The Emotionally Abusive Relationship_How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing

by Beverly Engel

  When you grew up, you may have ended up getting involved with a partner who treats you the same way your mother treated you. No matter how much you beg, cajole, or demand, you just can't get her or him to pay attention to you. Or in a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, you may become so demanding in your relationships that you force your partners to reject you, thus turning them into your mother.

  Or you may have become very much like your mother in your relationships-remaining aloof, distant, and withdrawn from your partner and withholding support and attention. If your partner complains, you accuse her or him of being selfish and demanding.

  If you are male, you may have played out your rage at your mother by emotionally or even physically abusing your partner later on. If you are female, you may have swallowed your rage toward your rejecting mother and turned it inward against yourself, becoming deeply depressed in the process. You may have become the classic passive, submissive "wife," allowing her partner to completely control and dominate her.

  To a large extent, the repetition compulsion explains why, if one of your parents was verbally abusive to you, you will tend to be verbally abusive to your partner (and/or your children). If one or both of your parents was controlling and domineering, you will tend to treat your partner (and/or children) in a controlling and domineering way. And if one or both of your parents was extremely critical and judgmental, you will tend to be the same. This is how emotional abuse, like other forms of abuse, gets passed down from one generation to the next. In far too many cases, we unfortunately do become our parents-in spite of our best efforts to the contrary.

  MY STORY

  This was certainly true for me. Raised by an extremely distant, unaffectionate, critical, and judgmental mother, I vowed to be more loving and more accepting of others. From early on I seemed to be the antithesis of my mother. I was gregarious and outgoing, so much so that it embarrassed and astounded my uptight mother. As I got older I prided myself on my ability to accept and include people, no matter what their religion, race, or economic background (my mother was extremely prejudiced and a bit of a snob). So afraid was I of becoming emotionally abusive like my mother that I tended to be passive in my relationships with men. I agreed with whatever they said and went along with whatever they wanted to do. But unbeknownst to me, I had become emotionally abusive, in spite of myself. Due to the fact that I was very insecure, I became extremely jealous and possessive. I needed constant reassurance and often accused boyfriends of not loving me. I had frequent emotional outbursts, especially if I was drinking (my mother abused alcohol). Even though my behavior could be described as emotionally abusive, I had no idea. In fact, I saw myself as the victim in most of my relationships. No one ever treated me well enough or loved me enough.

  Through the help of therapy I became more secure, less jealous, and had fewer emotional outbursts. But the shocker came many years later when I discovered, while writing my book The Emotionally Abused Woman, that I had become as critical and judgmental as my mother.

  JANINE: THE CASE OF THE WOMAN WHO BECAME INVOLVED WITH MEN JUST LIKE HER FATHER

  The repetition compulsion can also work in the opposite way. Instead of becoming your abusive parent, you may have become involved with him or her. We've all heard the phrase-"he married his mother" or "she married her father." Unfortunately, this is often based on truth. If your mother was verbally abusive to your father, you may have married a woman who is verbally abusive toward you or your children. If your father was domineering and controlling, you may tend to get involved with men who dominate and control you.

  My client Janine is involved with a man who has turned out to be very much like her father, although she was not able to recognize this until I pointed it out. It often takes a third party-such as a therapist or close friend-to help us recognize our patterns, even though they are blatantly clear to others. Janine's father seldom had time for her. He spent most of his time away from home, and when he was there, he would lock himself up in his study. Janine longed to spend time with her father and felt that there must be something wrong with her since her father didn't want to be with her. She became very critical of herself, thinking that maybe if she would just do better in school or if she could converse with him about interesting things, or if she were prettier, he would love her more. And so Janine began a lifelong pattern of selfcriticism and perfectionism. If someone was rejecting or unkind to her, instead of becoming angry with them, she became angry with herself.

  Janine's father was also a charming man. Even though he ignored his daughter and wife a great deal of the time, when he did spend time with them it was somehow easy for them to forget this. He made Janine feel like she was the only person in the world, doting on her, fulfilling her every need, laughing at her jokes, showering her with affection. He'd take her to the park for the day and take her to a lavish lunch at a fancy restaurant, treating her more like a date than like his daughter. But often the very next day, he'd announce he was going out of town, and Janine and her mother wouldn't see him again for a few weeks. He'd come home, lock himself in his study, and the whole cycle would start all over again.

  This continued all through Janine's early childhood. Then one day a woman called on the phone and told her mother that she was Janine's father's girlfriend. It turned out that he had been having an affair with the woman for several years, and she finally got tired of his false promises to one day leave his wife and be with her. When his wife confronted him with it, Janine's father continued to lie to his wife, insisting that the woman was making it all up because she was trying to get back at him for rejecting her. He was so convincing that his wife actually believed him, until the woman showed up at her door with photographs proving they had, in fact, been together.

