Three of my aunts have been victims of domestic abuse for decades.
The eldest of the aunts, a strong, intelligent woman who has experienced a lot of hardship but always laughed in the face of every contretemps, lived with an alcoholic husband who beat her whenever he got drunk. When she was in her fifties, she finally left him, moved to a different city, started making good money, and met a man who cherished her and treated her very nicely. After a couple of years in her new reality, she left her boyfriend and went back to the abusive alcoholic.
The second aunt also lived with a violent alcoholic her entire life. He’d get so drunk, he’d chase her around with a cleaver. Her sons spent their entire childhood and adolescence trying to get between the drunk, knife-wielding father and the terrified mother. The eldest son had a nervous breakdown after one of such assaults and ended at a clinic for nervous disorders. He had to drop out of school and go on disability. Finally, he told his mother that he would never speak to her again if she continued living with the alcoholic. My aunt moved out. Her employers were so happy that they gave her an apartment of her own as a gift. All of the relatives chipped in for furniture and appliances. The sons were ecstatic. The ex-husband didn’t do anything to get her back. He found a new woman, married her, and left my aunt alone. Two years later, my aunt got back together with him.
The youngest of the aunts also lived with a violent alcoholic who beat her on a regular basis. She divorced him after decades of abuse. Of course, now she is back with him, and yesterday he beat her again. The police in Ukraine never takes any interest in domestic violence, so, I guess, this aunt is also doomed to being beaten for the rest of her life.
As you can see, I’m not even talking about cases where the abuser threatens the victim or the children to prevent them from leaving. The women I’m talking about seem to choose to go back to the abusers. For people who didn’t grow up in an abusive environment, this is incomprehensible. We get frustrated with the victims, baffled by their seemingly illogical decisions. “Why doesn’t she just leave?” we ask. “Why does she keep going back to the abuser? I just don’t get it!”
Right you are, you don’t get it. Neither do I nor anybody else who hasn’t been a victim of domestic abuse. People who grow up in abusive environments only know the kind of reality where one partner is an abuser and another one is a victim. Even if they manage to escape from their abusive relationships later in life, the kind of anxiety they experience outside of the familiar pattern, keeps driving them back into abuse.
A habitual victim of abuse spends his or her life awaiting beatings. An expectation of horrors, as we all know, is often more difficult to deal with than horrors themselves. In the relationships with their abusers, all three women I described above know when and how the abuse will happen. In their worldview that was defined by patterns of abuse since the beginning of their lives, this is better than a situation when violence can be done to you at any time and you are not equipped to predict or anticipate it. They go back to their abusers because they are familiar with them. For such women, the choice is not between being and not being abused, being and not being terrified. The only choice they have is between being abused in predictable ways or awaiting in horror violence that can happen at any time.
And this is a true tragedy.
Clarissa's Blog 
The only choice they have is between being abused in predictable ways or awaiting in horror violence that can happen at any time.
I’ve never heard this idea despite reading good posts about the topic. Do you mean that a person may understand on an intellectual level that the new partner cherishes her & won’t be violent, but that in subconsciousness the new situation is “translated” as more dangerous one? If so, psychoanalysis is needed after leaving to prevent the return.
Have you heard any abused woman say it or did you have the thought yourself?
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If an abused person can verbalize this tension, they will be able to leave the abuser. It’s precisely the subconscious nature of this reaction that makes it so difficult to leave.
People who grow up in abusive homes end up either abusing others or being abused. Both reactions are a response to the horrible anxiety non-abusive situations produce in them for the reasons I described. And, of course, as usual, this is my clumsy rendering of a psychoanalytical approach to the subject. 🙂
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Quite so. I’m horrified at what your aunts are going through and have gone through, but not really surprised. Just last month a woman, whom my parents had spent time, money and other resources on to establish her away from her abusive husband *and* abusive parents, went back to her parents, and have started “conversations” with her husband as Phase I of getting back together.
I don’t understand this, just as she doesn’t understand walking away and staying away. In some way, terror has become her idea of normal. Or maybe it hasn’t. I don’t know, I don’t think I ever *could* know. And I thank god for that mercy.
I wondered whether you read read my piece on the subject: http://priyankanandy.com/2011/10/03/for-losers/
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That was a great post. If only things were as easy to explain as “oh, she has no will-power” and “oh, she is just too patriarchal.” The women I talk about here are very very strong and anything but sad, silent, wilted wallflowers. Neither are any of the three disempowered financially. Actually, all three have always supported the drunken abusers financially. Even during the times when they were divorced or separated.
