You think you are being verbally abused by your partner. In fact, you suspect that you are in an impossible situation, living with a partner who doesn’t honor you, wants to change you, or at least wants always to be in charge at your expense.

It’s hard to admit it. It’s terrible to give up the image you once had of your guy as a loving, strong, smart and caring mate. But it’s been a long time since you saw him that way. Instead, you find yourself always braced for the next verbal assault; the next incident where you are found lacking in some way or to blame for things being the way they are. You feel ashamed and sad and angry but stuck. It’s hard to believe it. You don’t understand what happened. You even sometimes think it is all your fault.

Why do women stay with men who put them down? The reasons are varied and complicated.

It’s not uncommon for partners to be completely taken by surprise. Often, people who abuse do nothing of the sort while dating. If the person in pursuit makes any negative comment, it is quickly explained away. There are apologies and promises. He may even cry. Once married, the situation turns. Now that he has her, he doesn’t feel the need to keep himself in check. Afraid that she will in any way have the upper hand in any discussion, he begins a campaign to keep her off balance. The wife is mystified. She wonders what she did wrong. Where did the fun guy she married go? He tells her it’s all her fault. If he is artful about it, she wonders if he is right and works overtime to fix it – not understanding that he doesn’t have any intention of fixing it.

Other women think they can see the insecurity inside the person who is always asserting control. She tries to help him. She agrees with him that life has been unfair to him. She sides with him against the world, not understanding that in his eyes the world includes her. When he turns on her, she tries to be understanding and to explain the situation to him. Once in a while, he even accepts her help, which gives her the false impression that things are changing. What she doesn’t understand is that his insecurity is bigger than his love for her. It is bigger than rational thought. It is bigger than his desire to have a mutual, equal partnership.

Still other partners think the problem is one of communication. Couples therapists and counselors will tell you that the most frequent presenting problem is “we can’t communicate.” Often enough, what that means is that one of the partners doesn’t really want to communicate if communication means sharing decision-making and power. From his point of view, she stubbornly won’t understand when he is being perfectly clear that he’s the one in charge. She is sure that the therapist will help him recognize that he needs to hear another point of view. After all, he is a rational person, right? She thinks he wants the relationship to succeed as much as she does. She doesn’t get it that a need for control isn’t rational and, yes, he wants the relationship to succeed, but only on his terms.

Other women are too scared, insecure, embarrassed, or dependent to leave. Her confidence is shot. Over time, she’s been worn down and worn out. She may have given up trying to have friends since he always objects to her spending any time with them. She may have lost any say about the finances, even if she is making the bulk of the money. She is so convinced of her own powerlessness, she doesn’t think she can make it on her own or that she can find a better match. Feeling unlovable, worthless and helpless, she sinks into a low-grade, or not so low-grade, depression that keeps her stuck.

What to Do if You Are Being Verbally Abused

After soul-searching, you admit it. You are in a relationship that is making you feel bad about yourself. You don’t want to give up on it but you also can’t stand the idea of spending the rest of your life fearing that you’ll be torn down whenever you begin to feel good about yourself or whenever your opinion differs from that of your spouse. You know it isn’t good for you. Just as important, you know that it isn’t good for your kids to grow up believing this is the way people who love each other treat each other.

7 Reasonable Responses to Unreasonable Verbal Abuse

1. Give up on the idea of trying to change him. You can’t. There are important but mistaken reasons why he is the way he is. It may be grounded in his own upbringing, his insecurities or in a narcissistic personality disorder. You can’t do his therapeutic work for him. But – if he wants to change himself, there’s hope. Unless he has a history of being violent, you could ask him to get into some therapy before your relationship is beyond retrieval.
2. Never match his verbal abuse with that of your own. It won’t teach him a thing. It will only confirm in his mind that you are the irrational one. Instead, take the high road. Calmly tell him that you are sorry he feels that way about you but that you don’t share his opinion. Tell him that you love him too much to put him down.
3. Set limits. If your partner calls you names, treats you with disrespect and sarcasm, or loses it when you act only like the equal person you are, calmly tell him you expect to be treated the way he would treat someone he values, admires and respects. If he keeps it up, tell him that you will leave the conversation if he doesn’t stop. If he doesn’t stop, calmly leave the room, telling him you are giving him space to think about his behavior; you’ll be back in an hour or so. (Caution: Don’t do this if he is likely to escalate. See No. 7.)
4. People who need to control their partners often try to prevent them from having a life separate from the couple. You can’t leave if you have nowhere to go. Maintain your own support system. Make sure you spend time with your friends and stay in touch with family members you love. Friends can remind you that you are a valuable person when you start to feel like your partner is right that you aren’t.
5. If you think things won’t improve or will only get worse, start a savings account for yourself. Put enough money away that you always feel it is a choice whether or not you stay. Have at least enough for a bus ticket to your family or a friend’s. Better yet, save enough to pay rent for a few months so you never have to feel trapped.
6. Get counseling if you think your relationship is salvageable. If you’ve tried your best but you and your partner haven’t been able to forge a loving, mutually supportive relationship, find a couples therapist to help you. If your partner won’t go because of his pride, stubbornness, or his conviction that you are the only one who needs “fixing,” go yourself. You need the support. Your counselor may be able to help you identify ways to make counseling a little less threatening to your partner so he might join you.
7. If your partner has escalated from verbal to physical violence – leave. There are domestic abuse programs in almost every city in the U.S. Counselors there can help you figure out where to go and what to do. If you are in a rural area of the U.S. or in a country without such help, go online. Make sure you use a computer your partner can’t use. Some people become violent when they see that their partners have tried to reach out for some help. In the U.S., you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. For more information about their services, click on thehotline.org

Verbal abuse takes many forms: from loud rants to quiet comments; from obvious put-downs to not-so-obvious remarks that undermine the partner. What all the methods have in common is the need to control, to be superior, to avoid taking personal responsibility, and to mask or deny failures.

The myth in Hank’s and Mary’s relationship is that he is much, much smarter than she is. She does admire him, but not as much as he admires himself. He trumps anything she says with a stronger, maybe louder opinion. He calls her ideas naïve or ill-informed or even idiotic. Mary thinks he may be right. Since marrying Hank 3 years ago, her self-confidence has plummeted.

Jake, on the other hand, hides his need for control in his relationship with Marilyn under sarcasm, jokes and puns. “Why,” he says, “doesn’t Marilyn understand I’m just joking?” Why? Because she is the object of those sarcastic remarks, “jokes” and puns. He both publicly and privately keeps her off-balance by joking about her insights, her goals, and the things she cares most about. She has come to question her judgment about her ideas and about him. Lots of people think he’s funny. Maybe, she thinks, he doesn’t mean it. Maybe, she tells herself, she needs to have a better sense of humor.

Frank can’t stand to be seen as responsible for any failure. When he makes a mistake, his mantra is “I may be wrong but you are wrong-er.” If his wife says he has hurt her feelings, he claims not to remember having said what he said or having done what he did. He tells her she is “too sensitive.” He whines about being a scapegoat for other people’s problems. He doesn’t seem to get that he is the perpetrator, not the victim.

Al isn’t subtle. His wife and kids never know what to expect when he comes home. Will loving, caring Al be at the door with treats for the kids and something nice for his wife? Or will the Al who flies into rages, who threatens them with physical abuse and swears and calls them names show up? The whole household walks on eggshells. Even when loving-Al is around, things can change in an instant if he is the least bit frustrated. Last week when his 5-year-old spilled milk at the dinner table, he yelled at her for an hour. When his wife tried to intervene, he backhanded her. Everyone got real quiet. Then – the storm blew over and Al left for the rest of the evening.

