Physical & Emotional Abuse Support Group
Abuse is a general term for the treatment of someone that causes some kind of harm (to the abused person, to the abusers themselves, or to someone else) that is unlawful or wrongful. No one deserves abuse, period. Abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual.
Something Kaz posted in reply to the post 'Mad things they say had me thinking...
Remember those maddening conversations you used to have with your spouse or partner? The ones that would go around and around, seemingly without end? That would make you feel like you wanted to tear your hair out by the handfuls and scream until you just gave up?
No matter what you said, no matter how logical your point was, they just couldn't seem to get it?
We were being trained!!!
*********
This was going to be my reply to Kaz's post, but then I thought how much I would really like to get everyone's feedback on their experiences with circular conversations and endless arguments....
So please do share!!!
My reply to Kaz:
I think that is the point... To make us give up!!!
My ex and I never used to fight, not like we did this last go-around. This time was different for me. I knew it was the last time I could put myself through this with him, and I wanted to know if it could work...
I decided to just be myself, to act as I would with anybody else. Most of all, I was not scared of him anymore.
Any time he acted rudely, coldly, disrespected me or belittled me, I said something.
(Kaz, I am sure you can see where this is going...)
We argued for days!!!
Towards the end, I became so tired, so beat down from running in circles that I just felt like throwing my hands up in the air and saying, 'Fine, you are not an a**hole!'
At one point, I had a flashback (Itwist and Joanie, and other horse lovers could relate to this), to when I was training my horses. We used to run them in circles to exercise them. By the end, they would be so tired that they would do whatever we asked.
I realized it then, I was the HORSE!!!
The arguments that I always felt were justifiable because he had done something hurtful, were no more than an excuse to get me in the ring and to run me round in round in circles until I was so tired that I gave up and just did what he wanted.
I was being trained.
So being the good horse that I am, I bucked him off!
Remember those maddening conversations you used to have with your spouse or partner? The ones that would go around and around, seemingly without end? That would make you feel like you wanted to tear your hair out by the handfuls and scream until you just gave up?
No matter what you said, no matter how logical your point was, they just couldn't seem to get it?
We were being trained!!!
*********
This was going to be my reply to Kaz's post, but then I thought how much I would really like to get everyone's feedback on their experiences with circular conversations and endless arguments....
So please do share!!!
My reply to Kaz:
I think that is the point... To make us give up!!!
My ex and I never used to fight, not like we did this last go-around. This time was different for me. I knew it was the last time I could put myself through this with him, and I wanted to know if it could work...
I decided to just be myself, to act as I would with anybody else. Most of all, I was not scared of him anymore.
Any time he acted rudely, coldly, disrespected me or belittled me, I said something.
(Kaz, I am sure you can see where this is going...)
We argued for days!!!
Towards the end, I became so tired, so beat down from running in circles that I just felt like throwing my hands up in the air and saying, 'Fine, you are not an a**hole!'
At one point, I had a flashback (Itwist and Joanie, and other horse lovers could relate to this), to when I was training my horses. We used to run them in circles to exercise them. By the end, they would be so tired that they would do whatever we asked.
I realized it then, I was the HORSE!!!
The arguments that I always felt were justifiable because he had done something hurtful, were no more than an excuse to get me in the ring and to run me round in round in circles until I was so tired that I gave up and just did what he wanted.
I was being trained.
So being the good horse that I am, I bucked him off!
Yes, I've been on the receiving end of quite a few circular arguments, too. What drove me nuts is that anytime I made a good point or refuted something my abuser said, whatever I said was just completely ignored. It was like shouting in the wind.
To being up the Bancroft book again, last night I was reading the chapter on the abuser in everyday life, where he gives a sample argument (that is amazingly similar to an argument I had with my abuser last year) that is a great example of the circular conversation where the person being abused CANNOT WIN -- and that is the whole point!
To them, any argument is war and we are the enemy. They will do ANYTHING to "win." If that means making ridiculous statements or ignoring us whenever we make a good point, then so be it.
And then Bancroft wrote something that really hit home with me: "If you watch closely, you will begin to notice how many of his controlling behaviors are aimed ultimately at discrediting and silencing you."
It's all about discrediting and silencing me. That's our whole relationship in a nutshell.
who can be happy in that?