How to Avoid DV

I am a survivor-- I have survived abuse from my childhood, marriage and the strangulation of a short term relationship. The number one question people ask is why women like me go back to the abuser. I had learned by the third man to walk away, but in my 20 year marriage, I separated from him seven times; yes, seven times before I learned to walk away for good. Instead of looking at this from the woman's point of view, I want to look at it from the man's point of view....how do they get the women to stay.

How do abusive men get the women to come back to them time and again when the women suffer such abuse?

From the time we are infants, we are programmed to attach to our caregivers...our very survival depends on it. Our food, shelter and even love are dependent on our caregivers providing that for us.

Abusers are able to capitalize on this basic survival need all humans have, to bond with those who provide for our every need, our shelter, our emotional needs, our physical needs, even our very lives. They slowly take away the ability for the person to independently take care of themselves or to think they can get their needs met through family or friends.

There are four elements or conditions the abuser must control in order to make his victim his domain:
1.  A perceived threat to the victim's existence, and the victim believes the the perpetrator will carry out the threats

2. The perpetrator gives small acts of kindness to the victim...these acts of kindness may be in the form of jewelry (known as apology jewelry) telling the victim they will not hit them tonight even though dinner is burned, or taking out to dinner for a rare night out on the town.  These acts of kindness are given in the context of terror (the victim knows the perpetrator may turn on them at any moment.)

3.  The perpetrator isolates the victim. This happens over time and by several means...the victim knows that if family or friends are part of their life, their lives are also in danger; that by telling family what is going on, the victim's life is in peril, and the victim comes to believe the perpetrator has complete control over life and death.

4.  The perpetrator is able to make the victim believe they do not have the capacity to escape.

When asked victims of abuse, 'Why did you stay so long?' Most will say something like, 'I know it doesn't make sense, I just loved him.'  Yet, it is in the perpetrator's behavior that we find the answer.  The perpetrator sets up the victim through a series of constant threats followed by acts of kindness. The perpetrator will then cycle through the threats (followed by actual violence or emotional abuse) then followed by more acts of kindness.

The victim goes through cycles of having their self-esteem shredded followed by feeling loved.  This causes an imbalance of power called Trauma Bonding. This causes a hostile environment emotionally, physically and mentally, or a constant state of survival mode known as cognitive dissonance is set up to help the victim to survive.

When a person is in a trauma situation they have three options, fight, flight or freeze. The victims in these situations have learned to freeze out of fear. Fear is the number one weapon of the perpetrators.  When we are faced with fear, we often regress and the perpetrator uses this regression to his advantage and the victim is often seen as infantile, she takes her perpetrator back, and is immobilized to inaction, and becomes powerless. The perpetrator is then in the position of parent and the victim in the role of child.

It is important to know the patterns of perpetrators, so that women can recognize them early on and escape and family and friends can better understand why it is so difficult for victims to escape.

Narcissist and Stockholm syndrome

Emotional Honesty

Is it just men, or are women just as bad? I need to know.

The past few months have been excruciating, exhausting, numbing, life changing. Yet, I am attempting to move beyond the events that have forever changed me. I am listening to my girlfriend's advice and taking each day slow. I am listening to my soul. I am healing. Very, very slowly, I am healing.

One of the most important decisions I have made is to not date. I am going out with my guy friends, but I am making it clear that there are boundaries around this. This is for their own good, as well as mine, since they deserve a mentally and emotionally well person and I need to make sure I am making decisions based on sound principles and not on infatuation.

What I just don't get is why my guy friends cannot be honest with me when I am being honest with them.

One man who showed interest in dating me just lied to me completely when I told him I wasn't ready to date. He just completely stopped all the text messages, the phone calls and emails--cold turkey. When I called him out on this, instead of being honest, he denied it. When I said we could hang out as friends and take things slow, he agreed to this, but the event we had previously set up, he canceled on me and I haven't heard from him since. Why couldn't he just be honest with me, especially when I called him on it, asked him for honesty? Why couldn't he just come out and say he was only interested in fucking me and not interested in anything else?