If you recognize yourself in any of the above scenarios, you are being verbally abused. Make no mistake: Although verbal abuse doesn’t leave visible scars, it does do damage. The victims’ self-esteem is eroded. Children who watch one parent being put down and diminished by the other develop a skewed and sad view of how relationships are supposed to be.

6 Signs You Are Being Verbally Abused

1. Like Mary, you feel you just can’t win. No matter how carefully or kindly you try to work out a problem, your partner says things that make you feel like you’re in the wrong.
2. Your self-esteem and self-confidence are shot. Your partner isn’t your greatest fan but your greatest critic. He often tells you that his comments are “for your own good.”
3. When you say he has hurt your feelings your partner, like Frank in the scene above, tells you that you are too sensitive. When you point out that he has said something inappropriate or hurtful, he accuses you of trying to make him look bad. You notice that he rarely takes responsibility for his part of a problem. Somehow he manages to convince himself and even you that anything that goes wrong is your fault.
4. You often are the brunt of jokes that make you feel bad. The guy who is fun and fun-loving outside the family unleashes a more vicious or undermining humor inside. Other people don’t believe you that the guy they know is so different from what you experience. Like Marilyn, you find yourself constantly questioning yourself.
5. You have to walk on eggshells at home. Your home isn’t a sanctuary for you and your kids. It is the place where you are most afraid and embarrassed. You and the kids stay away as much as you can. When you are there with your partner, you all do everything you can to make sure nothing happens that could set him off.
6. If you’re not very careful, the verbal abuse escalates to physical altercations. Even if you are very careful, what starts with words can end up with physical aggression toward you or destroying things, especially things you value.

Whoever made up that rhyme about “sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me” was just plain wrong! Words do hurt. They can break a person on the inside just as surely as a whack with a stick bruises the outside. People who are subjected to verbal abuse suffer. People who are subjected to it over time can get so used to it that they lose their sense of themselves as people worth loving. If you see yourself in any of these stories, know you are not alone. There are things you can do. Part II of this article will discuss them.

Richard has reluctantly come to treatment because his wife took out a restraining order after their last fight. He admits he lost control. He acknowledges that maybe he said things he shouldn’t have. But he also thinks she shouldn’t have done or said what she did. “I can’t help getting mad when she jerks my chain. I can’t let her get away with that!” he says.

What Richard doesn’t yet understand is this: Temper isn’t something you lose. It’s something you decide to throw away.

Raging, shouting, name-calling, throwing things and threatening harm is all a big bluff. It’s the human equivalent of animal behavior. From the puffer fish that puffs itself up to twice its size to look more intimidating to the lion on the veldt who shakes his mane and roars, creatures who feel threatened posture and threaten in order to protect themselves and their turf. The display often is enough to get the predator or interloper to back off. If not, the fight — or flight — is on.

People who rage are the same. Feeling a threat, they posture. They throw away all mature controls and rant and rage like an out-of-control 2-year-old. It’s impressive. It’s scary. It gets folks around them to walk around on eggshells. Others often let them “win” just to get away.

But are they happy? Usually not. When I talk to the Richards of the world, they usually just want things to go right. They want respect. They want their kids and their partners to give them the authority they think they deserve. Sadly, their tactics backfire. Not knowing what might set him off, kids, partners, coworkers and friends distance and leave him more and more alone.

Helping someone like Richard with “anger management” requires more than helping him learn how to express his angry feelings appropriately. Giving him practical skills alone assumes more control than he can probably hold on to. To be able to integrate those skills into his self-image, he needs to reconsider some of his basic assumptions about life and his place in it.

7 Mistaken Assumptions Angry People Often Make

1. They can’t help it. Angry people have lots of excuses. Women will blame their PMS. Both sexes will blame their stress, their exhaustion, or their worries. Never mind that other people who have PMS or who are stressed, tired, or worried don’t pop off at the world. Angry people don’t yet understand that they are actually giving themselves permission to rant. In that sense, they are very much in control.
2. The only way to express anger is to explode. People who rage believe that anger is like the buildup of steam in an overheated steam engine. They think they need to blow off the steam in order to be OK. In fact, raging tends only to produce more of the same.
3. Frustration is intolerable. Angry people can’t sit with frustration, anxiety or fear. To them, such feelings are a signal that they are being challenged. When life doesn’t go their way, when someone doesn’t see things as they do, when their best-laid plans get interrupted or they make a mistake, they simply can’t tolerate it. To them, it’s better to blow than to be left with those feelings. They don’t get it that frustration is a normal part of everyone’s life and that it is often the source of creativity and inspiration.
4. It’s more important to win than to be right. Chronically angry people often have the idea that their status is at stake when there is conflict. When questioned, they take it overly personally. If they are losing an argument, they experience a loss of self-esteem. At that moment, they need to assert their authority, even if they are wrong. When it is certain that they are wrong, they will find a way to prove that the other person is more wrong. For mature people, self-esteem is grounded in being able to put ego aside in order to find the best solution.
5. “Respect” means that people do things their way. When another driver tailgates, when a partner refuses to go along with a plan, when a kid doesn’t jump when told to do something, they feel disrespected. To them, disrespect is intolerable. Making a lot of noise and threatening is their way of reasserting their right to “respect” by others. Sadly, when the basis of “respect” is fear, it takes a toll on love and caring.
6. The way to make things right is to fight. Some angry people have learned at the feet of a master. Having grown up with parents who fight, it is their “normal.” They haven’t a clue how to negotiate differences or manage conflict except by escalating. Then they become very much like the parent they loathed and feared when they were kids.
7. Other people should understand that they didn’t mean what they did or said when they were angry. Angry people feel that anger entitles them to let loose. It’s up to other people not to take seriously hurtful things they say or do. After all, they say, they were just angry. They don’t get it that other people are legitimately hurt, embarrassed, humiliated, or afraid.

Helping my patient Richard means helping him identify which of these assumptions are driving his temper tantrums. Some or all may apply. He may even have a few that are more uniquely his own. Teaching him rules for anger management, although important, isn’t enough to have long-term impact. Changing his assumptions will enable him to use such skills with conviction and confidence.

We hear a lot about the importance of male role models in a boy’s life. It is indeed important. But what’s often missing from the conversation is the importance of fathers in a daughter’s life as well. As we come up on the annual celebration of fathers in America, let’s consider the psychology of father-daughter relationships.

Children really do learn what they live. Not having the perspective of older people, they consider whatever their family is like as their “normal.” From infancy, girls draw conclusions about what men are like from the men in their life. If there is a father (or a male in her life who takes a father role), that man becomes her guidepost for what to expect of men and what to expect of men’s attitude toward women. His relationship to her mother or his significant other is her template for what her relationship with a man will be when she grows up.

Those early learnings are powerful. Regardless of what happens as a teen and adult, a girl who identifies her gender as female has already created a set of assumptions of what that means for her to be a woman by the time she is 4 or 5 years old. At each stage of her development, she is watching and learning from the women — and men — around her to figure out how to be successful as a woman and how to be in a relationship with a man. When that learning is positive and helpful for negotiating the world, a daughter will grow up to be at ease in her own skin and in her sexuality. When it is conflicted or creates expectations that are demeaning or less than useful for cooperating with others, her relationship with herself, with other women, and with men will be troubled.

