In order to move past the abuse and move forward in your relationship, you must both be willing to trust and to forgive. This is a tall order for anyone. It takes time to rebuild trust, and it can try the patience of both of you when you realize that the trust is just not there. The survivor will tend to become impatient with herself, thinking that she should be past it by now, and the previously abusive partner may begin to feel that he is constantly being punished for things he did in the past and not being given a chance to prove himself.
Although it is important for you survivors to work at rebuilding your trust in your partner, it is far more important that you trust yourself. If you trust yourself to take care of yourself-meaning that you trust yourself to speak up if your partner ever crosses the line and becomes abusive again-then you both can relax in the relationship and let time show you whether your partner has, in fact, stopped his abusive ways. The same holds true if you are the previously abusive partner.
It is also important for the survivor to be able to forgive. If you cannot forgive your partner for having emotionally abused you in the past, your anger and resentment will make it impossible to move forward. While you have every reason to be angry about the abuse, you need to take responsibility for finding constructive ways of releasing your anger. Otherwise your anger will continue to seep out, creating a wedge between you and your partner and triggering defensiveness and anger from him. Your partner can't be expected to tolerate your anger indefinitely, nor is it fair to expect him to.
Forgiving is different from forgetting. Certainly you can never forget how your partner treated you, nor should you. Remembering the abuse will keep you on your toes and strengthen your resolve to never allow it to happen again. But when you forgive, you say to your partner that you are willing to give him or her another chance, that you recognize we all have our issues and that we can't expect perfection from one another.
Unfortunately, some survivors will discover that they are unable to rebuild trust in their partner or are unable to forgive their partner for the abuse, even though they have given themselves time to do both. If this is the case, it will be important to admit this to yourself and to your partner. Once this reality is faced, one or both of you may come to realize that it is time for the relationship to end.
Survivors also need to forgive themselves for allowing the abuse to continue. There is no need for you to continue to chastise yourself for being so passive or weak or foolish-whatever labels you've put on yourself. You put up with the abuse for the same reason your partner abused you-because you were abused or neglected as a child.
Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
In this chapter we will focus on ways in which both partners can prevent emotional abuse in the future, whether you decide to stay in your current relationship or to end it. For those abused partners who choose to end their current relationship, I provide tips on how to spot a potential abuser in the future, how to take it slow and get to know a potential partner before committing to a relationship, and how to communicate a clear message that you will not accept abusive behavior, including how to set adequate boundaries and limits. For the abusive partner, I will present information on how you can prevent future abuse by changing certain behaviors and how to choose a partner who is your equal and is therefore less likely to put up with abusive behavior. I'll also provide strategies to help individuals and couples break the cycle of abuse and avoid becoming emotionally abusive parents.
For the Abused Partner
In this section, we'll focus on several issues of importance to the abused partner, including preventing future abuse in your relationships, taking a hiatus from relationships, spotting a potential abuser, and continuing to set boundaries and limits.
Preventing Abuse in Your Current or Future Relationships
Whether you stay with your current partner or enter a new relationship, you will need to continue your efforts to identify and confront abusive behavior if you are going to prevent future abuse. The following suggestions will help keep you on track:
1. Pay attention. You don't need to be hypervigilant, but you do need to be cognizant of how your partner treats you on a daily basis. If you begin to let things slide with a new partner or allow him to talk to you or treat you in an abusive way, or if you allow a previously abusive partner to revert back to her previous controlling ways, you will send the message that you will allow yourself to be abused in the future.
2. Trust your perceptions and honor your feelings. At this point, you are able to determine when your partner is being deliberately cruel, even if he says he's just kidding. You can tell when her questioning of you is just a way to control you. And you can tell when your partner's facial expressions and comments are insinuating that you are crazy, stupid, or inadequate. The more you trust your perceptions, the less confused you will be and the better able you will be to take care of yourself.
3. Continue to speak up. You need to speak up each and every time your partner becomes abusive; otherwise you're sending the message that it is okay.
Take a Hiatus from Romantic Relationships
For those of you who have ended your relationship, the best advice I can give you as to how to avoid future abuse is to take time off from intimate relationships for a while. You'll need time to recover from the wounds of your previous relationships, time to work on completing your unfinished business with your original abuser, and time to discover who you are outside a relationship. If you jump right into a new relationship due to your fear of being alone, you can almost guarantee that you will once again become attracted to an abusive partner. I've seen this time and time again with my clients. Those who took the time to heal and to rediscover themselves were much less likely to enter another abusive relationship, but those who got involved right away with a new partner almost always ended up being re-abused.
