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

by Beverly Engel

  Others may be motivated more by fear than anger. Some parents fear that if their children are allowed more freedom, they will be hurt in some way. They believe that by holding their children close to them they can protect them from danger. Unfortunately, they don't realize that in the process, they are depriving their children of the benefits of learning by making their own decisions and mistakes. Overly fearful parents can rob their children of their natural curiosity and sense of discovery of the world and take away their spontaneity.

  Some overly controlling parents are also very authoritarian. They believe strongly that children should always obey their parents, that they should follow certain rules of behavior, and that their authority should never be questioned, no matter what. When a child breaks a rule or disobeys, this type of parent usually believes they have a right to punish their child in any manner they please, including severe physical punishment.

  Domineering parents will often try to control not only their children but their spouse as well. They behave in inflexible, even cruel ways, expecting everyone in the family to bow down to them and do as they say. This type of person often erupts in violence when someone in the family dares to question their authority or to act independently.

  The Hypercritical Parent

  Hypercritical parents find fault in almost everything their child doesthe way he talks, the way he looks, the way he interacts with others, his schoolwork, his choice of friends. A hypercritical parent will be quick to point out what their child did wrong or has left undone. Their child can never be polite enough, thoughtful enough, smart enough, or attractive enough to please them. They focus a great deal of negative attention on their child, often keeping a hypervigilant, critical eye out, assuming that the child is going to do something wrong at any moment. Instead of focusing on what their child has done right or what he has been able to accomplish, an overly critical parent will be quick to point out what their child did wrong or has left undone.

  This type of parent may be overly critical of all their children or may single out one particular child to pick on. This may be because this particular child reminds the parent of himself, his spouse, or an abusive parent. In some cases, a parent may be misogynistic-meaning that he or she has a hatred, disrespect, or distrust of females. When this is the case, a parent may only be critical of his or her female children.

  Critical words to a child are as painful and damaging as being physically hit. They are verbal slaps in the face. Usually, critical words are accompanied by threats, name-calling, and yelling. This verbal abuse can be especially damaging. Insulting names echo in a child's mind over and over again until he comes to believe he is indeed stupid, selfish, lazy, or ugly, and that in fact, that is all he is.

  Along with criticism from a parent comes the threat of the loss of that parent's love. Children are totally dependent on their parents, and so a hypercritical parent continually threatens his or her child's sense of security. This, in turn, has a tremendous effect on a child's developing sense of self. This continual criticism can be so emotionally damaging to a child that it may take a lifetime to overcome.

  A child looks to his parents for approval, acceptance, and validation. If he doesn't get this approval but instead receives mostly criticism, he grows up believing that there is something inherently wrong with him. And since a young child's life is centered around his parents and what they think of him, their opinion of him will influence how he sees himself, how he assumes others see him, and how he views other authority figures (e.g., as critical, threatening, or accepting). Extreme criticism coming from a parent can severely damage a child's self-esteem and can destroy a child's self-confidence, especially if he doesn't have anyone else close to him to encourage him and build up his confidence.

  When a child's parents are hypercritical of her, it causes her to be extremely critical of herself, overly sensitive to what others think of her, hypersensitive to even constructive criticism from others, and critical of others. She may then act this out in her adult relationships by choosing a partner who is critical and then take to heart everything her partner says, just as she did with her parents. Or, she may become so sensitive to criticism that she is unable to listen to anyone's suggestions or feedback. She may choose a partner who allows her to be the one in control, and she may mercilessly criticize him on a daily basis.

  The Power of Unfinished Business

  No matter how hard we try, we can't seem to escape our parents' influence on us. For example, sometimes we consciously go out of our way to find partners who are the opposite of our parents. But in an odd way, this only proves how much power they have over us. This is how it works: You may have been attracted to your partner out of a desperate need to get what you didn't get as a child. If you are a woman, you may have chosen a partner who seemed to be very caring, protective, helpful, and supportive because your father was never available to you when you were a child. Unfortunately, what you experienced as protectiveness in your partner may have turned out to be dominance, what you initially thought was concern and guidance turned out to be control and possessiveness, and what seemed to be support for your position against your family or friends was a ploy to drive a wedge between you and everyone else you had once been close to so your partner didn't have to share you with anyone. While you may not have ended up with your elusive father, you ended up with someone just as bad, and it was your unfinished business with your father that led you there.

