Woman stands up to her SC Husband

[Shironu-Akaineko]

to Tollbaby and Shironu-Akaineko. I'm glad that both of you have moved on after having had such creeps for dads. Good for you for becoming so strong and independent!!

I got no merit, I was 2 at the time. Mom got rid of him BEFORE he would go after me.

[BookstoreEscapee]

There's also the fact that the most dangerous time for an abused woman is when they try to leave. That's when dear hubby gets desperate and is most likely to seriously injure or kill the wife. I thankfully have never been in such a situation but I can understand how you can get caught up in it. It starts out all roses and sunshine, and the abuse worms it's way in slowly and subtly, and then she doesn't know how to get out.

[sportsmom]

She threw an "unbreakable" ashtray to his head which he dodged. It hit the wall and broke. So much for unbreakable. Here's my favorite part.

That reminds me of what a friend's mom did to her dad one night. He came sneaking in after he had been out drinking and snuck up on her while she was washing dishes. Unfortunately for him she was washing a cast iron skillet at the time. She knocked his ass out and left him laying on the kitchen floor.

Not too long before this incident her brothers sent her and her sisters (she's the younest of 7) down the street to various friend's houses and then took their dad into the garage to let him know exactly what they thought of him hitting their mother. He didn't do it again after their little "talk." I guess the threat of your 4 large teenage and early 20's sons is a good deterent.

[FormerCallingCardRep]

That is why when I left my abusive ex that I got a friend that was an ex-green beret sleep on my couch for a few weeks.

[ArenaBoy]

Seeing as many of my friends are females, I have been asked to be that friend who makes sure the psycho ex stays away. It could be the fact that I am 6'2 and don't take crap from anybody, it could be the fact that I was in martial arts for 6 years, or it could be the fact that I own a katana. Either way, I will happily help a friend in need but that is because idiots will be idiots and will never get the hint.

[powerboy]

nice guy right here, but it's beyond me to how some women stand those assholes. really....

Same Here, I truly do not understand that

[Arachne]

Same Here, I truly do not understand that

*deep breath* Okay, as someone who is not stupid (I hope!) but who has ended up in a lot of emotionally abusive friendships and relationships, here's what it comes down to. Mind you, I've never been physically abused, and that would certainly be the line for me, but I've talked to women who were, and they tell me that the same sorts of things are running through their minds.

First of all, my mother had some emotional problems stemming from a very, very difficult childhood -- including, surprise, surprise, emotional abuse from her mother -- and took them out on me. She didn't do it out of malice, but that didn't make the things she did right. Like many abusers, she was "hot and cold", sometimes lavishing me with affection and sometimes withdrawing quickly and suddenly without explanation, and lashing out if I sought her attention. I came to internalize the treatment, to the point where I started feeling like something was wrong if people were being nice to me. I actually courted the teasing in school (not on purpose, but looking back, I did) and until the teasing got to be more than that, it didn't bother me because that's what I was comfortable with.

So when I got older, I sought out friends who I was "comfortable with" and boyfriends who I was "comfortable with". There's a very substantial element of low self-esteem here -- a sense that you do not deserve, and cannot have better. It wasn't until some of the people who I trusted started to acknowledge that my mother's behavior had been out of line that things started to get better for me.

Even today, even knowing everything I do about myself, I have to be very careful about who I choose as friends, because I am drawn to the people who will use me, and if I'm not careful, I will excuse their bad behavior over and over -- "It's not her fault." "He doesn't mean to." "She just doesn't understand what she's doing." "Everyone has an off day". When I make those excuses, what the darker side of me is really saying is: 'Don't fault them for giving you what you deserve.'

I've told this story before, but after the latest in a very long string of "best friends" had completely broken my trust, I was ranting about it and rhetorically asked why the heck my friends always had to hurt me. Mr. Fly looked me in the eye and said: "You have to look at the common denominator." That really opened my eyes. I hadn't seen how I was so carefully selecting these people.

