important information.

I will toss my two cents into the mix.

At the end of the day, the only people with the POWER and the REAL motivation to stop the cycle of violence are the Victims.

Perpetrators are usually content with the status quo, while friends and family can find themselves either victimized or ostracized if they "interfere" with the dynamic.

This is one of the big reasons people - including myself - "blame the victims." Yes, the PERPETRATOR should not commit the horrible acts that they commit, but IDENTIFYING A PATTERN OF BEHAVIOR does not make it acceptable, and playing "this time, it will be different!" delusional mind games doesn't make it better.

I remember when one of my sisters (the first, but not the last to deal with the issue) was assaulted badly enough that she "moved out" from her boyfriend. The entire family rallied around her - we dropped *everything* to get her the hell away from her abusive, drug addicted no-good boyfriend.

Then she went back to him. Then she got pregnant by him. Then he beat the crap out of her AGAIN, and we dropped *EVERYTHING* to get her the hell away from her abusive drug addicted no-good boyfriend.

Then she went back to him and got pregnant again, and married him. There was more "drama" in between, with family getting less and less interested in participating, because every time they "got back together" the rest of us were expected to pretend everything was fine and dandy.

It made for some very unpleasant holidays. I pretty much HATED that guy -- he was hurting my sister, but if I was "rude" to him, then *I* was the problem.

She finally divorced him THE SECOND TIME he put her in the hospital -- not the first, mind you -- THE SECOND.

And it was scary for a while, because he was a freaking drug addicted lunatic who was strung out much of the time, so who the hell KNEW what he was thinking or what his addled brain would come up with next?

His children never saw him again after she finally got out that last time. He eventually died due to a drug overdose, and while *his* family might have mourned the loss, mine was relieved because it meant my nieces were safe from him.

Blah, blah, blah - low self esteem, and let's be honest - she was using, too, just not as "hard" as he was, so they had that self-destructive streak in common until her survival instinct finally kicked in --

But do you know what FINALLY made it kick in?

Her toddler got in the way of one of his punches.

It wasn't the broken rib that punctured her lung that did it - it was the fact he almost "accidentally" killed her child that finally made her WAKE THE F*CK UP to the complete and utter DISASTER she was living.

I get it. Cycle of abuse, blah, blah, blah. At the end of the day, it was MY SISTER who had to make the decision to END THE CYCLE.

So, when people get mad at the victims (and trust me, to this day I still get angry about the whole situation, and this stuff went down mainly in the 1980s!), remember it is because the rest of us Can't Save Them until they decide to Save Themselves.

And it HURTS, and it makes us ANGRY, and it reminds us that WE are HELPLESS in the face of this stuff...

Until the Victim of the Abuse really means it when they say, "Enough!"

to come to the conclusion that they're worth saving. My guess is your sister's abuser did a great job of convincing her that she was a loser who deserved the abuse and for whatever reason,she believed him.

The *first time* it happened, it was *not* because he had established "the pattern of abuse."

It was because she was primed for the whole thing with her very big, very ugly baggage.

Plus, the drugs were fun - self-medicating depression, and avoiding dealing with previous trauma and issues was easier than spending years in therapy.

I get it.

But the truth is this -- she made a series of choices to stay with him. Part of it was because she did truly love him, and at some level, he loved her. It was NOT a healthy love, and part of me wants to vomit a little when I call it "love", but truthfully, they did care for each other.

And I think, as they dealt with their demons in the only way they knew how at the time, there was excitement and passion and "us against the world, because no one else understands" drama.

His demons killed him. He almost killed her.

She picked him.

I get it.

Sigh.

experience: There is always a pattern of abuse whether it be physical or verbal. It's there from the beginning. Most abuse starts out verbal or mental then moves onto physical (it isn't always that way but more often than not it is). You mentally and verbally berate the person you're with until they believe they can't do better than the piece of shit they're with and the the physical abuse will kick in. And patterns are patterns for a reason, they tend to repeat themselves.

For example, my father, though physically abusive towards me was more mentally/verbally abusive overall and I still have self-esteem issues in my early 40s because of his treatment. Theoretically, I'd be ripe for an abusive relationship but because I have trust issues, I'm single. Friendships are hard enough for me let alone romantic relationships. I've been to therapy, I'm medicated and still, I'd be ripe to seek out someone like my father even if I wasn't consciously doing it and there's a good chance I'd end up with someone like him. I wouldn't notice it right away either and I'm pretty in touch with all this psycho babble stuff. For people on drugs, whose judgement is already clouded, it'd be quite easy for your sister to miss the signals that she was ending up with an abusive man.