EXERCISE: What You Will and Will Not Put Up With
Before you even consider starting a new relationship, you will need to get clear about what you are and are not willing to accept in terms of a partner's attitude and behavior. In chapter 5 we discussed the importance of setting limits and boundaries by stating to a partner what you are no longer willing to put up with. But it is equally important that you set limits and boundaries with yourself. The following sentence completion exercise will help you gain some clarity about this.
•Spend some time reviewing your previous relationships, especially the aspects that were abusive and the behaviors you put up with but shouldn't have.
•With this in mind, complete the following sentences.
I won't have a relationship with someone who
I will only choose partners who
Continue completing these sentences until you feel satisfied that you have covered all the bases and until you feel strong and determined.
Examples:
I won't have a relationship with someone who constantly talks about himself.
I won't have a relationship with someone who criticizes me.
I will only choose partners who treat me as their equal.
I will only choose partners who are open to constructive feedback.
Take It Slow and Get to Know Your Partner
In order to establish a healthy, lasting relationship, one based on intimacy, sharing, and respect, you need time-time to get to know the other person, time for him to get to know you, and time to determine whether you are compatible.
Many emotionally abusive partners are initially quite charming. Don't let yourself be fooled again. Take time to get to know the real person, not the superficial, beginning-of-the-relationship persona that we all project. This will only be revealed through time, as layer after layer of defensiveness is stripped away, and the other person's false self melts away.
Learn How to Spot an Abuser
Most abusive partners exhibit similar behaviors and attitudes and have very similar personality traits. By being able to spot these behavior
s, attitudes, and traits you can avoid becoming involved with another abusive partner. Be on the lookout for:
•Poor impulse control
•Low self-esteem
•Selfishness and narcissism
•Being needy and demanding (of your time, attention, etc.)
•Alcohol abuse or drug use; alcoholism or drug addiction
•A history of being abusive (emotionally, physically, or sexually) as an adult or older child
•A history of mental illness
•Dependent personality (unable to support self financially, emotionally)
•Personality disorder (especially Borderline Personality Disorder or Narcissistic Personality Disorder)
•Antisocial behavior (does not believe in or abide by society's rules, has own set of rules that seem to accommodate his or her desires)
•Being aggressive, demanding, abusive
•Needing to feel powerful and in control
•Being preoccupied with sex, needing to have sex daily or several times a day; masturbating compulsively
•Poor social skills; difficulties developing adult social and sexual relationships
Talk Openly about Your Expectations in a Relationship
In addition to taking it slow and really getting to know a potential partner, it is important to talk openly about your expectations of one another. The following example should act as a warning against entering a relationship blindly.
From the time Tammy and Carlo got married, Carlo began to dominate and control her. "He started ordering me around, and he expected me to mind him as if he was my father instead of my husband," Tammy said. "He wasn't like that when we were dating. Believe me, I wouldn't have married him if he were. When I confronted him about it, he told me that now that I was his wife he had different expectations of methat it may have been okay for me to be so independent when we were dating, but not as his wife. I don't know where he got such an idea. Carlo's father is dead, so I didn't get a chance to see how his father treated his mother."
Tammy confronted Carlo in a joint session with me, telling him that she was not willing to put up with his treatment of her and explaining to him how his behavior hurt her. She made it clear that unless he changed his behavior and his expectations, she was going to have to end their marriage. Carlo was unwilling to hear that his behavior was abusive, and his pride prevented him from seeking therapy for himself. Tammy then focused on gaining the strength and courage to end the marriage.
"I don't want to end my marriage," she shared with me. "I love Carlo, and I wanted it to work out for us. But I'm simply unwilling to be treated like this. I'd rather end it now, before he beats me down so much that I don't have the strength to leave."
Had Tammy discussed her expectations of marriage with Carlo and talked openly with him about what he expected, she might have discovered his controlling attitude and his beliefs about the role of women in a marriage.
Continue to Set Limits and Boundaries
Even if you manage to spot potential abusers and only enter into relationships with nonabusive partners, this does not mean you will be immune to abuse. Even healthy partners can become abusive if they are not given appropriate limits and boundaries. If you have a tendency to lose yourself in relationships by becoming too enmeshed in the life of your partner, giving up your own activities and friends, and focusing too much attention on your partner and your relationship, work on maintaining a separate life and a separate self. Determine how much involvement you can handle before you start to "disappear," and set your boundaries accordingly. By using the following questions as a guide, you can begin to set emotional boundaries that are healthy for you:
•How much intimacy can I tolerate before I start to feel smothered?
•How much time can I spend with my partner before I start to feel uncomfortable or start to lose myself?