I suspect that all of these behaviors are more ingrained, harder to break, and harder to face the more traumatic the abuse is that a person tends to court. So while I do understand that a person's situation cannot change until they make the honest choice to change it, I also understand that making that choice is much easier said than done. Someone who's willing to let themselves be abused has a vastly different inner world than someone who's not.

(Sorry for the hyjack. Just wanted to clear up the 'what are they thinking?' question, in as much as my own experience can do so.)

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I don't mean to imply that abused women deserve or somehow stay voluntarily with abusers. I know that is not true, probably more often than not. I just feel that at some point, if she wants to get away, she's going to have to be the one to at least start the ball rolling.

The tragic part is that she might genuinely find that next to impossible.

[morgana]

The tragic part is that she might genuinely find that next to impossible.

How very true.

Arachne makes some very good points about the abused person's inner landscape, and Blas has it absolutely pegged: my ex-husband is a perfect example.

When I married Cliff, I believed I was getting a prince. He treated me like I was made of glass, said all the right things, blessed his good luck in getting someone who was so far above him, praised me to his friends . . .

I still can't pinpoint when the change occurred, but it took several years to become visible. I remeber the first five years of our marriage with extraordinary pain, not because he hurt me, but because they were bliss. We loved each other, we worked well together, we were happy.

By year ten, my nicknames were "slava", meaning slave, and "Ya old bat." He spent like a sailor, and yelled when I couldn't pay the bills. He never hit me, but if I confronted him, he would get right up close to me and "loom" . . . He was a foot taller than me, and a hundred pounds heavier. He never needed verbal threats.

And he was a master at turning anything I said against me. If I paid the bills before he could spend our paychecks, I was a tightwad who didn't want him to be happy. If he spent the money before I could pay the bills, I didn't know how to make a budget. When I didn't want to move to a cabin in the mountains with no plumbing and no jobs for either of us, I was stomping on his dreams. When I tried to make time to write, my dream, I was ignoring him, didn't I love him anymore?

And, RK, your own comment about brainwashing was truer than you can imagine. By the time he decided he didn't want to be married anymore, I wasn't trying to save the marriage because I still loved him. I didn't. I was trying to save the marriage because he had me firmly convinced I had no friends, that my family didn't really love me, that I had no talent or intelligence or wit or anything else, that if I lost him I would end up living in a ditch.

If you had told me the year before I married him that things would turn out this way, I would have laughed at you and told you, "Not me. I'm too strong for that."

Wow. This thread has really brought out some old hurts.

I think I'll go cry myself to sleep.

[ArenaBoy]

RK is right about the brainwashing thing however in some people the roots of people being in abusive relationships can go back quite a bit like Arachne mentioned. Someone once told me that most men end up marrying someone similiar to their mother, a woman with the same personality traits as their mother. I also think the same goes for females also, they end up being with someone with a personality that's similiar to their fathers. Abuse can also be seen as a sign of love and 100% of the time it's just abuse. As for the brainwashing aspect, all it takes is to make people feel worthless. As soon as you have them feeling that way you have them in your grasp. Abuse doesn't have to be physical either it can be mental. I knew a girl who dated a guy who always toyed with her mind. He wasn't physically imtimidating but the guy was a master at mind games. Fortunately my friend got out of that and is now happy with her life right now.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

While I have never been in that kind of abusive relationship (abusive friendships yeah, but I dont' count them) I can relate to the idea that after being told you are worthless for long enough you start to believe it. And I think a large number of people on this board can, too. And you might be suprised to realize in what way.

I'm talking about jobs where you are demeaned, undermined, talked down to, and otherwise treated as if you are worthless and incompetent.

I spent 5 years at Public television. The abuse was subtile. TV stations are hotbeds of gossip, backstabbing and game playing. State jobs are doubly so.

Now, imagine a state run television station.

The crew was subject to being considered useless, incompetent fuckups who didn't deserve even the pittance they were being paid. At the end of it, I remember sitting on my porch crying becaue I couldn't do anything else. I believed I had managed to reach middle age with absolutly no skills I felt utterly useless.