-Societal messages that working it out is always better than divorce, or that fighting back is the answer even your partner is stronger than you. Not that long ago it was common for the justice system to treat domestic violence as a personal dispute rather than a legal matter.
-No family able to help out the victim.
-No domestic violence shelter with room for her and her kids (shelters had a bed for her but no place for her kids.)
-A lack of job skills/work experience or other barriers against self-sufficiency.
-The very real fear, after months/years of escalating violence, that trying to leave will escalate the violence to murder.

All of the above are reasons I've heard from family members and friends. When I was young I used to get mad at the victims out of my own frustration but I grew to understand that my anger should be placed squarely on the abuser and on an inadequate social safety net.

She had a safety net; family was there for her. He didn't pay for their housing - family did. There was an emotional connection between the two.

I get the baggage. I'm glad she finally got out.

I watched three sisters go through it. It got old.

I've never heard a domestic abuse survivor say anything remotely close to that (and sadly, I've known dozens of them.) The closest to that would be choosing not to rock the boat out of fear of further escalating.

It started when she was about sixteen, and ended around the time she was twenty-one.

She married him while she was pregnant with their second child; she was nineteen when she had my eldest niece in 1983, and gave birth to the second in 1985, and I think the divorce went down in 1986. (It has been a while, so dates might not be perfect.)

I did not witness any "fear of further escalating" -- she was not a "timid" person. From the outside looking in (and keep in mind I was two years younger than she was) the biggest thing between them seemed to be the illegal drugs. He later died of an overdose; I am grateful she wasn't with him, but oddly enough, when we found out about his death years later, instead of blaming HIM for doing the drugs, she blamed his death on the people he was with....

Did I mention the fact my family has some serious dysfunctional issues?

Last edited Mon Sep 8, 2014, 03:56 PM - Edit history (1)

normal is much higher. It would also explain why so many siblings were in abusive relationships.

Still, I was relating my experiences and I've never heard a victim/survivor describe the reason they stayed as a " being comfortable" with the situation. Far from it.

It is absolutely amazing and horrifying what people come to accept as "normal." Especially if that's all you've ever known. There's a certain perverse comfort in the familiar, no matter how bad it is. At least you know what to expect.

If you come from a family where the paradigm is that the dominant male is a substance abuser, and who regularly hurts pets and other family members, some part of you views this as The Way Things Are. You might not necessarily believe you deserve to be hurt, and you might be angry at the unfairness, but you also might accept this as your lot in life.

Growing up in an abusive home, I remember hearing the word "love" spoken elsewhere--outside my home, where it was not used. And I thought to myself that this might be a nice thing, and maybe some day I could find out what that meant. Or, you know, maybe not. I thought, maybe not everybody gets to be loved, and maybe my lot in life is to be hurt.

It took me many years, an abusive husband, and many therapists to unlearn those "truths" I absorbed growing up.

While living with abuse is beyond horrible, I understand your deep feelings of frustration and helplessness as a witness to violence. It's incredibly difficult to disentangle these feelings, suspend judgment (because, who really does this?) and still be a positive force in your loved one's life. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is nothing at all.

You're right: your sister had to reach her own breaking point with the abuse--and I'm glad she finally did before someone died.

But that's very different from victim blaming and suggesting that the victim/survivor is somehow complicit in the abuse. Especially when looking from the outside in on a deeply dysfunctional relationship...you just can't know, all the facts, all the secrets, all the dirt.

Every domestic violence survivor I have ever met has performed minor acts of heroism every day. By surviving. By keeping the children safe from the abuser. By finding little end-arounds to avoid the abuser. These people are incredibly resourceful in their survival. They do what they have to do to be safe. And, if they don't leave the relationship when other people think they should, it's really not up to the outsiders to second-guess those choices.

Is there an element of co-dependency or other pathology within the relationship? Of course there is! People stay in bad relationships for all kinds of reasons. The more damaged you are, the harder it's going to be to let go of that piece of dysfunction.

The question for the helpers is, what do you really want for your loved one? If the answer is anything other than, "I want my loved one to be safe," then you should be checking your motives. Once you focus on the goal of safety, helping becomes easier. People who feel safe will have an easier time making good choices--when they're not panicking, or feeling as if their hand is being forced.