Another friend said he was also getting over a relationship and wasn't ready to date and wanted to pick up a friendship where we had left off over a year ago, so the two of us hanging out and keeping things platonic for  now meshed very well.

What happened? Who the hell knows.  I haven't heard from him in over a week. I've sent him an email and a text message. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero.

Do these men seriously think they are doing us women a favor by lying to us this way? By not communicating with us? We know it's them with the problem.  By this time in our lives, we don't take it personal. They are the one's not in touch with their feelings. Yet, it still leaves us out in the dark, with no good explanation. Cold, unfeeling, drained, alone, blank.

A few years ago, I was dating a man. It was serious. Then, over a weekend, his mood changed. I could tell he was pulling away from me, but I didn't know why. Then two days later he calls me and says he considers me his best friend but doesn't want a romantic relationship. I was devastated. I knew there was more to the story, but he wouldn't communicate with me. A week later, I run into him in a bar with his arm around a woman that I knew he had a crush on but she had been in a relationship with someone else but had recently come back on the market.  Why couldn't he just tell me the truth? That he had started dating her? Didn't he know the truth would have been easier on me? It was easier on him to lie to me.

Maybe the men my age have been taught their entire lives to be so disconnected from their feelings that I am asking too much for them to now connect with their feelings.

I love this article on Sex and Men

There is a wonderful book called Iron John

In this book the author tells us that there are five steps of becoming a man.

1. Connection with then clean break with your mother
2. Connection with then clean break with your father
3. Being mentored by another older man
4. Apprenticeship to some hurricane energy
5. Marriage with the holy woman over the queen
Discussion on book, Iron John

Here is an article on how to maintain friendships: Friendships

I have to wonder, 'Have the men between the ages 30 and 60 been so damaged with the way they were raised, not capable of making emotional connections with women? Are they incapable of emotional honesty?

I have to wonder.

Emotional Constipation

Fear. What a driving emotion. People have a difficult time making the simplest commitments to dating, marriage, to a meaningful future based on fear of being emotionally intimate.  My ex and I were married for 20 years and in all those years he could not, would not be emotionally intimate with me on the shallowest level. I dated a man/boy for 2 years who went emotionally deeper, but even when I took marriage off the table, he could not, would not discuss the possibility of our having more than a dating relationship in our future.

What are some signs of emotional constipation? From my own experience as well as those of many of my friends, I have come up with this list. It comprises a spectrum of relationships; from a few dates, to dating for a few years to living together, to marriage. Just because a man commits to marriage does not mean he has made an emotional commitment. Sadly, I have learned this from experience. (Some women can also be susceptible to this disease):
*They do not call you when they say they will
*They say what a great time they had, but do not follow up with more dates, phone calls, etc.
*They are perpetually late or do not show up and have silly excuses
*They take from your well/reserves but do not fill your well up
*They will not stay the night
*Even though their words say one thing, you feel that they aren't that into you (trust the feeling) they are just keeping you on the hook until something else comes along; and something else always comes along; they are either ruminating on the one that got away or keeping the door open for someone else to come along. Living in the moment with you is not an option.
*They are hyper-critical of the smallest things
*They wait until you are asleep until they come to bed
*They insist you engage in their activities but will not engage in yours with you
*They talk endlessly about themselves but do not ask about you
*They will keep at least some aspect of their life from you- either a secret or will not allow you to participate in it
*They complain that they are low on money to spend on you while they spend money on frivolous things

Learn from me. Get a clue early in the relationship. Let them go. They will never change. They are not worth the value that you can give them. Find someone who will appreciate the fun and excitement and joy that you can bring into their life. There is a man out there who gets giddy when he sees you, can't wait to hear your voice, is not afraid to express his deep feelings for you.  I have seen it. I have experienced it. I know it exists. Embrace it when it happens to you.