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That is a horrifying and all-too familiar story to me, my mother went through the same thing when she had her new boyfriend move in after my father died. He’s a horrid, abusive, alcoholic, spendthrift (with her money) manipulative monster, but between him and the uncertainty of being “alone”, she’ll always go back to him, no matter what. You articulated what I always tried to explain about her perfectly.
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Most of the cases mentioned above seem to involve women that were used to having a partner. Is a large part of it that nobody really wants to be alone? or do these women feel like they have failed in life if they have no partner? Perhaps finding a suitable replacement partner would help?
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The only “suitable” partner in such cases will be another abuser. 😦
I’m talking here about women in their fifties and sixties. This is way too late for any stigma of being alone.
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I grew up in an alcoholic/abusive home. As a child, I was terrified by my father’s tendency to physically abuse. Actually, when he was intoxicated, he was more likely to be “nice.” And his abuse was not confined to my mother. My mother stayed with him for about 18 years. She finally left him (and us 4 boys) with barely a shred of her soul and sanity left. Prior to her leaving, my father used to look me in the eye and say, “If your mother ever leaves me, I will make your life a living hell.” I guess it made him feel better, or something. A few months after my mom left my dad, he threw me out. I didn’t argue with him at all…I just left. Within seven years of leaving my father’s home, I married an abusive woman.
I guess what I want to share is this: I think it is a waste of time speculating about “subconscious activity.” People stay in abusive relationships for several reasons, I think: First, negative bonds can be very powerful…even more powerful than positive ones. It is generally true that women tend to try to “fix” their “broken” partner. It’s a lifelong project that almost never works out for either partner. Secondly, as unpleasant as suffering abuse is, it activates the “fight or flight” response, which releases adrenalin, dopamine, etc. into the bloodstream. This can be highly addictive, as any extreme sport enthusiast, or jogger can attest to.
I’m going to break my own rule and speculate about the heart of man: On some level, and there are so many levels that are affected in an abusive relationship, the “victim” may feel like they deserve to be mistreated. This is especially the case if they have been abused in the past. I think there is a part of us that thinks we need to fix that which was broken in our previous relationships. We may even set ourselves up in an attempt to re-create our earlier situation. I thank God that I am no longer in an abusive relationship. But I am even more grateful that I never abused my 2 adult children as they were growing up. Although, to be honest, for just about their entire childhoods, when I was disobeyed or disrespected, my first instinct was usually to spank them. Many times, I remember feeling as if I was trying to hold back a locomotive, all by myself, while resisting this tendency to abuse. I firmly believe that, if I had not invited God into my life, this would have been a completely different story.
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” On some level, and there are so many levels that are affected in an abusive relationship, the “victim” may feel like they deserve to be mistreated.”
-This is very true.
‘It is generally true that women tend to try to “fix” their “broken” partner. It’s a lifelong project that almost never works out for either partner.”
-This is also absolutely true.
“Secondly, as unpleasant as suffering abuse is, it activates the “fight or flight” response, which releases adrenalin, dopamine, etc. into the bloodstream. This can be highly addictive, as any extreme sport enthusiast, or jogger can attest to.”
-These are all brilliant insights.
‘ I firmly believe that, if I had not invited God into my life, this would have been a completely different story.”
-Religion is, indeed, one of the most powerful ways to maintain psychological health. Good for you, Paul Tiderman! I’m sorry you’ve had these horrible experiences but they surely allowed you to have powerful insights into the issue.
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The reason I didn’t leave my abusive relationship forthwith was that I felt responsible for this person. He so fell apart (or so well feigned it) when I first left that I went back out of guilt over causing this much pain. I had to stay 2 more years so as to become irritated enough not to care what effect my leaving might have.
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I really know the feeling. I didn’t leave my ex-husband (who was emotionally abusive) when I should have precisely because I believed his lies about how he was completely depressed and suicidal. Then, I discovered none of it was true and was just something he faked to make me stay. So I know where you are coming from.
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I have always had a hard time determining the difference between emotional abuse and just meanness. How can you tell the difference?
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In my case, it wasn’t about isolated instances of meanness (which I don’t find acceptable anyways) but, rather, a concerted campaign of making my life miserable. I was still very innocent and naive, so it took me a while to catch on.
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Yes – it’s the concerted campaign. Speaking sharply, I can do it, and I can feel violent doing it, but the concerted campaign is the key. My mother does it — it is as though she spent her life in a war room figuring out how to next move her armies to cause the most destruction. My ex (who is like my mother) does the same. They start with one problem, then add another; it’s totally Machiavellian. Here’s a useful site in case anyone landed here looking for info:
http://www.youarenotcrazy.com/
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Exactly. And, of course, people who know us well can strategize and make the campaign hit precisely the most sensitive spots. Which is what makes it so much more difficult to defend oneself than when I stranger is getting abusive.