My husband put my resume together, and when I read over it, I was suprised at my own skills and talents, things I had forgotten or dismissed. I now have a job that pays three times what I made there. But I had to remember who I was.

Mental abuse is so sneaky, the way it gets in there and erodes you. It uses your own insecurities as weapons against you. You put up with it at first because you think it will get better. Then it become a bad habit. After some time, it wears you out so you are too tired to fight it. Then you start to belive it, and that's when you are really, really in trouble.

So while I am lucky enough to not know what it's like to be abused by someone you love, I do know how how these women (and men) might be trapped into a bad relationship.

So folks, I read stuff on here sometimes that makes my skin crawl. Don't let them abuse you. You can deal with the idiot customers if you aren't being abused by your job. If you are, find a new job, I beg you all. If you don't, you're going to come to the point where they have you believing what they want you to believe so they can keep you where they want you.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I just want to send BIG HUGS to everyone who shared their story, and everyone who has a story they didn't share, too. I know it's hard to do.

[Hobgoblin]

When I was in college, one of my jobs had an abuse councilor come in and talk to us all. the lady told us that 1 in 5 women and 1 in 7 men had been abuse in some way, and that the average physically-abused woman would go back to the man around 7 times. That's not getting hit seven times, that's breaking up and getting back together seven times.

My girlfriend now was in a really bad relationship a year ago. I still have to make sure that she knows I don't think she is worthless. I'm an EXTREMELY sarcastic person, and I have to be very careful about what I say. It can make it exhausting, but she's totally worth it.

The long and short of it all is that abusive men (and women) are shit. They deserve a special ring of Dante's hell (Inferno rocks) just for themselves. The destruction of innocence and trust that is visited on an abused person is completely unacceptable.

I'd keep ranting, but it only goes downhill from here. I should stop....

[ShortTemperHatesStupidity]

My step-dad is kinda like this guy... very controlling (or tries to be), verbally agressive (to say the least). My mom gets him back for being such an arse though...

She spends the money. You should see the 20 year anniversary (and no, I don't understand how she stayed with this fuckface for so long) gift she bought for herself. A bezzel diamond set in platinum. The "plain" band is gorgeous but the rock she has on the other one is HUGE. He about shit himself when he finally saw it (4 months later). I fell out laughing.

[Jester]

Another problem with abuse is that it often doesn't just affect the people abused.

I am lucky. My mom and father were great, and since my father passed away, my stepfather has been awesome. I consider myself lucky to have my parents. (Yes, my older sister is an evil witch, but since I have very little dealings with her, I don't really consider the relationship abusive per se.)

I also consider myself a nice, sweet, pretty good guy. (Obnoxious, sarcastic, smartass? Sure. But hey, we can't all be Mr. Rogers.) And there have been times when I get involved with women who have low self-esteems or egos, sometimes from abuse, sometimes not. And no matter how many times I may tell them how wonderful they are, they don't believe it, either because a prior beau convinced them otherwise, abusive parents crushed their ego, or for whatever reason they no longer see themselves the way the rest of the world does. It is an effort sometimes. NOT that I mind, mind you. I am not complaining at all, nor whining, or asking for anyone's pity or sympathy. If someone really is worth it, then they are worth it, with all their qualities AND all their faults.

My point, I guess, is that even when the abused people get out of their abusive relationships, they are still somewhat constrained by the abuse. Even though it may be over in reality, it may not be over in their minds. The human mind and psyche are strange things, and I don't pretend to understand them all that well. (Hell, I'm a guy--how bright can I be?) But it is important for us to remember that just because a person escapes an abusive relationship, they may still be shackled by the abuse. And if we are friends or significant others of said people, it is our job to help them see the light and the truth of themselves, and not what they have been convinced to see in the past.

I hope all of this has made sense. I know y'all aren't used to my being so serious, but this was something I felt I had to say.

Now, I must be off to lay poolside, quaff beers, and be completely and totally irresponsible. I am on vacation, and I do have a reputation to live down to.