Warning Signs of Abusive Relationships

[Nic]

Originally Posted by Nic

Been doing a lot of self education recently. Can't tell you how many times I've heard this in the last few months. Every group of survivors I meet has had to do battle with an ex who spouted the "She/he done me wrong" and "I was so misunderstood" story. There are a lot of people who tell that story but they seem to fall into a couple of predictable categories: folks who are really wounded and can't seem to move on from that pain and folks who need you to see them as worthy of sympathy in order to gain access to you.

I'm in no way blaming people for being victims of emotional or physical violence but there's another distinction that needs to be made here. A couple of others have touched on it. Just want to suss it out a bit more and say that one of the things that strikes me as insidious in the abuse/abuser/onlooker triangle is the expectation (by onlookers) that abuse victims never engage in any passive aggressive or manipulative behavior in order to be deserving of support from outside the abusive relationship. That holier than thou POV penalizes the abused person and generally works to the abuser's advantage. It's as if the victims are required to show twice as much restraint or have double the healthy, emotional outlook when compared to their abuser or anyone else for that matter. Example: it's not uncommon for folks who are being or have been abused to be passive aggressive or manipulative because they have no relationship with having their needs met any other way. Constantly being belittled and shamed somehow will make a person stop (or never start) asking for what they need in a straightforward way. If you're taught that your voice doesn't matter or your needs don't mean anything you're eventually going stop walking the healthy line from A to B and use more circuitous route to get your needs seen to. Inevitably an onlooker sees that behavior and wrongly attributes negative intention to it rather than labeling it the survival behavior that it is. Suddenly it's the abused person who's the "bad" one in the relationship and the abuser starts to benefit from that opinion, even counts on it to reinforce the idea that they're working hard and just trying their best to keep things together under the "burden" of their victim's passive aggressive behavior. You see evidence that it works in the sympathy they gain from friends and family members. Even more powerful than what they gain from others is the way they can use the victim's survivor dysfunction against them to further undermine that person's self esteem and create more self doubt. The victim gets cast in the "emotionally unstable" role making the abuser the one who's "worthy" of sympathy from onlookers and even from the victim him/herself! Of course the abuser has temper outbursts! Just look at what the poor guy/gal has to deal with! Pretty neat trick.

We participate in reinforcing the facade of abusers if we spend any time shaking our heads at victims who "dare" to choose anything but completely straightforward, healthy, well adjusted, even tempered behavior in order to get their needs met or the work of a relationship done. We add insult to injury by shaking our heads over them when we discover that they didn't leave at the very first sign of abuse. We pretty much demand that they be better than the abuser and, sometimes, better than we are ourselves. Everyone is passive aggressive or manipulative at one time or another. Difference between abusive behavior and survivor behavior is how and why manipulation is used. Tactics that undermine another person's sense of self or self respect falls into the abuse category to me.

Someone asked me for clarification of my statements (in bold and red above). Mockery doesn't translate well to the screen.

I was being sarcastic about abusers who are skilled at misdirection. Onlookers occasionally discover that they felt sympathy for (later revealed) abusers and excused an abusers displays of temper or behavior because the victim in that case displayed emotions that seemed out of context or behavior that was attributed to emotional instability.

Abusers are good at misdirection. This is especially important if they come to the attention of normal thinking folks might. A victim who has the rug pulled out from under him or her often enough may begin to feel unstable and confused and act so when it's no longer possible to keep a lid on so much stress. The abuser in this case has to convince everyone that up is down and left is right. Their ability to keep a victim in a constant state of stress and the onlooker constantly supplied with "reasonable" explanations can often be integral to their facade. If the abused person is unable to rein in emotional upset and feelings of chaos and happens to behave in a way that gets the attention of an onlooker or is uncomfortable to an onlooker the abuser has to be good at misdirection (i.e.:redirecting blame and judgement from themselves onto the abused). Onlookers often find themselves excusing what seems like controlling or red flag behavior on the part of the suspected abuser by saying "Of course he/she is behaving that way. Look at the emotional behavior he/she has to deal with in their partner/child/friend/etc." It's one of the ways abusers maintain or restore their power. They involve onlookers by drawing them into the lie with "reasonable" explanations and sympathy ploys. Onlooker support is one of the best ways to keep an abuse victim off balance. If a reasonable person is convinced to be sympathetic to the "plight" of an abuser whose partner appears emotionally unstable (because of the difficulty of maintaining the appearance of normalcy and the stress of constant anxiety/fear and shifting rules or standards of behavior) the abuse victim is doubly penalized. Not only do they have the abuser to deal with but now the onlooker(s) have been fooled into being sympathetic toward the abuser rather than being people of safety to whom a victim can turn for help.