•How much can I share about myself before I feel I have shared too much?
Continue to Work on Yourself
In order to prevent future abuse, you will also need to continue working on becoming the most assertive, independent person you can be. Don't fool yourself into thinking that it was all your partner's fault and that if you choose a different type of partner next time, you have nothing to fear. If you are a dependent type of personality who is drawn to "take control" types of partners, you are bound to slip right back into unhealthy ways of relating that will encourage abuse.
An acquaintance recently told me, "I like strong, powerful men, men who take charge. I don't like making decisions. I'd rather be with someone who will make the decisions for me" I could hardly believe my ears. She was recently out of an abusive marriage with an extremely controlling man, and I knew she had an attraction to controlling men. What I was surprised about was that she wasn't embarrassed in the least about the fact that she preferred to be dependent. I was even more surprised that she hadn't yet made the connection between her desire to avoid responsibility and her tendency to be abused.
If you are going to avoid abusive relationships, you need to learn to make your own decisions. You need to learn to speak your mind and get over your fear of offering your opinions and stating your preferences. You'll need to realize that your thoughts, your ideas, your perceptions, and your needs are as important as anyone else's.
If you are a woman, refer to my book Loving Him without Losing You for more information on how to learn to make decisions, speak up, and state your preferences, as well as how to go slow in the beginning of a relationship and how to avoid losing yourself in relationships.
For the Abusive PartnerCatch Yourself in the Act
No matter what your individual issues are, all abusers tend to engage in certain predictable behaviors that lead up to them becoming abusive. The following is a list of such behaviors:
•Focusing outward instead of inward (projecting, criticizing, judging)
•Being out of touch with what you really feel
•Thinking only of how a situation makes you feel (lack of empathy)
•Having a tendency to want to control situations and people
•Having a tendency to obsess and ruminate about things
If you work on extinguishing these behaviors in addition to completing your unfinished business, you will stop being emotionally abusive. The following suggestions will help you begin to change these behaviors and to catch yourself in the act before you become abusive.
•When you begin to focus on what your partner is doing wrong, focus instead on what is going on inside of you.
•Ask yourself-What am I really feeling under all that anger and criticism?
•Try putting yourself in your partner's place the next time you are upset with her. Imagine how she is feeling.
•Recognize that your partner is separate from you and therefore has a right to have different reactions and opinions about things, to be in a different mood than you are in, to have different tastes from yours, and to make choices that you might not make. Realize that you cannot control anyone else. Even if your partner allows you to control her, the price you pay for her compliance is the loss of her love. No slave ever loved his master. No prisoner ever loved his jailer. There is no room for true love or devotion in the heart of someone who is scrambling for their life every day. There is only room for hatred and dreaming of the day when they will finally be free.
•Recognize that your feelings of anger probably have more to do with you than they do with your partner. Instead of ruminating about what your partner has done or how she or he has upset you, take a look at your personal history for answers to why you are so upset.
•When you discover that you are too invested in changing your partner's mind or in getting her to do something, disengage. If you continue to push, you are likely to say things you will regret later. Get some space from your partner or the situation, and remind yourself of what is really important-such as maintaining your relationship.
EXERCISE: FEEL
As you can see, all the
se suggestions have to do with getting in touch with what you are feeling. As a simple reminder, I created the acronym FEEL:
F ocus
E motion
E mpathy
L eave
The next time you feel yourself getting angry or critical of your partner, say the word FEEL to yourself and remind yourself of what each letter means. Then remember to focus on yourself instead of on your partner, pay attention to what you are really feeling under the anger, and have empathy for how your partner is feeling. If none of this works, disengage from the situation and go for a walk.
For Both Partners
The following suggestions apply to both the abused partner and the abusive one:
Go Slow
In order to avoid choosing another abusive partner or a partner who will allow you to become abusive, you must be willing to go slow when it comes to getting sexually and romantically involved. Many who become involved in abusive relationships get involved far too quickly before they have a chance to get to know the other person. This often stems from the fact that they didn't get their emotional needs met in childhood and are essentially looking for someone who will fill up those empty places inside them. As soon as someone comes along who seems caring, all those unmet needs become activated, and there is a powerful push to merge with the other person.
But there are several problems with this. First of all, if you become romantically and sexually involved with someone right away, by the time you finally get to know the person, you are no longer objective and are therefore more likely to be blind to the person's problems and issues. Women, in particular, need to be careful because when they have sex, the chemical oxytocin-a bonding agent-is released, causing them to fall in love and making it difficult to walk away, even when their partner's abusive tendencies begin to surface.
The Emotionally Abusive Relationship_How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing Page 23