What all this means for a father or father figure is that he counts. He counts a lot. Regardless of whether he wants the responsibility, a father’s relationship to the world and to women sets down a template that will be played out for another generation. Men who take their job as a father of a daughter seriously are men who know the importance of the following 10 basic principles:

1. Love her mother. Theodore M. Hesburgh, a former president of Notre Dame University, is quoted as saying that this is the most important thing a man can do. It’s true. To Hesburgh’s idea, I would add this: If you can’t love her mother, find something to respect and admire in her anyway. With a high divorce rate and equally high never-married-parent rate, it’s important to acknowledge that not all parents are bound by love. But however a father feels emotionally about a girl’s mom, it is in his and the child’s best interests for him to treat the mother with respect and consideration, no matter what. Even if the mother doesn’t return the favor, he can live an honorable life that shows his daughters that a man takes the high road when it comes to his respect for women and his responsibilities to his children.

2. Attach to your daughters. Let them attach to you. Girls with a solid sense of self are often their daddy’s buddy at least for awhile when growing up. Spend regular quality time with her. Don’t be afraid to take her out for a hike or for a game of catch or a round of the basketball game Horse (or Pig, or whatever variant you play). Girls are just as likely to like to do such things with their dad as a boy is. Let her know you love her with the words and hugs that are appropriate for her age. Whatever your relationship with her mother, your relationship with your daughter is critically important.

3. Attach with safety. In America, national surveys of adults find that nine to 28 percent of women say they experienced some type of sexual abuse or assault in childhood. The best preventative measure is to teach your daughter about privacy, modesty, and appropriate boundaries. Fathers model where the lines are between appropriate affection and inappropriate touch.

4. Celebrate her mind. Read to your little girl. Be interested in what she is learning in school. Pay attention to her interests and be honestly curious to learn what she knows about them. Share interesting things about your work and your hobbies. Research shows that the most successful women have generally had fathers who were interested in their intellect and their academics.

5. Go to her events. You may find you have real interest in girls’ basketball or musical theatre when it’s your daughter on the team or in the show. If you don’t, give yourself a pep talk and go anyway. She needs you there as a witness to her talents, her efforts, and her achievements.

6. Tell her she’s pretty. Admire her style. We live in a culture where girls are often insecure about their looks. A dad’s compliments for how she moves on a sports field, dresses for school, or combs her hair aren’t sexist when they’re sincere and not sexual. (A dad would – and should – do the same for his son.) Genuine statements of approval are one of the building blocks of her self-esteem.

7. Show her that real men can negotiate differences with women. When you and your significant other or a female relative disagrees, or if you disagree with her, let your daughter see you work through the conflict in a calm and reasonable way. She is less likely to fall for a bully if she knows that men and women can deal with differences respectfully.

8. Treat all adult women the way you want your daughter to be treated someday. Take care with what you say about women you work with, the women in your family, and even the woman driving the car in the next lane. Don’t indulge in mother-in-law or other sexist jokes. Your daughter is listening. Your attitude about women is part of the attitude she is developing about herself.

9. Treat her the way you want her future partner to treat her. The way you interact with your daughter is what she becomes used to when relating to a man. Treat her with respect, dignity, caring, and affection and she will expect to be treated that way by a mate.

10. Be the kind of man you want your daughter to marry. Make no mistake; you are the model for manhood your daughter is likely to look for when she starts to date. If you want her to find a man who is faithful to his partner, who is honest and hardworking, who knows how to have fun, who uses money wisely and who doesn’t abuse people, drugs, or alcohol, then you need to be that kind of man. “Do as I say, not as I do” seldom works. Your daughter will believe what you do far more than what you say.

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, in the United States, 1.3 million women and 830,000 men are assaulted each year by people they believe love them. In a 2005 survey, the Centers for Disease Control found that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men are victims of domestic violence at some point.

It goes on in teen couples as well as in adult relationships. One study found that 1 in 5 high school girls reported being physically or sexually abused by a dating partner. Another study of teen dating behavior found that 3 out of 5 teens say they’ve had a boyfriend or girlfriend who made them feel bad or embarrassed about themselves.

Victims often don’t complain. Their partners may have instilled such fear in them that they don’t dare say anything. Or, they have become so inured to the manipulation and violence that they don’t recognize they are victims. Sadly, it is often only when someone has become seriously hurt or has an emotional breakdown that friends, family members, or professionals even realize what is going on.

Things are getting better. Since the 1994 passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), there has been increased awareness of the problem. More proactive measures are being taken to identify and help victims. It’s now common for medical professionals to ask people if anyone is hurting them as part of a routine physical as well as when someone is injured. School counselors, nurses, and teachers are becoming educated to the signs that a child is being traumatized or hurt and are taking steps to intervene. Mental health counselors are more sensitive to the issue and more sophisticated in encouraging their patients to talk about what they’d rather not talk about.

But we have a long way to go. In this year’s proclamation, President Obama noted that

“[... t]he ramifications of domestic violence are staggering. Young women are among the most vulnerable, suffering the highest rates of intimate partner violence. Exposure to domestic violence puts our young men and women in danger of long-term physical, psychological, and emotional harm. Children who experience domestic violence are at a higher risk for failure in school, emotional disorders, and substance abuse, and are more likely to perpetuate the cycle of violence themselves later in life.”

Often the abuser doesn’t understand that his or her behavior is in fact abusive. Raised in a family where abuse was business as usual, they don’t recognize their manipulative or overt efforts to control others as abnormal. Not having been brought up in a loving and secure family, they don’t know how to be secure and comfortable in their partner’s love.

When things go well, all is well. But when angered or threatened by real or imagined slights, they lose it – just as they watched the adults of the previous generation lose it. Some are then remorseful and apologetic. They mean well. They want to do better than was done to them. But they can’t hold onto their good intentions when upset. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much to upset them.

The Cycle of Violence

The victims are on the other side of this interaction. Sometimes the buildup of psychological and verbal abuse is subtle and gradual. Over time, the person they love undermines their self-esteem and makes them feel more and more dependent. The victim really doesn’t see it coming.

In other cases, the victim comes from a long history of childhood victimization. Like most people, she or he was drawn to the familiar when drawn to a mate. For them, being yelled at, put down, coerced into sex or taken advantage of is just more of the same.

This is what is meant by the “cycle of violence.” With somewhere between 3.3 and 10 million children witnessing some form of domestic violence every year, it’s understandable that many of those kids learn to accept abuse as normal.” The pattern of abuser/victim is thus bumped from generation to generation. Unless someone in the family gets angry enough or desperate enough to call in help, or unless someone outside the family intervenes, the behaviors continue to the detriment of the individuals involved and to society as a whole. Violence in families is linked to high rates of substance abuse and addictions, mental illness, suicides, and sexual acting out as well as criminal behaviors.

The cycle of violence can be stopped.

The cycle of violence can be stopped. Victims can be helped to find the strength to seek and accept protection, advice, and practical help from their local shelters and mental health clinics. Abusers can learn how to appropriately express anger and how to be loving partners by attending programs for partners against violence or therapy. Couples can learn how to be loving and supportive partners and parents through couples counseling and parent education classes. And children of abusive relationships can be healed when their parents get themselves and the children into treatment.

