I disagree with your therapist and anyone else who thinks you are responsible for him abusing you in any way. In my opinion you need to change therapists. I have a therapist and we do not try to see what I did wrong because I'm there from my issues from being abused. Its like the therapist is also abusing you. You can't take responsibility for his abuse! Totally wrong. I have a feeling you know inside that you didn't do anything to deserve the abuse. That therapist is no good and obviously has no training or knowledge on dealing with a victim of abuse. I would not go back there if I were you! Try to change therapists. Sometimes you have to go through a couple to find a good one. I have a good one now but had many before some were good some weren't. My therapist tells me things like "You deserve better for yourself" "You are worth a lot more than that" "You can do better than that" He also helps me learn positive affirmation and to recognize my irrational behaviors because I have Bi-Polar disorder. I am happy with mine now but you need a change! I hope you don't think all that stuff is true about not taking responsibility.

Oh forgot! The only part we are responsible for is choosing them in the first place and if applicable taking them back when we shouldn't have!

Hmmm... yeah, I question the expertise of your therapist if he or she would make a comment of that nature as well, especially continually. Does this therapist have specialized training in abuse or trauma? Especially if what you take away from a series of therapy sessions is that it was a mistake to not know things (how is it you are supposed to somehow know what you don't know?), that loving someone, trusting someone and trying to be a good person is bad because it got exploited. IT WAS BAD THAT IT GOT EXPLOITED AND MADE YOU FEEL LIKE THOSE THINGS ABOUT YOURSELF WERE BAD.

You don't come off to me as someone who is trying to avoid responsibility-you come off as someone who is getting something out of therapy which doesn't benefit you.

In my mind, looking at our 'responsibility' in an abusive relationship is not about what we did wrong, it is about identifying the factors that led to us being in and staying in the relationship, what made us vulnerable to it, it's about looking at patterns in attitudes and behavior so we can be aware of them and change them.

I remember the first time my abuser choked me because I told him if he went to the football game with his daughter our relationship was over. I gave him an ultimatum. Was it immature OF me, yes. Did I deserve to be choked? No. I have to own my own responsibility in this had he walked away from me and I never saw him again. It would have probably taught me a lesson, but the problem was he didn't have control if I were to walk away so that's why he choked me. Yes I have my insecurities but I didn't like his daughter and she didn't like me. She was one of those girls who wanted daddy all to herself. But, had I known they were that codependent on one another I would have walked away sooner. I tried to change them and that was my mistake. Instead of me walking away from an unhealthy relationship, I stuck it out. I should have left sooner.

But I didn't deserve to be choked and after all that the relationship only got worse. So even if you do hold any responsibility about the situation, you communicate or walk away, he has no right to put his hands on you. And even taking responsibility won't change the fact that He is an abuser. That's not your fault. He owns his own actions not you. it took me a long time to realize this, even after I have been in other abusive relationships. If your therapist can accept payment for that absurd bullshit question, you my friend need to take your money elsewhere. They have no right to make you responsible for another persons outburst, pathetic immature, dangerous, narcissistic crap.

If your not out please get out now. It only gets worse. Hugs.

Thank you all so much.

Im seeing this therapist for something else and after several sessions Ive mentioned things about the marriage/emotional abuse etc. to her and she seemed to really understand. She said she does therapy for domestic abuse. Then last week this happened

Me: Of course being in an emotionally abusive relationship didnt help my self-esteem either

Therapist: Yeah, but what part of the abusive relationship are you responsible for?

I would have been fine if she had said, of course it didnt help to be in an abusive relationship, did you have low self-esteem before the marriage? Anything like that would have been fine.

Im totally fine with admitting my problems but I am worried about where she is going with this

Radrm: Thank you so much. You are right!
I dont even think there is anything wrong with falling in love with someone. I just think if we had known then what we know now, things would be different.

Cantdeal: Ive had several therapists tell me that. She is a new therapist, this is the first time she has said it to me.

Yes! I think that looking at those factors is very productive. Thats what therapy is for. I guess Im just tired of hearing that phrase used the wrong way.

Mending: There may have been better ways to handle the situation and its great that you can see that. But, you did not deserve to be choked. That's terrible. Its great that you can see that too. My husband is not physically abusive. I think that makes it harder for people even therapists to understand.

I should have mentioned:

My husband was never physically abusive. (Didn't mean to misrepresent).

He is a narcissist. I did not know this until recently.

I can really identify with why that would make you mad. I'm getting mad imagining it.

