Imagine that one of your best friends told you, in confidence, that their partner was abusive. Whether physical, emotional, financial, or in whatever other way, this friend’s partner had crossed the line. Your friend hasn’t had the guts to tell many people yet; they don’t know what to do, and you’re the first person they’ve asked for advice.
So what do you tell them?
LEAVE, right?
And then you’re surprised when they don’t go. You’re frustrated, you want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them, you want to scream that they’re just setting themselves up for more of this treatment. Sure, your friend tells you that their partner apologized and swore it would never happen again, and things are looking and feeling great once more, they appreciate your concern, but they’re going to try and get through it.
So you wait, because you’re sure it’s going to happen again, and this friend will need you once more. Or else you distance yourself, because your friend is sitting on a ticking time bomb and they didn’t take your advice anyway, so it’s their problem, right? Or something in between. If you’re a very proactive friend, you might even tell that friend’s partner that there better not be any other incidents, but how much good will that do?
And you have to ask yourself, time and time again, why must your friend stay in that relationship? Why can’t they just see sense and move on with their life before they get hurt?! You might even start to wonder if they’re exaggerating the situation, because if it was real abuse, they’d have the sense to get out, right? Maybe they’re just overplaying it a bit, right?
That’s how I felt- I was always a sounding board for my friends and their problems, and, when one would come to me and tell me a tale of such, I’d always tell them the same thing- GET OUT OF IT. Get your stuff out, get your name off the property, change your phone number, hell, get a restraining order if you must. I’d oftentimes offer to head over to their place and help them pack their stuff right then.
Nearly all the time, you want to know what happened?
They didn’t go.
And I’d hear the same stories, “We’re trying to work it out”, “It’ll never happen again,” “(S)he’s changed, was under a lot of stress that week,” whatever else is out there. And I’d shake my head and have to wonder, Man, why are people so damn stupid?!
Then I was on the other end of that situation.
Some realities- there are many different kinds of abusers, just like there are many kinds of abuse.
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Some realities- there are many different kinds of abusers, just like there are many kinds of abuse. Not all of them are the kind you see on tv and movies, running a reign of terror and control. And not all start out like that and continue; if they did, it wouldn’t be nearly so hard to leave them, right? In a lot of cases, for whatever reason, it slowly sneaks up on you.
My case- I married my wife in a hurry, we were together barely more than three months before we wed, typical whirlwind relationship. Loved her, loved her daughter, we had an apartment together, careers in the same field, and everything was going for us. There were little fights here and there, but who doesn’t have an argument with their spouse once in a while? It wasn’t huge stuff, so why worry?
Bit by bit, though, the problems were starting. She was drinking more than usual, but she was working 14-16 hours a day, right? The fights were becoming more frequent, but tension from the job, plus us being apart for a few months because of work, that’s normal too, right? And, after we came back together, well, we were just starting to live together full time again, people have to adjust to one another, right?
You see how it gets started? You make the excuses, you rationalize, minimize, until you can tell yourself that there isn’t a problem, not really. And when the problem grows, it’s not that hard to keep rationalizing. “It’s not a big fight,” you tell yourself, “she’s just mad because I don’t put the toilet seat back down. So I’ll start trying to remember to do that and everything will be fine.” And then it’s not about the toilet seat, the next fight comes and it’s about something else that’s totally minor.
The problem grows, but you don’t notice it because you’re spending all your time putting out the little fires, and you keep telling yourself they’re just little fires; you don’t notice the continuous damage they’re doing to the overall structure.
Until it all starts falling down around you.
But those fires weren’t growing too rapidly, and we were building a life together, I was teaching my stepdaughter how to swim, reading her stories at bedtime, watching movies with her, and I was making dinner for the family, I actually had in-laws with whom I got along (somewhat), and so things felt good on the overall.
OVERALL AVOIDANCE
Overall, things were fine.
I mean, the problems weren’t that big, right? And OVERALL, stuff was all right.