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Gosh, I wonder if my mother and ex are faking it? My theory up to now was that it is true, but they like it. Maybe it’s totally fake. They both assume everyone else is faking both good and bad things, so… !!!
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Women are turned on by violence. Sad but true.
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Why am I suddenly getting so many sick comments on the blog? What is it, autumnal avitaminosis?
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It’s an emotional subject so you’re going to get emotional responses. especially from single men who wonder why we have to sleep alone every night while some abusive jerk has his every need met.
Simply because I want to hunt down and kill abusive men and the women who love them, and because I have violent or murderous feelings, that doesn’t mean that I’m completely incapable of having feelings of love. Nor does it necessarily mean that I’m “just as bad as the abuser”, because see I haven’t actually hurt anyone yet. I might have violent feelings but I hold back on those tendencies because I’m not a brainless animal.
And also, I realize that hunting down and killing people in that manner would be wrong. But people are a mixture of love and hate not just one or the other. Deep within me is a desire to be a part of a loving relationship. We all have abusive personalities to some degree, mine just happens to manifest as a desire to hunt down and kill abusive men and the women who love them. Doesn’t mean I’m actually going to do that. I feel both love and hatred at different times and in different situations, just like anybody else.
Maybe I am equal to the abuser, but then so does everybody have abusive qualities to them not just me so don’t blame me.
Maybe you’re getting these aggressive comments because people feel as if niceness is punished in society, so we say mean things to make up for past niceness which we feel punished for.
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Another explanation (in Russian):
http://gutta-honey.livejournal.com/219704.html
Have you ever written how to motivate yourself? To exit mild depression, or even not depression, but a state of listlessness?
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Lack of energy is usually evidence that something is eating it up. Normally, the biggest sources of energy-sapping are 1) anxiety and b) guilt.
As for motivation, I have a completely broken-down mechanism of motivation, so I’m still in the process of trying to repair it.
The post you quoted is not the kind of approach I like. All of this is solvable precisely by the methods the author dismisses.
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Why don’t they choose to be alone instead of in a relationship? After all, one can’t be “awaiting in horror violence that can happen at any time”, if there is no life partner.
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“Why don’t they choose to be alone instead of in a relationship?”
– Many people find being alone terrifying to the point where they get panic attacks and prefer to be with absolutely anybody that alone. I had a friend who physically couldn’t spend the night alone, so she would go out and pick up any men – even just homeless guys hanging around – and bring them home. Not for sex (although they did expect it) but not to remain alone in bed. The reason was that when she was growing up, being on her own was not a skill anybody cared to teach her. It is one of the crucial skills any child needs to learn but her parents never cared to teach it, and here is the result. 😦
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Picking up homeless guys and having sex with them in order not to sleep alone is not normal. I doubt it was because of not being taught “a skill”. May be she had problems in her family life that influenced her thus, I don’t know.
How is that skill taught anyway? Before school I stayed at home with grandma, though we weren’t always in the same room, is it being taught this skill or not? I am 100% sure I wouldn’t pick homeless guys though.
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“Picking up homeless guys and having sex with them in order not to sleep alone is not normal. I doubt it was because of not being taught “a skill”.”
– This is, indeed, one of the most crucial life skills that parents teach to their children. Who do you think all those students are who can’t complete an assignment and always need to be entertained? They are people who were not taught to entertain themselves in childhood. My friend’s case is, of course, extreme but I see milder cases of the same issue everywhere.
“How is that skill taught anyway?”
– By letting kids be alone from an early age. They usually indicate the need to be left alone for a while very visibly, even in infancy. It simply has to be respected. They need to learn to play on their own, sleep on their own, entertain themselves.
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And I forgot to mention: those women had children, they wouldn’t stay alone in the flat anyway. She has kids, not alone any longer and can dump the abuser to protect children.
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“And I forgot to mention: those women had children, they wouldn’t stay alone in the flat anyway. She has kids, not alone any longer and can dump the abuser to protect children.”
– Many people don’t see children as separate human beings. I have heard women who had children say many times that being alone and feeling lonely was the main problem they had after a divorce.
“She has kids, not alone any longer and can dump the abuser to protect children.”
– If only this was a guiding consideration for people!!!
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Intersting post, but in a subsequent post, you could talk about sexual preferences.
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