For myself, I know I was responsible for having gotten myself into the mess that was my marriage. When I met my abuser I was just coming out of what I considered a major failure (I'd dropped out of college) and I was in that transition period between teenager and adulthood (I was 20 at the time and felt ill prepared for the adult world and adult responsibilities). I handed over a ton of control, gladly, willingly. However, as I grew and changed and tried to take any of that control back-there was no way I could have done that, it was not possible with my ex, it was not allowed-the ONLY thing I could do was leave. I choose not to leave for 15 years. I already feel like a complete idiot half the time for that, I already have a ton of guilt that my daughter was exposed to the psychological damage of the dynamic of abuse. What I feel l need to do at this point in my healing (one of the things) is to learn to deal with the emotional fallout of those realizations, to forgive myself for that. I do not feel like I need those facts thrown in my face. So if I had therapists saying that to me, I'd be pissed too. I don't even understand the context in which she brought that up to you-why she went from you talking about your self esteem to your responsibility......

However, if therapists keep doing this to you I can't help but wonder WHY and what they are trying to get at exactly.....if it were me, I'd tell my therapist that statement pisses me off and why it does. I'd tell her what I feel my goals are in therapy and ask why she insists on taking it in that direction. I would look at it as an opportunity to practice boundaries (which I am terrible at) and expressing what ticks me off. She should NOT be placing value judgments on your behavior, and you should be feeling safe that she won't-you may not trust her implicitly because that takes time, but you should feel enough trust to be able to take that leap to express that openly. You should at least be able to express anything you think might create a barrier in the therapeutic process.

Here's another one,
something a therapist
said to me, someone
who really should have
none better. . . . . . .

"Weren't there any
GOOD times?"

Cant: I had a similar situation, I let him make decisions and thought I was getting a great deal. It didnt take too long before I realized I could made decisions just as well as he did and that I needed to, but it was already too late. He did not want to give it up. No matter what I did after that it made no difference.

Im sure there were reasons you stayed. Dont beat yourself up about that. I think many of us have made the same or a similar mistake. Its kind of what happens in abusive relationships.

If shes like the other therapists I had, she is trying to teach me to stop blaming my low self-esteem on my husband, because that is supposed to help me. If I take responsibility for my low self-esteem than I can keep it from happening (while married to him.)

Ilene: LOL of course there were good times. I was told, overlook the negative and just focus on the positive.

I was also told, if you do the right things, you can have a healthy relationship with anyone.

My absolute favorite was when I got sick and DH told me I was worthless because I could not do the dishes or laundry anymore and I told the therapist (NOT my therapist anymore) and she told me if you didnt have such low self-esteem to begin with, you would know you are not worthless and that comment wouldnt bother you. Then she said I should starve the negative behaviors (ignore it) and they will go away. And to learn to not take things personally.

Totally not my therapist any more!

Just because he never hit you doesn't mean his abusive behavior wasn't damaging you just as much. Sometimes I think the emotional abuse is worse. It makes us question our own worth, damages our self-esteem, and makes us question everything we do.

I think that a helpful response might have been, "What have you learned from your relationship with him?"

Now, the part I can see is the therapist asking you to look at yourself. How you feel, how you felt, what let you know that things weren't right in this relationship. The reason why I think the focus on you is so important. This is the only person you have control over.

Focus on the abuser can become a cycle. And, there is nothing you can do to cause him to change or improve. Yet, there are things you can to do to improve your own life. I wonder if the therapist was trying to lead you down that path.

Maybe ask and also therapy should be a safe place to confront your therapist and ask questions if something strikes you the wrong way. Or, if you feel harmed. Talk about that. Then, you can discover your power., and regain your strength. It does come.

You have shown a great amount of courage here. Best wishes.

I can kinda see where the therapist might have been coming from with those types of questions, but I don't feel that they went about handling it in an appropriate manner.

A number of months ago while researching what resources are available to abuse victims I came across a couple of interesting articles relating to the first modern shelters for abuse victims.

One of the women who established some of the first shelters for abused women talked with the women who took refuge at them, trying to get a better understanding of what types of situations they were trying to escape. She was was surprised to find that in more than half the cases the victimized women had actually been reciprocating abuse with their partner.

In other words: more than half of the abused women interviewed were themselves were found to have been (either unknowingly or knowingly) abusive at times towards their abusive partner.

This doesn't mean that those women were any less of victims, but it does mean that they were behaving as abusers too at times and this only added to the problem.