That’s why we stay. We look at the big picture, and the memories we’ve had and the time we’ve been together, and we tell ourselves that this is just one little problem, a bad time, and my parents went through rough times, and they’ve been married for 48 years! You’ve gotta work through the problems.
Overall. On the whole. All things considered. And it’s not until stuff either gets really bad, or the balance shifts so much that the problems outweigh the good times, that we stop and say, this isn’t right.
THE COMFORT CONUNDRUM
Even when we say that this isn’t right, we have to weigh in that we’re with this person, we’ve been with this person for so long, we’ve built something, and if we walk away, we’re back to the very beginning. Nobody likes having to start from scratch. And then the home comes into focus- unless your partner’s done something bad enough to have them arrested, it means you’re probably going to be the one who has to leave, so add finding a new home to that list. Who wants to have to do that?
Clint Black had a song that said, “So we tell ourselves that what we found was what we meant to find… you won’t believe the things a heart can tell a mind.” That’s about spot on for this one. You tell us that we need to get out of it, but, even if we believe you, it’s never that easy. Add one of the cutest and most fun kids in the world into the equation, and knowing that, if I left, I’d likely never get to see her again, and you have a situation from which there’s no easy exit.
So, we decide that we want to fix the problem. We’re not ready to walk away from it, especially when there’s so much time and effort in the equation. And that’s when we suggest our partners get help, they’ll usually refuse, then we demand it, and they’ll refuse, and then we start wanting to leave.
And that’s where the next reason we don’t leave starts up with a vengeance.
THE FEAR FACTOR
The other party has been running the show for so long now, and you’re threatening to do something beyond their control, even something that would totally ruin their status quo, so of course they’re going to take actions that will create an environment of fear.
When I told my wife, after she went off the wagon the third time (after her second trip to in-patient rehab), that I wanted a divorce, she started making demands. We had just renewed our lease for a year, so she demanded I pay my half of it. Then she said, since I’d bought my car during our marriage, even though her name was not on it, she’d take it. And, all of her hospital bills (including two trips to the ER, one of which happened before our insurance was activated) came about while we were married, so she was going to saddle me with those. Then she’d claim abandonment against me, and so she’d dump court costs and legal fees on me. And, since I had just gotten a new job, across the nation, she’d make sure that she’d file for divorce in the state in which we lived, so I’d have to tell my new employer that I would have to go back for a long divorce fight, and how would that look, having to take weeks off right at the start of a job?
And on, and on. Her goal in life was to create an environment of fear, and she succeeded. I was already terrified of what she might do, and that she’d taken the time to create such a list of items indicated she was ready to mess up my world in whatever way she could.
Whether it’s that they want to keep you there by brute force, threatening to hurt or even kill you if you try to go, or, as my spouse demonstrated, they want you to think/know that they’ll try and ruin your world if you leave, or something otherwise or in-between, fear is a powerful tool. And maybe they’ll try and take it more gently after that, they might say they’re sorry, and we always want to believe they’ll get better.
So we stay. And then, if we’re lucky, things DO get better. After my wife’s first trip through rehab, she came out and it felt like she was a new woman. For nearly two months, she was great. We had family adventures, travels, and everything felt great again. Right up until she started drinking again, and then it was ten times worse. A hundred. Bad enough that I knew it was time to get out, and I was lucky enough to get a great job offer that would give me the means to put thousands of miles between us.
Not everyone has that ability. I was very lucky, and I know it every day. And, if this experience changed anything in me, it’s that I certainly can’t look at someone in a bad relationship, shake my head, and say, “Why don’t they just get out of it?!”
FINAL DEPARTURE
She still did everything she could to keep me there, of course, right up to the minute I shut the car door to pull out of the parking lot. And she called me five minutes later, and texted me, and, three hours later, accused me of stealing her mailbox key, and that, if I didn’t turn around and bring it back, she’d call the police, and that’s a federal crime (I had put it on the table right next to the other keys I was leaving). There were a lot of things going for me that helped me make the decision to get out, and helped me know I had done the right thing, and her threats were nothing.
But we’ll go over those in the next installment.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Another reason why marriage sucks! PERIOD!