  If you are a heterosexual man or a lesbian and your mother was cold and unloving, you may be attracted to detached, unemotional women because you experience them as a challenge. If you can get such a woman to warm up to you, if you can even get her to love you, it is a success indeed. Unfortunately, your success is short-lived. You may get such a woman to marry you or to be your partner, but you can't change her basic personality. That means that day in and day out you are forced to experience the old wounds of rejection and abandonment. The more your old wounds are opened up, the angrier you become, until you can't distinguish between the old wounds and the new, your original abuser and your new one.

  Those of you who have become abusive were also likely to be attracted to your partner out of a similar desire to undo or redo the past. If your father physically and emotionally abused your mother, you may have felt concerned for and protective of her. You loved her deeply and wished you could rescue her from her plight. When you grew up, you found that you continued to feel protective of women and that you were attracted to "damsels in distress"-those women who always seemed as if they needed to be rescued from something. You may have ended up marrying such a woman but found that you began to despise her weakness and her tendency to be victimized. You realized she was too weak to ever leave you, so you knew you could get away with anything-including treating her poorly, calling her names, and looking at other women in front of her. The more she let you get away with, the less you respected her, until finally you began to verbally and emotionally abuse her.

  Your Original Abuser

  Your original abuser is that person or those people who seem to have had the most influence on you with regard to how you behave in relationships. While you may have been emotionally, physically, or sexually abused by several different people when you were a child or adolescent, there are probably one or two of these abusers who stand out in your mind. An original abuser is not always the first person to have abused or neglected you but the first person to have caused significant, lasting damage to you by their abuse or neglect. More than likely your original abuser was one or both of your parents, since parents have a far more profound effect on our lives than anyone else, but an original abuser can also be another significant caretaker or a sibling.

  EXERCISE: Discovering Your Original Abuser

  The following exercise will help you discover whom your original abuser or abusers were.

  1. On a piece of paper, make a vertical line down the center of the page. Choose one of the abusers from your childhood and make a list of this
person's characteristics, using one-half of the page to list the person's positive characteristics and the other half to list the negative ones.

  2. If you have more than one abuser, follow the same procedure for each person.

  3. On another piece of paper, list the positive and negative characteristics of your current partner.

  4. Compare the lists of your childhood abusers with the lists you made of your current partner. Do you notice any similarities between the lists? If you do, circle them.

  5. Is there one childhood abuser who has many of the same characteristics as your current partner? If so, this person is likely to be your original abuser.

  Another Pattern: Victim or Abuser?

  Why is it that some people who were emotionally abused as children become abusers while others tend to become victims of abuse? Earlier in this chapter I wrote that no one chooses to be either an abuser or a victim of emotional abuse. What I meant by this statement is that no one consciously chooses either of these roles. But if you grew up in an abusive household or environment, you did in fact choose one of these roles, albeit on an unconscious level.

  Growing up in an abusive household taught you that there are only two types of people in the world-victims and abusers. Let's say that your father emotionally and physically abused your mother. Given the fact that your primary role models, your mother and father, presented to you only two options, you likely chose the role that seemed less repugnant to you. Your thinking would have been something like this-"I'm never going to be a victim like my mother (or an abuser like my father). Given the two choices, I'd rather be an abuser (or victim) than a victim (or abuser)." In most cases this decision would have been an unconscious one.

  How did you decide which role to take on? If your father abused your mother and you identified strongly with your father, as most boys and some girls do, you likely chose the role of the abuser. You probably tended to take on your father's way of thinking and acting and blamed your mother for the abuse. Your thinking would have been something like this: "If she'd just keep her mouth shut, or if she wouldn't antagonize him, he wouldn't hit her."

  If you strongly identified with your mother, as most girls and some boys do, you likely chose the role of the victim. Your thinking would have been, "I never want to be like my father. He's a monster." You may have become very afraid of your own anger out of a concern that you would lose control like your father. This may have prevented you from standing up for yourself or defending yourself with others, thereby setting you up to be a victim.

  If your father abused your mother for many years and you saw that your mother was unable to leave him in spite of her suffering, you may have determined that it is hopeless to try to get away from an abuser. If you are female, you may have even come to believe that to be female is to be a victim.

  On the other hand, having witnessed your mother taking abuse from your father for a long time and refusing to leave, you may have lost respect for her. You may have come to believe that she was weak or even that she somehow "liked" the victim role. If you are female, this may have caused you to become determined to never be a victim like your mother. If you are male, it may have caused you to feel that the only way to avoid being a victim is to be an abuser.

  Anger In, Anger OutMale and Female Patterns

  Men and women tend to react to experiences of childhood abuse and neglect very differently, partly due to cultural conditioning and partly due to biological hardwiring. Male children are still given more permission to feel and express anger than female children, and girls are given far more permission to cry, while males are viewed as being weak if they do so. This sets the stage for women to be more inclined to suppress or repress their anger and for men to suppress or repress their feelings of fear and sadness. While men tend to act out their anger, women internalize their anger and become self-effacing or even self-destructive.