I am no expert on these matters, although I have lived through domestic violence and counseled a goodly number of people. I always feel that my role should be uplifting people, helping them to stay safe and do what they need to do, rather than judging them for "not leaving that jerk." Because in my book, that's not what support looks like.

Peace to you and your family.

That whole paragraph is a thing of beauty,lapislzi. So very well said.

Withholding judgment is HARD. Especially when your secret wish is for the abuser to get hit by a bus.

I learned a lot about myself watching my sisters make "bad life choices" -- I even learned a lot when I made some "idiot choices" myself.

The toughest one was that I was NOT in control of the choices other people made for themselves. As a raving codependent (recovery ongoing), this was a tough one for me.

I also saw how easy it was for things to "go bad" when they weren't that way in the beginning.

There were a lot of trust issues for me, thanks to what I witnessed.

I am luckier than most.

Peace to you and yours.

Your frustration came through loud and clear.

Self-destructive and other urges can lead people to very bad places. Usually this is only apparent with hindsight. How fortunate for you and your sister that you were able to see the terrible patterns and gradually break free of them.

Don't be too hard on yourself, or your sisters. Just because you made some bad choices doesn't mean anybody has the right to exploit them and hurt you. Doing that makes them terrible people--not you. And, guess what? Even the most heinous abuser has or had some quality that drew the victim. Nobody's all good or all bad. Twenty years on, I can share a meal with my former abuser, for the sake of the daughter we raised. I can do this because I learned how to set boundaries, and how to forgive. That last one took a long time. Now he's the damaged one, and I'm sorry for him.

I wish you healing on your journey.

And honestly, I am okay with that.

he tells her she made him do it and then she says 'oh maybe he just pushed me and not hit me' . Considering she has bruises all over her body.

he beat her for losing her job, but now he isn't working and wont look for another job
he beats her for talking to males
he beats her and then says his son did not see it , he wasn't in the room when it happened so he isn't "affected" by it.
he will lie and say he has never hit her all the time.

im done with him

Call the cops on him, already. Sheesh.

Back to square one. I can't imagine the frustration you must have endured.

"At the end of the day, the only people with the POWER and the REAL motivation to stop the cycle of violence..." are the FUCKING ABUSERS, not the victims.

You really need to read this: http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2008/06/03/jackson-katz-violence-against-women-is-a-mens-issue/

"If a woman has done everything in her power to reduce her risk, then a man who has the proclivity for abuse or need for power will just move on to another woman or target," Katz added. "It’s about the guy and his need to assert his power. And it’s not just individual men, it’s a cultural problem. Our culture is producing violent men, and violence against women has become institutionalized. We need to take a step back and examine the institutionalized polices drafted by men that perpetuate the problem."

I disagree with you 100% -- the best defense is DON'T BE THERE.

My sister made choices to stay, based on her own baggage.

At a certain level, she was NOT HELPLESS -- she told the rest of us to go to hell on a regular basis when she was ping-ponging back and forth, with him being in the "hero mode" with us just not understanding.

No one MADE her stay with a guy who assaulted her. She had safe places to go, we all hated him and did everything we could to protect her. My father was involved in law enforcement, and he had the guy picked up regularly (outstanding warrants, drug convictions, driving without a license, etc.), so he spent regular time in jail even when my sister wasn't willing to press charges.

At some level he was meeting needs we just couldn't -- and I am grateful she finally got the hell out before more damage was done.

She was an Active Participant in that Relationship; she DID NOTHING that justified his laying one FINGER on her.

I have the clues. Getting out and staying safe is scary and dangerous and AWFUL.

No one else can do it -- the VICTIM has to say "enough" and mean it.

You don't have to like my opinion, but the beauty of this internet discussion board is that I am free to have it.

The love I have for my sister is pretty darn clear sighted; she was not perfect, and decades later, I still get angry thinking about the drama, the bruises, and the sight of her in the emergency room with an IV in her arm and bruises all over her body.

And I get ANGRIER at the fact she went back to him after the first time that happened.

Blame the victim? Yeah, at a certain level I do.

I would have cut my left arm off to save her from that kind of pain. Instead, I was asked to buy him a God-Damned Christmas Present a few weeks later, and told to watch myself lest I "ruin Christmas".

