing you can do is try not to give up on them, and be someone they can turn to when they need to talk. I have been in THAT situation as well, which is why I wonder how I could have ignored my friends' pleas to end a bad thing for so long? It's frustrating when you can see how hurt they are, but do nothing to change it. . .
♥L
-SM
Wow, reading this I just starting crying.
Thank GOD I got the fuck out of that relationship. What the fuck was I thinking letting it carry on for that long?