  When another person hurts a man, either physically or emotionally, he will tend to lash out at that individual, either verbally or physically. "You hurt me so I'll hurt you" When a woman is hurt, however, it is not so simple. By the time they have gone through the acculturation process, most women have long since given up the natural instinct to retaliate directly. (Some researchers believe that females are also biologically wired to avoid anger and to instead work toward peaceful solutions.)

  In addition, if something goes wrong in his environment, a man tends to look outside himself first for the cause of the problem. According to research, this tendency is based partly on the male biological tendency to take action (versus introspection) and partly on the male ego, which encourages him to blame others and not take responsibility for his actions.

  Conversely, if something goes wrong in her environment, a woman will tend to look inside herself for the cause of the problem. Most women are far more inclined to blame themselves for a problem than blame someone else.

  This explains why more males tend to become abusive, while more females tend to become victims of abuse. Because a woman is more inclined to question and blame herself when there is a conflict with her partner, she is more inclined to give in during an argument or to become confused as to exactly what her role was in the conflict. This, coupled with the typical female need to keep the peace, will encourage her to compromise and sacrifice in relationships when she shouldn't.

  Because women tend to turn their anger inward and blame themselves for problems in their relationships, they tend to become depressed and their self-esteem is lowered. This, in turn, causes them to become more dependent and less willing to risk rejection or abandonment if they were to stand up for themselves by asserting their will, their opinions, or their needs.

  Men often defend themselves against hurt by putting up a wall of nonchalant indifference. This appearance of independence often adds to a woman's fear of rejection, causing her to want to reach out to achieve comfort and reconciliation. Giving in, taking the blame, and losing herself more in the relationship seem to be a small price to pay for the acceptance and love of her partner.

  As you can see, both extremes-anger in and anger out-create potential problems. While neither sex is wrong in the way they deal with their anger, each could benefit from observing how the other sex copes with their anger. Most men, especially abusive ones, could benefit from learning to contain their anger more instead of automatically striking back, and could use the rather female ability to empathize with others and seek diplomatic resolutions to problems. Many women, on the other hand, could benefit from acknowledging their anger and giving themselves permission to act it out in constructive ways instead of automatically talking themselves out of it, blaming themselves, or allowing a man to blame them. Instead of always giving in to keep the peace, it would be far healthier for most women to stand up for their needs, their opinions, and their beliefs.

  RECOMMENDED FILMS

  This Boy's Life (a young boy's triumph over an abusive childhood)

  Radio Flyer (a poignant story of a young boy who was physically and emotionally abused by his father)

  Angela sAshes (shows how abuse is passed down from one generation to the next)

  Now, Voyager (shows how a woman overcomes the effects of a domineering, controlling mother)

  Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.

  ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

  In this chapter those of you who are being abused will learn what you can do to stop the abuse in your relationship. While the optimum situation would be for both you and your partner to commit to working on your relationship together, often abusive partners refuse to admit they are being abusive and are unwilling to seek help, even in the form of reading a book such as this one. This does not mean that there is no hope for your relationship, however. In many cases, the abused partner can be the one who stops the abuse. This is not to imply that you are to blame for the abuse or that you "cause it" or "ask for it" in any way. Nor does it mean that you can change the abuser. He or she is the only person who can do that. But i
t does mean that in some situations, changing your behavior may encourage the abuser to change his or her behavior, or at the very least modify it.

  This may sound unbelievable to you. "What can I do to stop the abuse? I've tried everything and nothing works." Although I'm sure you've tried everything you could think of to make your partner stop abusing you, there are some specific things you may not have considered that may discourage your partner from continuing to treat you in an abusive way.

  You have much more power than you realize. What may have been standing in the way of you getting in touch with this power is your personal history-a history that no doubt robbed you of your self-esteem and feelings of personal power. Once you come to terms with your past, first by discovering what aspects have contributed to your present situation and then by following the steps outlined in this chapter, you will be able to regain your power and, with it, the determination never to be treated in an abusive way again.

  Although this chapter is specifically designed for those who are being abused, I encourage both partners to read it. In many cases, both partners have been emotionally abusive to one another, and so the chapter may actually apply to both. But even in cases where only one partner is being abused, the abusive partner can gain a tremendous amount of empathy for his or her partner by reading this chapter, and this newfound empathy can make the difference between continuing the abuse and stopping it.