I am aware of my family's dysfunction. I have a clue. You might not like my conclusions - heck, you appear to consider me part of the problem - but pretending the whole thing was just because The Guy was in some "magic control" of her is simply fabrication -- he was too strung out on illegal drugs to be that powerful!

She had baggage. So did he. And the whole damn family got sucked into it....

Sigh.

She's been dead for ten years now. I still love her, and she knew it. She spent the last eighteen years of her life with a better man, and in my head I don't define her as "just a victim of domestic abuse" -- she was stronger than that.

But I have now watched three sisters deal with physically abusive partners (a fourth I wonder about), spent several years a long time ago volunteering on a suicide prevention line, and know too many people who had violence in their relationships.

The biggest thing I walk away from on this front is this:

It's complicated. It isn't just one thing (money) or another (self-esteem) or even society. It is damaged people (and aren't we *ALL* damaged in some way or another?) struggling to cope with the best tools they have.

In my family, two out of three of my abused sisters used illegal drugs to deal with past trauma issues. They picked partners with baggage who also used illegal drugs, who did not have healthy coping strategies when life challenges hit. This stuff spread like an ugly stain over the rest of the family relationships, and decades later we still deal with the aftermath.

I do not know of many families without some dysfunction in them. I like to think the steps I have taken to cope with mine will help my children have a healthier set of tools to deal with life challenges.

You may have different experiences, and have come to different cause/effect stuff in your head as a result. That is okay.

Welcome to DU - where not everyone agrees with you, and it doesn't make either one of us "terrible people."

And I suspect you didn't read the article I linked.

But, whatever. I've said what I had to say and will not swap war stories with you.

Honestly, the whole topic is very distressing, and I am doing my best to remember my own hard earned balance on the topic. The quote you gave --

"If a woman has done everything in her power to reduce her risk, then a man who has the proclivity for abuse or need for power will just move on to another woman or target,"

Thank you for posting this important information. It cannot be said often enough.

They'll center their whole lives around not provoking their abuser and then when abuse happens anyway they'll blame themselves and focus on avoiding that particular trigger the next time. And often the people who surround them will encourage this.

I have a lot to say on this subject. but right now I'm just moving into a new place and my mind is not ready to access those memories and attempt to put them into a coherent thought for all of you.


To anyone reading this and looking for help, the first step is knowing that you and your life have meaning~~this is the very first thing an abuser tries to take from you. Your life has worth, and this is what your abuser is trying to take from you. Please love yourself. I will write more later.

Just for the record:


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/26/audrey-deen-miller-texas-woman-shoots-husband-over-cat_n_1914572.html

His CRIMES against me and my daughter STILL go unresolved as I can't find anyone in authority here in TX that gives a damn. I even packed up and moved to NOCO for almost a year to get away from him after the fact and had to move back because no one in "authority" gave a damn there either (Fizzgig it was AWESOME working with you, and I'm sorry I was so secretive about my past, BUT NO LONGER!). I have also spoken to "authority" here until I'm blue in the face and as far as they're concerned the abuse prior to "The Incident" doesn't matter and I was NEVER charged for it as it WAS an accident though he DOES deserve to be wiped off the map for what he's pulled. Have I mentioned yet that what he's done has NO statute of limitations in TX? So much for "justice".

and I'm sorry that there was no justice for you and your daughter.

keep your head up

I plan on posting much more later. I'm in "crisis housing" in Texas at this time and have about 2 weeks left here. Thinking of going camping after that and trying to get back to NOCO once this is all over. I hate my home state now... the Repukes have turned it into a cesspool in the last 35 - 40 years. I'm hoping I'm not disenfranchised so I can vote for Wendy Davis when the elections come around!

It's when the abuser is contrite and starts to woo the victim all over again. It can be the hook that keeps people in abusive relationships, that wonderful, heady time when the victim is with the partner s/he remembered from courtship.

As the cycle continues, that period gets shorter and shorter and disappears completely if the abuse is allowed to continue. By that time, a victim is so beaten down that s/he feels unworthy of escape.

Abuse works. It puts people under control through fear. That's why there are so many abusers in the world.

The best thing to do is educating victims and creating an infrastructure to allow them to leave an abusive relationship without wrecking their lives completely. It's also essential that the cops/state press charges of abuse, not the victim. It's the only way to convince abusers that what they're doing is wrong.