  All through her twenties, Janine got involved with men who were unavailable yet charming, just like her father. She blamed herself when they were too busy to be with her, thinking that she wasn't pleasing them sexually or wasn't interesting enough. Little did she know she was getting involved with men like her father in a futile attempt to resolve the conflicting feelings she had toward him.

  Janine's latest boyfriend is almost an exact replica of her father, and their relationship is an obvious reenactment of what happened between Janine's mother and father. Marshall works nights and weekends, so Janine is often alone and lonely. She wishes his schedule were different so he could spend more time with her, but she tries to understand. For the first eight months of their relationship, unbeknownst to Janine, Marshall continued seeing another woman. When Janine discovered this she was devastated, but Marshall was able to charm his way out of the mess and convince her that he would never lie to her again. Then one day Janine discovered that Marshall had never really broken up with his ex-girlfriend. She was devastated. She started crying and couldn't stop. Suddenly she realized she was repeating the exact scenario her parents experienced. "You could have rewound the tape to twenty years before. I was acting the exact way my mother acted the day she found out my father had another woman. I even found myself yelling at Marshall, `Pack up your bags and get out of here,' just like my mother had yelled at my father."

  Since the repetition compulsion is an unconscious process, like Janine, many people are often unable to recognize their patterns. Many of us discover that we end one emotionally abusive relationship only to find ourselves in a similar one the next time. On and on it goes, and yet we are often blind to what is happening with us. We may begin to see that our partners tend to treat us in similar ways, but we often explain this away by generalizing that "all men" or "all women" are such and such. Or, we blame ourselves. "There must be something I do to cause all these men to treat me this way, but I can't figure it out," one client shared with me recently. "Either that or I wear some kind of a sign that says, `It's okay to treat me like shit.' I just can't figure it out."

  Although you may, in fact, send out messages that cause abusers to spot you a mile away-an issue we'll discuss later-the point is that it isn't you
r fault. You are desperately-albeit unconsciouslyattempting to find someone like your emotionally abusive parent so you can replay the relationship and get it right this time. It's as if your unconscious mind is saying, "If I can only do things differently this time I'll get my mother (or father) to stop abusing me," or "If I can just be patient enough and loving enough, I'll get my father (or mother) to love me" It doesn't matter to your unconscious mind that your partner isn't really your parent but only someone who acts or looks like him-it feels the same, and that's the important thing.

  The Core of the Compulsionan Abusive Childhood

  The information and exercises in this section will underscore the fact that an abusive childhood lies at the core of your current situation. While some of you may be more resistant to understanding this truth than others, try to be as open as you can to the possibility.

  QUESTIONNAIRE: Childhood History

  1. Did your mother tend to be distant or aloof toward you as a child?

  2. Was your mother unable to take care of you when you were an infant for any reason (illness, absence)?

  3. As a young child, were you adopted, placed in a foster home, or sent to live somewhere outside the family home?

  4. Did either of your parents die when you were a child?

  5. Did your parents divorce or separate when you were a child or adolescent?

  6. Do you feel you were deprived of physical affection as a child?

  7. Do you feel that your emotional needs such as being listened to, being encouraged, or being complimented were not met as a child?

  8. Did your parents neglect to provide you with adequate supervision, leaving you alone for long periods of time in your home or car?

  9. Did your parents seem to be too busy to bother with you? Too busy to teach you about life, ask about your homework, or talk to you about your feelings?

  10. Was one or both of your parents excessive drinkers or alcoholics, and/or did either of your parents use drugs?

  11. Was one or both of your parents extremely critical or domineering?

  12. Did you find that it was difficult to please one or both of your parents, or did you get the impression that no matter what you did, your parents would never approve of you?

  13. Was either of your parents extremely possessive of you, not wanting you to have your own friends or activities outside the home?

  14. Did either of your parents treat you as a confidante or seek emotional comfort from you?

  15. Did either of your parents ever physically abuse you?

  16. Did a parent or other authority figure ever sexually abuse you?

  17. Was either of your parents emotionally incestuous with youeither by looking at you in a sexual way, asking you inappropriate sexual questions, walking around half-dressed or naked in front of you, or expecting you to meet their emotional needs, such as taking the place of an absent partner?

  18. Was a sibling ever emotionally incestuous or sexually abusive toward you?

  19. Did you ever run away from home?

  20. Did you ever feel so enraged with one or both of your parents or siblings that you seriously wanted to kill him or her?

  If you answered yes to questions I to 5, you experienced abandonment as a child. Physical and emotional abandonment are, beyond a doubt, the most profound prerequisites for becoming both a victim and an abuser. Experiences of abandonment in childhood cause profound insecurities and fears and set you up to be insecure, jealous, and possessive in your relationships.

  If you answered yes to questions 6 to 9, you experienced neglect as a child. A physically or emotionally neglected child grows up to either feel that his needs are unimportant or spend the rest of his life insisting that others meet the needs that were not met by his parents.