Abuse is abuse. It doesn't matter who deals it out or who receives it.


I would think that an important part of treating an abuse victim would be determining if their ordeal has caused them to develop any type of abusive behaviors and treating that issue too so that it doesn't result in abuse in future relationships.

However, that seems like something that should come AFTER treating damage that the victim sustained from abuse. Otherwise it seems unlikely to me that much progress could be made in treating them if the therapist starts off by focusing on abusive behaviors the victim may or may not have unconsciously adopted.

People still recovering from the effects of abuse don't typically seem very open to the idea that they themselves could be exhibiting abusive behavior.

I have encountered a few DS users who were abusive towards me when I have tried to reach out for support or share my story. In most cases where I called them out on what they said and/or how it was abusive they would become quite hostile as a result.

I wasn't keen on the idea either and it took me a while to accept that certain behaviors of mine in the past are technically abusive. As a result of learning to accept those faults I make more of a conscious effort to avoid such behaviors.


Anyways, like I said this part of treatment for abuse should come later into the treatment. AFTER the victim is healed enough to handle that sort of self examination, and even then it should be handled gently and carefully by the therapist.

I understand what kind of mind set your therapist has, but I also think he is an ass. I would like to ask him exactly what help you are going to receive with a remark like that? That is like telling a woman who was just grabbed off the street and raped, "Gee, what part of the rape were you responsible for?".. Are you kidding me? I often wonder where these therapists get their credentials. I truly do. Of course when we are abused, we have to work on our own issues and figure out why we allowed a horrid person to treat us like a piece of crap. Being in love absolutely causes many of us to put on blinders and not see what is right in front of us. We also go into denial because we don't want to believe that this man or woman that we love with all of our heart, doesn't love us back. Please, do not call yourself an idiot because that is farthest from the truth. Please get that thought right out of your mind. What I feel you need to work on, is to find out why you think you don't deserve better, when in reality, you do. We don't always know what we are getting ourselves into. There are stalkers and abusive men who are complete angels in the eyes of others, until they get that ring on your finger, or they have you so wrapped up in loving them, that you just pray that they are going to change for you. For most of these men, they are narcissists. They don't believe they are doing anything wrong and you deserve it, which we all know that you don't. Stop that train of thought right now. No more talking about you not taking responsibility for what happened. Right now, it's time to take care of you and stay away from this person. You are worthy of having a good man in your life and he is not the one. Go to support groups for abused women and men, and see that you are not responsible. Keep posting and don't let anyone, not anyone, take away your dignity. Hugs GB

Tangelo,

Part of me, intellectually, understands the complicated, and sometime unconscious reasons why I stayed with my abuser. Part of the reason was defense mechanisms such as denial, minimization, intellectualization, because psychologically I was in survival mode. Part of it was that I internalized the daily, systematic brainwashing messages I received that I was incapable on my own, part of it was guilt because he had no one else and I believed his abuse was "love" and that he loved me, part of it was I felt a sense of duty-you get married you stay married, part of it was I was afraid of him too-afraid of what he might try to do to me if I left.

Regarding self esteem and abuse, this is very complicated, I think. I mean, if someone gets their feet kicked out from under them every single time they try to stand up, inventively, sooner or later A-N-Y-O-N-E will stop trying to get up. Would I be responsible for the choice to crawl, rather than try to get up yet again, YES, but I made the choice to crawl because I didn't want my legs kicked out from under me again. This is learned helplessness, the expectation that one has no control, no choices, because no matter what they do they are screwed. Abusive relationships are ripe for learned helplessness, and as it relates to self esteem your in a real catch 22 there, then, aren't you? I have other choices, I can make the choice to crawl away from the person kicking me, make certain demands of the person kicking me and stand by the consequences of those demands not being met (meaning leaving again) but it takes some degree of self worth to decide enough is enough and I don't deserve to be kicked anymore. I mean, that's the thing-YOU DON'T DESERVE TO BE KICKED AROUND. YOU are not responsible for that. You're not doing doing anything that makes you accountable to being kicked.

That's part of it, there's also self efficacy, and insight, I think those are components of self esteem (or self worth to be more accurate about it) too. It seems to me that the building block to the rest though, is insight, seeing your patterns and where they come from. Working towards insight w/o judgement. Once you place value judgments on things you're mucking up the waters, again. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what it seems like is logical to me.

Thanks everyone.

There is nothing like an abusive relationship to bring out every single weakness you have.