When domestic violence is known in an extended family or in a network of friends, there is no such thing as being an innocent bystander. To know about abuse and do nothing is to enable and support it. Family, friends, and professionals who are concerned about a family can and should help them face the issues and get the help they need.

Anyone can become a member of the purple ribbon campaign to help stop the cycle of family violence. To learn how to increase awareness in your community, contact the international organization by clicking here. Even wearing a purple ribbon or putting one on your car helps stop the silence that surrounds domestic violence and lends support to the millions of people who are grappling with the problem.

Resources

Victims who need help and support to stay safe can call the national Resource Center on Domestic Violence at 800-537-2238 or visit their website.

S.A.F.E. concentrates on domestic violence against straight men, gay men, and lesbians.

Related Articles on Psych Central

The Physical and Emotional Injuries of Domestic Violence

The Common Pattern of Domestic Violence

Why Women Stay with Controlling Men

Signs of a Controlling Guy

Overcoming Obsessive Love is for the obsessive lover and his or her partner.  Broken into five parts, the book devotes its focus to explaining obsessive love and showing how each partner plays a role in the unhealthy cycles typically found in these relationships.  Although the obsessive love relationship is complex, Belton and Bailey attempt to address the various factors that play a role for each partner.  The book also has extra pieces of information throughout each chapter to assist:

• Definitions of terms that are relative to the topic
• Tips and ideas to develop a healthier outlook on love
• Warnings that signal an unhealthy lover or relationship
• Case studies relative to the chapter discussion
• Facts and statistics

In addition, each chapter ends with key points for the reader to focus on.

The first part of the book focuses on defining obsessive love.  Belton and Bailey break down the obsessive love relationship, describing how it develops, why it might develop, and relating it to social norms.  They also break apart myths typically associated with obsessive relationships, such as “all obsessive love relationships include physical violence.”

The second and third parts of the book address the obsessive lover and the partner of the obsessive lover respectively.  Each part provides a questionnaire at the beginning to help determine if the reader fits the profile of one of these partners.  After describing the typical traits of these characters, Overcoming Obsessive Love dives deeply into the behaviors that are associated to the role in the relationship.  For the obsessive lover, this could be self-punishment, anger, self-recriminations, or dysfunction in every day, such as missing work to check on the whereabouts of their partner.  The partner, though, could be participating in behavior that is enabling or contributing to their obsessive lover.  If the partner is codependent, the obsessive love may be helping them fill a need to take care of someone else.  On the other hand, the partner could be sending mixed signals to their obsessive lover, such as setting a boundary with their partner but then not holding up to it.  The third part goes on to give suggestions on how to break off the relationship, manage finances, and handle the situation if there are children involved.

Part 4 is where the book begins to bring all of the initial information together to really assist a couple in breaking out of their cycle of obsessive love.  It begins by focusing on the self-image of the partners, encouraging each to look at them deeply and address the issues that are encouraging the unhealthy cycle.  Belton and Bailey include a questionnaire for each partner: for the obsessive lover, it focuses on the self-image; for the partner, it focuses on accessing their strengths and weaknesses.  The chapter encourages the partners that they have the power to change their self-image and includes strategies, such as visualization, to do this.  Therapy and counseling for the individuals and the couple as a whole is encouraged as well. 

The next two chapters are devoted to the individuals, providing information to the obsessive lover on how to break the cycle of obsessive behaviors and assisting the partner with setting boundaries and making changes.  The last chapter is the meat of this part of the book, though.  In it, there are self-help exercises for both partners to assist them in creating a new self-image and growing out of the cycle built into the relationship.  The partners are encouraged to use logs and journals of their behavior in order to identify patterns, use positive speak to combat the negative thoughts that have become habit forming, and to lean on friends and family for support.  The chapter also encourages affirmation.  “Affirmations can help you cope with negative thoughts and fears.  You can say them silently or aloud.  The more you repeat affirmations, the more you believe them.”

Finally, the book ends with a focus on what to do if the relationship becomes dangerous, either through stalking or abuse.  It provides information on how to protect yourself from stalking, what to do if you are being stalked (i.e. filing a police report), and how to use the law to protect yourself.  It addresses the various types of abuse a partner may experience and describes how each of these will affect the partner.

Overcoming Obsessive Love addresses many, if not all, of the key points within an obsessive love relationship.  Having experienced such a relationship, I wish that I had this book handy.  Although it may be considered heavy on the technical aspect of relationships, Belton and Bailey are sure to create a focus on the emotional load that comes with being in the cycle of obsessive love.  It is easy to appreciate the intricacies within the book because the obsessive love relationship is certainly one of great complexity.

However, readers may find that the final part, which addresses a relationship turned dangerous, may not be enough.  It seems that if the authors felt the need to address a dangerous relationship separately in its own part of the book, would it not warrant more focus than a mere 50 pages?  In addition, the rest of the book is strong in hitting the relationship from two sides, both technically and emotionally.  The final part of the book, though, focuses much more on what to do and less so on the emotional drain that this may have on the partner experiencing the danger.  The authors also fail to address adequately the emotional fallout after finally ending a dangerous relationship.  It seems that this neglect may leave the reader feeling let down and unsure of how to continue if they are in such a relationship.  They may be left wondering how to pick up the pieces once their life has been torn down so far.

Overall, though, Overcoming Obsessive Love is a great resource for both parties involved in an obsessive love relationship.  The book discusses the background necessary to understand what has led to the obsessive love and the roles that each partner plays.  Providing the couple techniques for addressing their needs and issues within the relationship gives them a strong point from which to start healing and correcting the obsessive love cycle.

The Essential Guide to Overcoming Obsessive Love
By Monique Belton, PhD and Eileen Bailey
Alpha: June 7, 2011
Paperback, 320 pages
$16.95

“Oh, we’re getting a divorce. The baby is her thing, not mine. Doesn’t have anything to do with me,” he replied.

“I don’t understand,” I said to him. “Your child is going to need you whether or not you love his mom.”

“Look. I didn’t ask to be a father so it’s all on her,” he said as casually as if he were talking about the price of bread.

There was nothing more I could say, especially to someone who was so matter-of-fact and distanced from what he was telling me. But it certainly got me thinking about the consequences of that kind of attitude.

It’s not new information. For almost two decades, father absence has been growing to crisis levels in America. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, one out of three children in the U.S. are not living with their biological father. That’s over 24 million kids.

Research also suggests that around 40 percent of American kids are now born to single mothers — some to teenagers but also to an increasing number of women who have become discouraged about ever finding Mr. Right. They are heading to the sperm bank or are settling for pregnancy by a good friend or a one-night stand. The fellow I was talking to doesn’t see his behavior as abnormal because it isn’t. But it’s a sad and disheartening trend.

As a society, father absence is not something that we should get inured to. Study after study concludes that children in father-absent homes are likely to be poorer than their peers and even poorer than the father. They are more likely to use and abuse alcohol, tobacco, and street drugs, fail at school, have an early pregnancy, and be abused. Adolescent boys are more at risk of becoming involved with the law. Girls don’t do much better. Approximately half of the imprisoned women in one study grew up without a dad. Girls whose fathers distanced from them post-divorce often search to reclaim the intimacy of the father-daughter bond well into their adult years, often resulting in a series of unhealthy relationships with men who are older or who seem to be more powerful than they are.

Since children usually model after the same-sex parent, sons who are abandoned by their dads may grow up to be men who don’t bond with their children either.

