absolutely. And you have full control over that. You can stand up and say ENOUGH is ENOUGH. Is it hard, yes, does it suck, yes. Is it the most difficult thing in the world to do, to pack yourself and your kids up with only their toys and clothes and walk out on their father. ABSOLUTELY.
"victim mentality" is just that a mentality. We do not have any control over the initial victimization, we do however have complete control over the continued and the state of mind that comes with it. If you continue to allow yourself to be beat up, stepped on, taken advantage of etc, then it will continue to happen. If you do not change the mentality that says it is ok and you are not worth better, than your next relationship (assuming that you actually get out of the first bad one) will be abusive.
And, I would appreciate it if you were going to quote what I said, actually READ the entire thing and do not take anything out of context. If you actually read what I wrote, you will see that I said abuse is a deal breaker and no one deserves it, regardless of responsibility.
Last edited by lazylioness; 11-05-2010 at 12:55 PM.
If you get abused, and you choose to stay. You are allowing it to happen. You are telling yourself, your kids, your abuser, that you are not worth anything more than what you get.
Well I read all the posts and this entire thread so perhaps I just misunderstanding what people are saying. I'm not looking to argue with anyone, I just don't agree that someone should examine their own behavior to look for why a relationship failed in the context of an abuse.
I agree that you should look at the reasons why you are putting up with abusive behavior and that you control if you leave or not. But I don't agree that it is always both parties fault if a relationship fails, and I think in terms of abusive, mental illness/addiction and criminal behavors, in most cases it is only one persons fault the relationship failed - and that's the person who is displaying unacceptable behavior.
Sometimes life is not rational...sometimes you end up with someone who does just "snap" and becomes abusive or spirals out of control with an addiction or mental illness. It's sad, but it's not something you control, it may not even be something the other person can control in terms of mental illness - but it doesn't mean that you deserve their behavior or have to put up with it. It's not something that was triggered by nagging or being a lousy person to live with. There is no excuse for becoming abusive to your partner, no matter how lousy of a cook/mother/wife/house keeper or general life partner they are.
Nothing the OP could possibly be doing is causing her husband to sit at home all day binging on pizza and hamburgers and sending her abusive text messages about how lousy she is. That's why I don't think it's effective to advise her to examine her own behavior for an answer to this.
You are right, sometimes people just snap. And nothing the OP could be doing is causing her husband to sit at home all day binging. But her reaction to his behavior is absolutely in her control, her continually accepting the behavior from him is absolutely in her control. Accepting responsibility has nothing to do with assigning blame. Even in the case of someone "snapping" there is a shared responsibility. If someone can honestly, and i mean HONESTLY look at themselves and see that there was ABSOLUTELY nothing that they could have done different in reaction, then sure, you may have a valid circumstance. But while the initial "snap" is out of anyone's control, again I go back to our reactions to the actions are in our control.
I think where people get caught up in the whole thing is "responsibility" vs. "blame". Acknowledging that maybe you were not the "best" wife, mother, sister, brother, (whatever because all relationships require two people and abuse does not only come in one form) that maybe your reactions have to do with your own internal issues (of which we ALL have many) does not mean that it is YOUR "fault", or that it is less the other persons "fault". Really at the end of the day, assigning blame and fault does nothing to help any situation. At the end of the day, it just does not matter what happened to trigger it, what matters is keeping yourself healthy and safe and changing what you need to change in yourself to ensure that you are not in the position to be abused, victimized or whatever.
and BTW I did not think you were "looking" for an argument Chat, message board, IM is always easy to misconstrue because we cannot see each others body language to be able to all the time correctly interpret the meaning. It is always interesting to me to watch how nuances of face and body, and cadence and inflection of voice completely change someones meaning. Online there is nothing but the words. and a few funny faces once in a while
Last edited by lazylioness; 11-05-2010 at 02:29 PM.
Wildflower
and BTW I did not think you were "looking" for an argument Chat, message board, IM is always easy to misconstrue because we cannot see each others body language to be able to all the time correctly interpret the meaning. It is always interesting to me to watch how nuances of face and body, and cadence and inflection of voice completely change someones meaning. Online there is nothing but the words. and a few funny faces once in a while
Totally agree!
And you make some great points on personal responsibilty and taking action in order to be happy and live your life the way you want.
As one of my friends told me when I was getting ready to leave a 12 year abusive relationship with someone who became severely mentally ill, "Life is not a dress reheaersal - this is your one shot to get it right."
I think alot of you guys mininterpreted my post. I did not say stick with it no matter what. I also never said that this was her fault. There is nothing that excuses being treated that way.
