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.
The more I read on the tactics of abuse, it's so hard to wrap my head around it all. I'm realizing my husband has done many of the things I've read here and in the abuse books.
My husband is realizing I am checked out and need my space. He keeps telling me, he can see how he was wrong or jealous and overreacted to things but - he says it was never his intention to hurt me, kill my self esteem and suck the spirit out if me (those were my words in describing how I've come to feel over the years)
Is it possible it was not his intention? Could he really be clueless as to how his behaviors could hurt me? He is pleading w me to make it work. He's reading books and agreed to IC - bc I'm now going this week - and I said we're beyond MC. Could he be realizing the horrible dynamics that our marriage has turned into?
I know it takes 2 to work on a marriage and that I stopped standing up for myself to avoid arguments, but it bothers me that he says that to me. He reminds me that even tho he is 90% to blame I hold some blame too. I'm working on myself and I feel he should be focusing on himself if he were genuine and not saying he's wrong, "but".
My husband is realizing I am checked out and need my space. He keeps telling me, he can see how he was wrong or jealous and overreacted to things but - he says it was never his intention to hurt me, kill my self esteem and suck the spirit out if me (those were my words in describing how I've come to feel over the years)
Is it possible it was not his intention? Could he really be clueless as to how his behaviors could hurt me? He is pleading w me to make it work. He's reading books and agreed to IC - bc I'm now going this week - and I said we're beyond MC. Could he be realizing the horrible dynamics that our marriage has turned into?
I know it takes 2 to work on a marriage and that I stopped standing up for myself to avoid arguments, but it bothers me that he says that to me. He reminds me that even tho he is 90% to blame I hold some blame too. I'm working on myself and I feel he should be focusing on himself if he were genuine and not saying he's wrong, "but".
whether he "intended"
to hurt you or not.
Intent is NOT the issue.
ABUSE is the issue.
If he's laying any responsibility
at all on you after he was ABUSIVE,
then he is STILL BEING ABUSIVE.
It takes two FUNCTIONAL partners
to make a marriage work. . . . not
one functional partner who may
make some mistakes, and
one ABUSER.
What he's doing falls into the
category of a typical desperate
abuser about to lose his (or her)
victim.
If he wants you to give it a chance,
tell him to spend two years APART
from you, while he's WORKING
HARD in therapy with a counselor
whose specialty is treating ABUSERS.
When he's done that, and can
DEMONSTRATE
that he will NOT BE ABUSIVE
NO MATTER WHAT. . . . .
then you might consider
dating him for awhile
to see if that is
really the case.
The conditions I've laid out. . . .
are virtually NEVER actually met.
But. . . . . those would be
my conditions for considering
staying married to an abuser.
Like your husband, my girlfriend has used nearly every tactic I read about on here or in literature about abuse. And she will readily admit she has done some bad stuff in the past. But, it's never a remorseful recollection that admits her role - there is always some kind of excuse. If it is the way she treats her employer, it is because of her "depression" or because they were a bad employer. If it is her friends, it is because those friends were too self centered, if it was a boyfriend it was because they were too "immature". In the case with me, she will say we are "fighting" but the way I see it, it is her CHOOSING to SCREAM at me - and not really much of a "fight". From the way I understand her, she thinks it is normal for couples to scream at and nitpick each other, and my decision to walk away from the screaming rather than scream back is my issue, not hers. She also will think that I hold some blame for her rages, to which I strongly disagree.
She has been going to individual counseling, and now wants to do a couples counseling. But I agree with your assessment of your husband - she needs to get her own issues together before she can approach relationship issues. If your husband is truly recognizing his abuse, then IC is the only place he is going to help himself.
Good article. :)
http://cindyburrell.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/leaving-an-abuser-what-to-expect-and-how-to-stay-grounded/
So totally,
We are still living together. He refused to leave. Said he will do whatever it takes. Although I had asked him for a separation twice within the last year. So a few weeks ago I said I'm at the end of my rope and need space. He agreed to stay downstairs after the kids go to bed. We still do meals together and stuff on the weekends so I'm not sure what were doing now - a partial in-house separation??
Are you now divorced? Thanks for the articles I will look thru them tonite :)
Hugs for so many of us in the same situation,
Right there you have where it's at. He will do anything except what you ask of him. A familiar theme on this board.
I tend to agree with Ilene about motive. I don't believe any grown adult can genuinely be completely clueless that their abuse is hurtful to their partner. So with that in mind, does it really matter whether he hurt you on purpose, or whether he simply didn't care that what he was doing was hurtful?
The reality is that they know. How can they not know, when we TELL them, over and over again in whatever way we can think of. We cry, we try to talk, sometimes we (unhelpfully but understandably) scream and shout. Many of us have sought out counselling to deal with the pain, some of us have self-harmed. All of these things SCREAM "I'm hurting". And yet, they "don't know" until we walk away or they sense that we are going to. Then, all of a sudden, they realise they hurt us. Were our tears not enough to tell them? Were our pleas not enough to have them see?
The truth is, they don't suddenly see that they hurt us, what they see is they accidentally went too far and now we are looking to leave. So they will do what it takes to get us back, so that they can continue to hurt us - they will do it in different ways, because they will realise their mistake in pushing us to the point we were ready to leave, but they will continue. Some will become more subtle in their abuse while at the same time making us feel guilty for leaving (or considering leaving) and for making it so hard for them always having to walk on eggshells afraid we will leave again (oh yeah, they can turn it around), others will ramp the control up way worse so that we simply CAN'T leave. But either way, their only realisation was that they didn't do a good enough job of keeping control, and so they will try harder.
Another angle he's been using is that he'll say - everyone goes thru rough patches in their marriages. And that we both just need to work on our communication, spend more time together alone, talk at night.
Thing is, I have no desire to spend alone time w him.
Hugs,
Yes, relatively functional relationships
DO go through "rough patches."
And in relatively functional relationships
communication DOES matter. . . .
and talking
and time together
are enjoyable.
In relationships where there's
an abusive "partner"
communication is
a MOOT point.
Talking is
irrelevant
and
time together
is DANGEROUS.
In a relationship where
one of the partners is abusive
the other partner
is a
PRISONER
and communication
and talking
and time together
are
TACTICS
of
POWER and CONTROL.
There's another example of how MC doesn't work when you're dealing w an abuser - we aren't dealing with a functional person in a functional relationship.
Thank you!