The kids’ mothers, too, are under stress. Women without partners are less likely to take care of themselves during pregnancy and are more likely to have a baby with a low birthweight. They are less likely to breastfeed, and more likely to suffer from depression. Often, the strain of doing all the parenting means she becomes increasingly isolated, with no time to develop friendships or to cultivate the supports that sustain people in hard times. Without a partner to share in the struggles and with whom to celebrate successes, single moms often explode in anger or implode into depression, taking the stress out on others or on themselves.

This is not to say that mothers can’t successfully raise their children alone. They can and do. But it is much, much harder on everyone. This is not to say that women should stay with an abusive spouse for the sake of the kids. They shouldn’t. There are huge costs to everyone’s safety and sanity when mom and kids live under siege. This is not to devalue households with two mommies. Lesbian couples can and do raise healthy, happy kids, especially when they plan for male presence in their kids’ lives.

Regardless of the success of many families where Dad either was never there or abandoned his role mid-stream, a father’s regular involvement with his children makes things easier all around. The flip side of all those discouraging studies are the ones that show that having a father present in his kids’ lives results in more emotional and financial stability, better performance at school, fewer behavioral problems, and more success in life in general. Mothers with partners are generally less personally stressed, more relaxed with their kids, and more able to develop their own interests and talents. Fathers who actively partner with their kids’ mother to parent their children feel better about themselves and are generally happier.

Men are not simply sperm donors. Regardless of some misguided movies and misplaced jokes, their importance to their children’s welfare can’t and shouldn’t be dismissed. Whether or not a man marries or stays married to a child’s mother, his involvement makes a significant difference in the physical, emotional, and psychological health of his children and builds his own character and strength.

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Jon Stephenson (JS): Frank, thanks for taking the time to speak with us. Perhaps we could start by having you tell the readers something about your background and your experience with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Dr. Frank Ochberg (FO): Well, I’m a psychiatrist. I’m part of the team that wrote the PTSD diagnosis, and I had a government job back from 1969-79 at a place called the National Institute for Mental Health. During that time period we went from knowing that people were traumatized, that they suffered, to having an organized way to think about it.

From my own personal experience, I was fairly close to Vietnam veterans—to Vietnam-era issues—but also to the women’s movement. In fact, and I’m very proud of this, I was the male member of the Committee on Women of the American Psychiatric Association, and I learned a lot from them and with them. And it seems to me that PTSD is the outgrowth of the experiences and the observations of the men who suffered in war and women who have suffered from being battered and raped and being the subject of incest.

I don’t think we were very clear at the time that PTSD was the culmination of those experiences of both genders – but looking back on it, that’s how it appears to me. The common ground was the pattern of suffering of different men and women in different experiences, and the attention to that came in the ’70s, and the diagnosis came in 1980.

Now more recently, I’ve become very close to journalists. I guess I realized 15 years ago that your profession conducts interviews very much the way mine does in psychiatry. We talk to people; we learn from people; and, in our different ways, we’re the researchers. We’re the ones who take a hard look and draw conclusions, and then try to help in our different ways.

I was fortunate to get the support of a wealthy family who helped me create the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, and the Dart Society, so that therapists, doctors, and journalists could share their points of view. The goal has been to have a conversation that leads to understanding the impact of trauma, cruelty, and tragedy on normal people, and to appreciating the patterns in which survivors of trauma respond.

JS: Before we continue, let’s clarify a few terms for readers. What does it mean when we say someone—a veteran or a serving soldier, for instance—has been traumatized, or has post-traumatic stress disorder? What is the difference between the two?

FO: Being traumatized is necessary for having post-traumatic stress disorder. There are very many people who are stressed in general, who become nervous or depressed, or who have repetitive thoughts that are distressing; but in order to have post-traumatic stress disorder you have to have been traumatized. And we did struggle with that definition of what it means to be traumatized. It means to be exposed to something that could kill you; that could change your life; that could affect you in a deep and biological way, not just something that is very difficult to contend with like a divorce. It has to be more disruptive of you as a biological being, not just as someone who has dignity and a life ahead of you, a job ahead of you. It’s not losing a job. It’s not even losing your loved one, if the loss is through natural causes. There has to be something about the traumatic event that shocks you, that makes you feel scared or horrified or helpless at the very time it occurs. So, that basically is our definition of a traumatic event.

Having had a traumatic event, you then have post-traumatic stress disorder if you suffer in three different ways for a period of at least month. The three different ways are, first, having trauma memories. A trauma memory is different from a normal memory of a terrible event. In a trauma memory, you don’t want to remember, and yet your mind or body remembers. It can wake you up from sleep. It can be in the form of a nightmare. It can be in the form of a flashback, which means you see or smell things that aren’t there but that were there when you were traumatized. Or you hear things or you see things. It has the quality of a hallucination, but it’s not part of your imagination; it’s part of your memory.

And it can be something that you’re not entirely aware of, but you feel it in your bones. Your heart races because you’ve been exposed to something that is similar to the traumatic event, and afterward you realize—oh, that’s what it was. So, the first part of the syndrome is re-experiencing the trauma, when you don’t want to experience it, in one of several ways.

Photo credit: Jon Stephenson

The second part of the syndrome is quite different: it is being numb or avoidant. You don’t do what you used to do; you don’t feel the way you used to feel. You don’t expect to have a long and good life. You’ve been changed; you’ve been diminished; you’ve been made less. Not necessarily depressed (which means feeling helpless, hopeless, and worthless), but in some ways it’s similar to depression. That’s the part of the syndrome that’s being numb and avoidant.

And the third part is being anxious—and anxious in several ways: not sleeping well; being irritable and angry; not being able to concentrate; being easily startled; being hyper-vigilant, which means being constantly on the look-out for danger. You can think of this as having lowered your threshold for being aroused. And this is a constant; this is not just when something triggers you into returning you to the traumatic event. It’s a generalized high level of fear and anxiety.

When I was born my mother was dismayed — she didn’t want a child so soon after marriage and resented the attention I received. She told me several times that I was a mistake and unwanted. She told me that I was unattractive, repulsive even, and she avoided physical contact with me as much as possible, though she lavished it on my sister. She would go to shows and other fun events with my aunt, and my cousin, and occasionally my sister.

When later on as an adult I asked her why she disliked me so she didn’t hesitate to say that from the moment I was born I had looked at her with “infant rage in your eyes.”

My father was permanently angry and even vicious. He physically punished us and we were terrified of him. He too didn’t want to spend any time with my sister or me and the time he did spend was insufferable—he was constantly attacking us either verbally or physically. I used to pray when he was at work that he wouldn’t come home. Ever.

My sister had learning disabilities and other problems and our main interactions were when she was hitting or torturing me physically.

My father’s father died when I was very young, and my other three grandparents saw at least some of the abuse but remained silent.

After a little more than a decade of marriage, my mother’s father died and she inherited several million dollars and walked out the door, leaving my sister and me behind. My father hired a detective, found out where she was living, and promptly dropped my sister and me on her doorstep with a suitcase apiece. My mother called the police who then drove us back to my father’s house.

I stopped eating. Within a short time I became very ill and fainted at school one day. The school nurse rushed me to the hospital where my father was called to my bedside. He arrived, crying. Despite my intense fear and dislike of him, I had a glimpse of hope. I thought if he was crying he must care about me.

“If you die they’ll throw me in jail,” he said. “Tell me what you want to eat and I will get it for you so you get better.”