I asked her to really think about what she has contributed to the problem (but what she did does not excuse his behavior). She can only control her own behavior so this is all she can focus on in her attempts to save her marriage. Sitting on the side saying if he doesn't change there is nothing I can do is faulty logic. Maybe changing the way you engage him and communicate can impact his behavior (and maybe it wont but you can seriously try).
I'm only going on the limited information I have but it is amazing what addressing someone in a calm, peaceful, non-blaming or judgemental way. Apologizing for everything you have done (even if its MUCH less than what the other person has done) Do this without a single word about what the other person has done and asking how you can love them better so that this does not happen again. I did this with a ruthless family member I had been fighting with for years and being addressed in this way made them cry. I thought things were unsalvageable but they apparently were not.
Realize that when someone is angry they suffer. Anger is a state of suffering, it's like being in ****. When he's screaming at you think of him as being hurt and needing help, not as someone who hurt you and you hence want to hurt back. Walk away don't engage him let him calm down. It sounds like he's in an aweful lot of pain.
I think it's great that your going back to therapy. If your friends think divorce is a good idea thats a serious red flag. I'm not saying stick it out, just that before you call it quits do everything that YOU can to be part of the solution, give up being right. If you do that and end up getting divorced you can walk away knowing you did all you can.
At this point, I'm just repeating what everyone else has said but... you deserve so much better. You deserve to be respected and treated well and not made to feel badly. Your husband is seriously abusing you - and at this point, I think you know that, and I hope you're able to resolve the situation.
Good luck with law school! Definitely pursue it, what an amazing opportunity.
And you make some great points on personal responsibilty and taking action in order to be happy and live your life the way you want.
As one of my friends told me when I was getting ready to leave a 12 year abusive relationship with someone who became severely mentally ill, "Life is not a dress reheaersal - this is your one shot to get it right."
Yup one shot.
I was with my ex husband for YEARS after he started being abusive. He hit me for the first time before we were even engaged. We were best friends who started dating. So I had NEVER seen that side of him before. It continued through pregnancy and after. Was it my "Fault" he was that way, nope. Did I have responsibility in it yup, was I at times a contributing member of the fight, yup. and sometimes it was abuse in such a way that I did not realize that is what it was. I took him to counseling, was with him through the bi-polar diagnosis, and still thought that I could "fix" him. Until one day I realized I could not, that even though I did not "ask for it", ultimately the abuse that was happening to me was my responsibility to end, however I could because he was not going to. I realized after several years, that him being sick was just one of many reasons for it, that my responsibility was my reaction, and I realized how I could have done things differently (within reason), the biggest thing I could have done was walked away when he hit me the first time. But I didn't, so ultimately, yeah, I allowed it to continue.
I had given up SO much to be married to him and to build a life with him. Now, after ten years of divorce, we are friends again. He has mellowed with age, and what we went through together has in a way made our relationship stronger and better. I can call him out on his BS in a safe way that his new wife cannot, and I can give her insight about how and why he reacts the the way he does. We do family vacations, holidays and birthdays together. It was a long hard road, and I am getting my life back but it CAN happen. But to even start on that road took a long HARD look at myself and how I could have been different, and changed the things that I felt I needed to.
I guess the point of this is to just express that I have been there done that. Maybe it is cathartic in a way, but it bothered me that anyone would think that what I was implying was that someone deserved to be abused because they allowed it to happen. Make sense?
Nothing the OP could possibly be doing is causing her husband to sit at home all day binging on pizza and hamburgers and sending her abusive text messages about how lousy she is. That's why I don't think it's effective to advise her to examine her own behavior for an answer to this.
I agree.
I also think that abuse changes the abusee, makes him/her more passive, fearful that he/she IS the cause of the abuser's behavior, it wears away self esteem and the ability to make decisions and bring about (positive) change. It can become a cycle that's incredibly difficult to break, and can lead to escalation (the erosion of self esteem and guilt and self blame of the abusee makes the abuser feel more empowered and self righteous).
so I think to say the abusee has the power to leave any time to stop the cylcle may be true on the surface, but doesn't take into account how the situation may be making that move very much more emotionally difficult. It's also a spectrum.
I don't mean to apply this to OP's situation, though it's probably true the husband knows how to play his guilt cards.
Chat, message board, IM is always easy to misconstrue because we cannot see each others body language to be able to all the time correctly interpret the meaning. It is always interesting to me to watch how nuances of face and body, and cadence and inflection of voice completely change someones meaning. Online there is nothing but the words. and a few funny faces once in a while 