  If you answered yes to questions 10 to 14, you were emotionally abused as a child. A yes to question 10 indicates that your parents were likely too preoccupied with alcohol or drugs to be available for you, or that there was chaos in the family caused by their alcohol or drug use. A yes to questions 1 1 and 12 indicate that you were overly criticized, dominated, or controlled by one or both of your parents. An affirmative to question 13 indicates one or both of your parents was overly possessive of you; this is a form of emotional abuse. A yes to question 14 indicates one of your parents saw you more as a parent or a partner than as a child.

  If you answered yes to questions 15 to 18, in addition to being emotionally abused, you were either physically or sexually abused or subjected to emotional incest.

  If you answered yes to questions 19 and 20, your home life was likely severely emotionally, physically, or sexually abusive.

  EXERCISE: Your Childhood Experiences with Abuse

  •Make a list of the negative ways you were viewed and treated by your parents (or other significant caretakers).

  •Write about how you feel this affected your intimate relationships.

  Abusive Styles of Parenting

  Even after reading some of the descriptions of emotional abuse and completing the above questionnaire and exercise, you may still be uncertain as to whether you were emotionally abused as a child. The following descriptions of abusive styles of parenting may help you become more clear about this.

  The Abandoning, Rejecting Parent

  This is the most devastating form of emotional abuse to a child. Parents can abandon their children physically (leaving them at home alone, having them wait in the car for hours at a time, forgetting to pick them up at the movies, or, because of divorce, leaving the house and seldom seeing them again) or emotionally (being emotionally unavailable to their children, depriving their children of the necessary attention, affection, and encouragement they need).

  Often this neglectful, inattentive treatment by a parent can be especially devastating since the child is likely to assume it is somehow her fault or that she is simply unlovable. Parents who escape into alcohol, drugs, sleep, television, or books also abandon their children because they are essentially not there for them emotionally. This is what my client Jean shared with me: "My mother watched television all day long. When I came home from school, she was too wrapped up in her programs to ask me how my day was or what I learned at school. The only way to connect with her was to sit down beside her and get involved with whatever it was she was watching. So that's what I'd do sometimes, even though I might not even like the show. It was my way of feeling a little contact with her. Mostly, though, I'd just go in my room and listen to my music and do my homework."

  Many fathers, while physically present in the home, are passive or not actively involved with their children. This is how Stacey described her relationship with her father: "I never knew who my dad was and he never knew me. He'd come home from work and announce that he was too tired from working all day to talk to us. Then he'd get a drink and go into the den. We wouldn't see him until dinner, and then he was distant and unreachable. If we shared anything with him, he'd just nod and then look back down at his plate. He ate as fast as he could and then went back to the den for the rest of the night."

  The Possessive Parent

  The possessive parent wants to dominate, control, and emotionally consume her child. Possessive mothers begin when their child is an infant, holding him so close he feels suffocated, being overprotective of him, often refusing to allow others to hold him or take care of him. When her child reaches the age where he wants to begin explor ing the world separate from his mother, the possessive mother feels threatened. Either out of fear of her child getting hurt or a need to cling to her child to meet her own emotional needs, she discourages her child's natural need to explore. This behavior may continue throughout childhood, with the parent feeling jealous of anything and anyone that threatens to take away her child. She may discourage her child from making friends by always finding fault with each of her child's playmates. Instead of loosening the reins a little as her child becomes older and more mature, she may become even stricter, insisting on knowing where her child is at all times and
enforcing rigid curfews.

  When a child begins to take an interest in dating, the possessive parent, especially the possessive father, may become particularly threatened and may either forbid his child from dating or attempt to make her feel that no one is good enough for her or that no one will want her. Some fathers have a particularly difficult time when their daughters reach puberty because they are overwhelmed and confused with sexual feelings toward them. A father who is unable to manage his incestuous feelings toward his daughter may become especially adamant about forbidding her to date and about not allowing her to wear clothes that are the slightest bit revealing.

  Some parents' possessiveness comes from a need to protect their child from harm. For example, mothers who were sexually abused as children may become overprotective of their daughters, and fathers who got into trouble with the law or who got a girl pregnant may overreact by restricting their sons' freedom. Fathers who were promiscuous or who used women sexually may assume that every boy who dates their daughter is going to behave in the same way.

  Other parents don't want their child to grow up because they want them to be available to take care of their parents' needs. Often these parents did not get their needs met when growing up, and they may now expect their children to parent them. Still others may become too attached to their children because they are widowed or divorced or because their spouse is not meeting their needs. When a parent treats his or her child more like a friend or confidante, this can be a form of emotional incest.

  The Domineering, Controlling Parent

  This type of parent attempts to dominate and control their children, dictating every aspect of their lives including how they speak, how they act, how they dress, and whom they associate with. Often under the guise of "teaching" or "correcting" their child, their real motivation is to dominate their children completely. Although they may tell themselves and their children that they are doing it for their own good, these parents often need to feel in control over others in order to feel powerful and important. Often raised by overly controlling parents themselves, they are often ventilating the anger they could not express to their own parents.