I was depressed at the time, but I didn’t know it and I never got treatment for it until a couple years later. My father began charging me rent and food money as soon as I was old enough to work. Did I mention he was extremely successful and didn’t need the money?

After a couple years my father sent me to a therapist and told her I was crying all the time and depressed. She asked me many questions about my life and I told her the truth. She said I had depression. After six weeks of finding out more and more about my present and past life she asked to see my father. She told him that he was causing my depression by his treatment of me and that anyone would be depressed in the same situation. She told him that he needed to stop sending me off to work and allow me to be a high school student and a girl. He became furious with her (and me, too), and that was the end of therapy.

My father now wanted to marry again. His future new wife refused to marry him as long my sister lived there since she was afraid of her (she was no more aggressive than my father, but my father hid his own aggression from her), so my father waited until she was s16 and then kicked her out and married his new wife.

After they came home from their month-long European honeymoon they took her two daughters, one of whom now inhabited my sister’s old room, out to dinner. The youngest one told me why I wasn’t invited. It was because at the dinner my father and his new wife announced that new wills had been made and all their money would go to them. They also were told by my father that his own kids meant nothing to him and that they were his children now.

A few weeks later my father told me to move out, so I did. I have had virtually no contact with him since. My mother has been in touch once or twice over the years, but her overwhelming hatred of me is apparent to everyone who has witnessed the contact. Neither parent has helped me financially, either, so things have been extremely difficult.

It took me many years to come to terms with my situation. I can’t say I always feel happy now and still have moments of heartache when I think of my past. But one of the main things that helped me has been to reflect on the hidden patterns in my life, seeing meaning in my pain. I see that God has guided me through my life and that I have strengths that people who haven’t had my experiences may not have. I also see that my parents hurt themselves more than they hurt me. They denied themselves the chance to see their kids grow up and be in their lives.

Interestingly enough, I blame society more than I blame them. I think they just jumped on the bandwagon of the “me” generation, which seems to really have been around as long as mankind has. They lived for themselves and their own pleasure. Their life was about material success and they both devoted enormous amounts of energy to ensuring that their own comfort levels weren’t diminished in the least. They took their cues from the pages of the New York Times, which for them represented a kind of guide to life rather than just a newspaper.

They took expensive cruises. They flew the Concorde (when it was still around). They had the best furnishings, the most expensive antiques and art and the finest crystal. They ate the best food and the best chocolate and drank the purest water. They wore the finest, most fashionable and status-oriented clothing also. They felt entitled to everything going their way and if it didn’t… Watch out!

What I learned from all this was to avoid investing in expectations because the true path to growth, at least for me, was having no expectations. Am I perfect? Am I never disappointed? No. And, no. But I reflect daily on the good things in my life, scant as they might seem compared to others’ lives, and for the most part, I am very grateful.

1. If your loved one has been threatened with physical harm or death, you can experience that as a trauma. Hearing about or seeing what your loved one survived can be very distressing to you. Take care of yourself or you will not be able to help the survivor. Get support for yourself from others, not the survivor. It is important for you to keep in touch with other friends, family members, or supportive people.

2. Get as much information as you can about trauma and its impact. Read or talk to a professional to gain a better understanding of the survivor’s reactions.

3. Ask the survivor how you can be helpful, and then really try to do it. Everyone’s response to trauma is different. Everyone’s needs following trauma are different. Do not assume that you know what the survivor needs.

4. Try to stay available to the person. Follow their lead in conversation. Sometimes just making small talk about the “normal” things in life can be a great comfort. Listen should they want to talk about painful experiences; being able to just listen is a tremendous gift you can offer. Trauma survivors can feel isolated; having even one person who can be there with them significantly helps the healing.

5. Don’t try to fix the person’s problems, or make the feelings go away. The survivor is likely to think you cannot tolerate those feelings. He or she may then try to conceal them. This may create more distance in your relationship.

6. Help the survivor find other resources, such as a support group, psychotherapy, or relevant professionals in the community. If you know of someone who has had a similar experience, you might suggest the survivor speak with that person. There might be other supportive people in the survivor’s existing social network with whom it might be helpful to talk (for example, a trusted friend or family member). Provide suggestions and offer to assist in any way you can, but don’t push. Remember number 3 above, and don’t assume you know better than the survivor what is needed.

7. If you do not live with the survivor, try to maintain some connection, even if it’s just an occasional supportive phone call or note.

8. Try to be patient. Healing from trauma takes time.

Copyright © 2010 The Guilford Press. All rights reserved. Reprinted here with permission.

“My boyfriend freaks out if I go out with my friends for an evening — even though he hangs out with his friends almost every day,” says Angela. “I love my boyfriend to death but he’s always putting me down,” says Katie. “Every weekend we have to go see my boyfriend’s mom but he doesn’t want to spend any time with my family. It’s gotten so I have to lie if I’m going to see my own sister,” says Kieshi.

Angel’s letter is only a little different: “I used to have lots of friends but my boyfriend wants all my time. I used to think that was romantic. Now I’m scared I’m losing most of my friends.” And Melody echoes several other letters when she says, “My boyfriend is always accusing me of coming on to other guys when we’re out. Guys do look at me but I don’t invite it. It’s gotten so I don’t want to go out any more cuz we always end up in a big fight about it.”

It’s almost as if these young women are in relationships with the same guy who just zips himself into a different outer suit to appeal to the woman he’s with. In the name of romance or commitment or love, he increasingly limits his girlfriend’s life and chips away at her self-esteem. This is what is meant by a “controlling” boyfriend.

Why do some guys act like this? Generally it’s because they are scared of the vulnerability that comes with loving and trusting someone. They may have been betrayed by a former girlfriend and fear being hurt again. They may have grown up observing relationships where the man held the upper hand by controlling the woman. Their self-esteem may be so low that the only way they can be sure that someone will stay with them is to make the girl’s self-esteem even lower. Whatever the reason, it isn’t good for them or for the women who had the misfortune to fall in love with them. Relationships built on distrust and control are unhealthy. Relationships where love is held hostage don’t last.

There are some common signs of a controlling guy. If you recognize your boyfriend or yourself here, you may want to take a step back from the relationship. But please be careful not to jump to conclusions based on a list. It’s not at all uncommon for people to have some of these characteristics some of the time. When people get scared, they often try to get things back under control.

Signs like these become a problem when they become a pattern. If your guy shows some of these behaviors but will talk about them with you and will work consistently on making change, it may be worth it to hang onto the relationship. Part of becoming a couple is negotiating how you will manage different tastes, different opinions, and different ways of operating in the world. It’s the guys who regularly behave in a number of these ways (especially those who get physical) and who see nothing wrong with it that you have to be concerned about. A guy whose standard operating procedure is “my way or the highway” is someone who is more interested in being in charge than being in a relationship of mutual respect.

7 Warning Signs of Men Who Need Too Much Control

1. You are his everything. Sounds great, doesn’t it? It’s not. When a guy needs to be attached to you at the hip and you can’t do anything without his say-so, it’s a big red flag. Sure, it’s normal to be with each other constantly in the first blush of new love. But if it goes on after the first few months; if it limits your ability to do things independently; if it means that you have no privacy; then it has become an issue of control.

2. You find yourself losing contact with family, friends, and activities you once enjoyed. He may not even like you to be on the phone or Facebook or email unless he’s around. He always has a reason. He says he doesn’t like how so-and-so takes advantage of you. He says he wants you to spend more time with him. He says your family is too controlling. Some of it even sounds like it makes sense. But over time your boyfriend has isolated you to the point that you don’t have many friends anymore and your family complains that you are neglecting them.
3. He has different rules for you than he has for himself. He gets to hang out with the guys. You don’t get time with your girlfriends. He makes plans for both of you but flips out if you do the same. He flirts with other girls when you’re out but makes sure you have eyes only for him. He insists on his right to privacy regarding his phone log or his email account or his Facebook password but gets angry if you draw the same boundaries.
4. He invites, then insists, that you join in his life but isn’t interested in getting to know yours. Over time, the two of you end up spending your time going to events and doing only the things that interest your guy even if you’re not terribly interested. You rarely if ever do things you love to do. You may justify it at first, figuring that you’re more flexible, that you want to get to know his friends, that it’s cool that he wants to teach you about his interests, that getting him to go to one of your events isn’t worth his sighing and his restlessness and his comments. But somehow you end up making all the compromises and feeling like you’ve lost something that was important to you.
5. Finances are a big issue. Somehow you’ve ended up either not having any money of your own or spending it all on your life together. This is one of those issues where opposites produce the same outcome. In some controlling relationships, the boyfriend gradually, or not so gradually, does little or nothing to support the couple. The girlfriend finds herself working all the time to keep the bills paid and food on the table while he “looks for work” or “waits for his band’s big break” or drops in and out of school or simply does nothing but make promises that tomorrow it will be different.

   On the other end of the spectrum is the guy who says that he will take care of his girlfriend, that she doesn’t need to work, that he needs her at home, that real women take care of their family. All that would be fine if the couple had a reasonable way of sharing and managing the family income. But the controlling guy doles out an allowance like it’s the last dollar and doesn’t let his girlfriend or wife in on many of the financial decisions that affect both of them. She ends up even further isolated and dependent on him.

6. He is never at fault. In fact, he is phobic about blame. The controlling guy always finds a way to make you feel that anything that goes wrong in your relationship is all about you. If you have a complaint, he will quickly move the conversation to all the things you’ve done wrong since the beginning of time. Instead of discussing your concern, you find yourself on the defensive. Instead of working out a compromise, you feel you have to give in or the fight will go on forever.
7. Often these relationships become physically abusive. If the guy is controlling because he doesn’t trust you, he may lose it when he is suspicious. Sadly, it doesn’t take much to make him suspicious. What generally follows are accusations, blaming, relentless grilling, and anger. When we’re talking about something as ephemeral as trust, it’s almost impossible to defend oneself. How do you explain away something that never happened in the first place? Not satisfied with the girlfriend’s answers, the guy gets increasingly frustrated and, though he’d never admit it, scared. It’s not uncommon for the guy to get physical at that point.

If you’re in a relationship that is more about control than about mutual respect, mutual support, and mutual care, do something about it. If you believe that there is real love underneath all the drama, by all means try to talk it out and work it out. But if your guy can’t make the compromises that go with treating a partner as an equal; if he needs to control you to feel like a man; it’s time for you to take back control of yourself and your life. Do what you need to do to extricate yourself safely. Hold out for the kind of love you deserve.

Resources

If you are afraid to end your relationship, you need help and support to stay safe. Call the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence at 800-537-2238 or visit their website at www.ncdsv.org/.

There’s no easy answer. Often it’s a complicated mix of a number of answers. If you wonder why on earth you stay with the guy who keeps hurting you in spite of promises to do better, in spite of protestations that he loves you, in spite of your obvious distress about how things are going, see if you recognize yourself in any of these common reasons.

But please be careful not to jump to conclusions based on a list. It’s not at all uncommon for relationships to have some challenging times. Reasons for staying become problems when they become excuses or ways we fool ourselves into believing that things aren’t that bad when in fact they are. If you keep getting hurt; if you know in your heart that the relationship is diminishing you but you still keep going back for more, it may be time for you to get into therapy or to find the resources in your community that help women extricate themselves from a controlling or abusive relationship.

8 Bad Reasons Women Stay in Painful Relationships

1. Because being someone’s everything is intoxicating stuff – at least at first. When you met, he only had eyes for you. He called to say good morning. He called to say “I love you” at lunch. He wanted to be the last voice you heard before you went to sleep. When you left work or your last class for the day, there he was – waiting for you. If another guy even looked at you, he put his arm protectively around you. If a guy friend called you up, he pouted. He wanted all your attention. In exchange, he gave you attention as no one ever had before. He wined you and dined you (or at least took you out for pizza and a beer several times a week) and made you feel like a princess. Sounds like any romantic beginning, doesn’t it?

   If your guy is so insecure that he needs control, his attention gradually became claustrophobic. Over time, his demands for all your attention all the time hemmed you in. You found yourself frantically explaining your every move that didn’t involve him. Staying a bit late for work, a girls’ night out, even a visit to your mother on a Saturday morning became grounds for a fight. What started out as wonderful attention became not so wonderful control.

2. Because these guys can be absolutely charming. You didn’t fall in love with your boyfriend for no good reason. He can be charming. He can be romantic. He can say the things that every woman would like to hear. Sometimes he lets you see a sweet vulnerability that melts your heart. He seems to feel genuinely terrible after the two of you have had a big fight. He brings apologies and flowers. He promises he’ll be less jealous. He says you really are his everything. Lovemaking at times like these is delicious. He says all the right things to make you want to give him another chance. Things are wonderful for awhile. But then it starts all over again. You come home a little late and his eyes look stormy. You make a phone call and he has to know just who you’re talking to. Pretty soon, you’re feeling hemmed in again and you know that there’s going to be another blow-out…
3. Because you don’t feel you deserve any better. Maybe you grew up in a family where you were told that you were no good, ugly, clumsy, or incompetent. Maybe your father or mother even told you “No one will ever love you.” Perhaps you were an ugly duckling in high school who never had a date or you were never accepted by the people you wished were your friends. Maybe you’ve had a series of disastrous relationships or no relationships at all. Your self-esteem is in the cellar. Even though a part of you knows that your family should have treated you better; even though you understand that high school is harsh for a lot of people, there’s an even bigger part of you that feels that maybe all the people who rejected you were right – you really are a loser. You’ve become convinced you should be grateful for any smidgen of caring your boyfriend provides – even if it is painful.
4. Because you don’t know any better. All the women you grew up with were in abusive, difficult relationships. All your girlfriends complain about men who don’t do their share and who stopped being “Mr. Wonderful” long ago. Lacking role models for positive, loving relationships, you think good relationships only happen in the movies. Although you can agree in theory that women deserve to be treated with consideration and respect by the men who love them, you’ve never seen such a relationship up close and personal.
5. Because he scares you or manipulates you. There are men who aren’t a bit subtle about their need for control. Try to leave and they threaten to hurt you or your kids or other people you care about. He may have even grabbed you too hard or hit you or locked you in a room or waved a gun around. When he goes into a rage, there’s no telling what he might do. So you do everything you can to prevent it – including staying.

   The manipulators are equally effective in trapping their women. They say they will commit suicide if you leave – and it will be all your fault. They are masters at making you feel guilty even when you don’t have a clue what you are guilty for. Fights inevitably shift to all the things you’ve done wrong – or at least wronger than him. You end up staying to make amends and make it right or because you can’t bear the idea of living with the guilt if he hurts himself.

6. Because you truly believe you can change him. Because the relationship started out so wonderfully and because he can be so terrific after a fight, you hold onto the idea that you can bring out the best in him. All you have to do is find the right words and behave in the right way, and you’ll have the man of your dreams. Love conquers all, right? Wrong. No one can make another person be anything. He has to want it. He has to be willing to work on it. He has to want to change because it will make him a better person, not because he made an insincere promise in order to make up after a fight. Even though you know all this, you convince yourself that you’re an exception. You’re going to find a way.
7. Because you are more afraid of being alone again than of being in a painful relationship. You’ve been alone and it’s lonely. You want someone to talk to in the evening, to cuddle up to at night, to at least once in awhile take the kids. Even picking up his laundry, cooking meals he doesn’t appreciate, and fighting with him is more appealing than coming home to an empty house. If he does help pay the bills and do a few chores (and especially if he pays most of the bills and can be counted on to do some of the heavy work), it’s even harder to think about going it alone. Supporting a family and doing everything to maintain a household as a single person is really, really hard. Maintaining the fiction that you have a partner feels better than dealing with the reality of going it alone.
8. Because you love him. The most common answer I get when I ask women why they stay in bad relationships is “because I love him.” Love isn’t always rational, it’s true. There’s no accounting for chemistry. But the fact is that love, especially one-sided love, isn’t enough to sustain a relationship. It’s like one hand clapping.

If you are always on the giving end in the relationship; if you’ve accepted indifference, abuse, or manipulation because you don’t believe you deserve or can get better, it’s time to take charge of your life and to make some changes. If your guy will agree, try out couples therapy. Couples can and do change with commitment to the process and love for each other. If your boyfriend won’t join you in the project, get some therapy for yourself. Build up your self-esteem, develop the skills you need to be successful in the world, and increase your confidence in yourself. A stronger you will be able to hold out for the loving relationship that you deserve.

Resources

If you are afraid to end your relationship, you need help and support to stay safe. Call the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence at 800-537-2238 or visit their website at www.ncdsv.org/.

I saw myself in that story line and the pictures were something out of my own life.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, defines adversity as “a state of hardship or affliction; misfortune.” We all have it in our lives. It is ever present. The size of it is not important.

I have a son. As the title implies, he has been my adversity. Learning from the bad things, adversity, that happen to us is important. Back then it was hard to believe that the issues at hand would ever get better and the thought of normalcy was unimaginable. We all have a time in our lives when we are forced to make hard decisions.

Beginning when he was 14 years old I spent five years making those unimaginable hard decisions. Then I spent the next ten years trying not to regret making those decisions, as my son was a constant reminder of what I had been forced to do to him and for him out of my unconditional love for him. He was also the one who reminded me constantly of what I had done to him and how his messy life was my fault, yet another adversity for me to face.

How does one survive such adversity in life? Well, it isn’t always easy. It takes character. It takes letting your guard down, even when it does not feel good. It takes allowing someone into your personal space, to get close enough to help. It takes coming out of the closet, out of hiding. It takes more than you might think you have to give.

When my son was about nine years old he became violent and abusive. By age 11 his father had become an absent father and walked out of our family at 2:00 one morning, unable to deal with our home life, which had deteriorated significantly. At age 14, I was forced to place my son outside our home—my choice, not a government system telling me to do so. Our home was being physically destroyed and my sanity was in question, not to mention the damage that it was forcing on my daughters, both older than my son. I had already attempted suicide once.

Living in fear of another human being is something I don’t wish on anyone, especially if it is your own child you are afraid of. At age 18, I was forced to make the most difficult decision a parent can ever make. Well, that was my thought at the time. I was forced to send my son to live on the street, where he stayed for almost three years, not returning to my home until his father died of leukemia. In the meantime, while I traipsed all over Central Florida on the weekends following my son from placement to placement, not being there for my daughters, the younger daughter became pregnant at age 18. I had become an absent mother.

So, adversity has been a constant in my life, never ceasing, never relenting. These instances are just a sample. What have I done with all of this, all that adversity has imposed upon me?

I have learned from all of it. In each instance there is a lesson to be learned. If we don’t stop long enough to listen and learn from our life happenings, the adversity in our lives, then we will become lost within ourselves. Unbeknownst to him, my son taught me about love; about unconditional love. He taught me to persevere. He taught me to live in the moment. He taught me to survive. He taught me to let others get close to me, invade my person space as it were, even when I would have preferred to push them away. I would not be the person I am today if I had not lived those years, struggled with adversity and survived to see the light of day.

The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn’t matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark. — Barbara Hall, Northern Exposure, “Rosebud,” 1993

My son is 35 years old today and living in Central Florida where he was raised and is surrounded by my in-law family, a great bunch of people who have always been there for me too. I have been divorced now for 24 years, longer than I was married. He has much better control of his anger and I am far less afraid of him. I am in the northeast where my daughters and their families moved in 2000. I simply followed my grandchildren. I have four grandchildren; the youngest is autistic.

I have moved on, in and out of other instances of adversity that have been imposed on my life. I heard from a friend recently, “Life is short. Life is wide.” I like that for it is so true.

Emotional reasons for staying

• belief that the abusive partner will change because of his remorse and promises to stop battering
• fear of the abuser who threatens to kill the victim if abuse is reported to anyone
• insecurity about living alone
• lack of emotional support
• guilt over the failure of the relationship
• attachment to the partner
• fear of making major life changes
• feeling responsible for the abuse
• feeling helpless, hopeless and trapped
• belief that she is the only one who can help the abuser with his problems

Situational reasons for staying

• economic dependence on the abuser
• fear of physical harm to self or children
• fear of emotional damage to the children who need two parents, even if one is abusive
• fear of losing custody of the children because the abuser threatens to take the children if victim tries to leave
• lack of occupational skills
• social isolation and lack of support because abuser is often the victim’s only support system
• lack of information regarding community resources
• belief that law enforcement will not take her seriously
• lack of alternative housing
• cultural or religious constrains

Issues specific to women

Women, in particular, can experience hesitant and contradictory feelings and thoughts about the abusive partner and the relationship. These are some common reactions of the victim toward the abuser’s behavior and actions that can keep the woman in the relationship:

• feels emotionally attached to the abuser, but also feels anger toward him which she denies
• is grateful toward abuser for small acts of kindness and tends to explain away his violence
• is very attentive to the abuser’s needs with the mistaken belief that she will be able to anticipate his needs and prevent the beatings
• believes that the abuser will change
• believes that he needs her and feels guilty about leaving him
• may use alcohol or other drugs to cope with the anxiety, fear or depression
• justifies the violence and feels responsible for it

People who can help you include:

• Family and friends

• Medical and mental health professionals—First, they can treat the physical and emotional injuries you have already suffered. They also can recommend programs specially designed to help victims of domestic violence. Counselors can help to heal your emotional wounds.
• Police—If you are in immediate danger and need emergency help, call 911. The police can arrest your abuser, help you get a restraining order, take you a battered women’s shelter or take you for emergency medical care. Courts can issue a restraining or protective order to keep your abuser away from where you live and work. The order becomes effective as soon as it is issued. It can be extended or made permanent if necessary.

People who violate restraining orders are in contempt of court and may be arrested and taken to jail. The violation of a restraining order usually results in a criminal charge and the violator may serve time in jail.