Dear Dr. Reality,
I just don’t understand. I grew up with an incredibly supportive father, a semi-nurturing (somewhat verbally volatile but also loving) mother. Things weren’t perfect, my father definitely enabled my mother’s selfishness and my mother took advantage of his kindness. Though this resulted in some consequences within our family dynamic, we were also loving, supportive of one another, and generally happy.
How is it that I became involved in a emotionally abusive and ultimately physically abusive relationship? This person controlled me for several years (I was often afraid to go out with friends, to not answer his phone calls, to not do what he told me to do). Then, when I finally (thank god) caught him cheating on me, I finally was able to break up with him. After not talking to him for three months, I started it up again. Subsequently, he became jealous and flipped. He became violent, he grabbed my wrist to the point of bruising, dumped water on my head, whipped me with hangers, held me down by my neck.
How does someone like me forgive this so easily? How can I still talk to him on a daily basis, tell him I love him, be anxious if I miss his calls?
I’m not dumb, uneducated, ugly, desperate for a relationship, etc. Why can’t I stop talking to him? Yes, I love him. Yes, I worry about him. Yes, I crave his support. But still, what am I doing?
Sincerely,
how-does-this-happen?
Dear How Does This Happen,
With all due respect, and I mean that, “how does this happen” is the wrong question. The right questions are whether all things considered you are glad you are with him, whether there is a way to make things better, and, if the answers to those questions are in the negative, why you stay. I’m not sure whether you want to be in an “emotionally abusive” and physically abusive relationship. There’s pretty strong evidence in your letter that you do: you may not have known what you were in for when you met him, but you certainly did when you re-upped. Also, there’s a subtle way you downplay his violence (by pairing “whipped me with hangers” with “dumped water on my head”). I imagine many people, including your saner self, would react with horror and try to push you out of the relationship. This allows you to export the negatives about the relationship and to defend it. When other people, including you, shout that you should leave, it makes you think, it’s not that bad. So I refrain.
Perhaps you feel so guilty about sex that you can only enjoy it if you are being punished for it at the same time? It’s just a guess, but it fits the data.
When you say your father was “incredibly” supportive, methinks the lady doth protest too much. Maybe you’re really angry at him and you’ve paired up with someone you feel less guilty about getting angry at and protect your father from your anger by idealizing him. Maybe you got the idea that an incredibly supportive father needs a daughter in trouble so he can stay incredibly supportive. Again, these are just guesses.
The only way to tell if the relationship can be improved is to start acting like the kind of girlfriend you want to be, instead of like an abuse victim, and see if he can respond in kind. Explicit rules can help about what is and is not allowed, but the rules have to be enforced.
You say you aren’t dumb, uneducated, ugly, or desperate. I doubt, in your heart of hearts, that you really believe you are particularly appealing. It sounds to me that in your heart of hearts you believe you’re a slut (this would explain why you tolerate being treated like a slut—monitored, pushed around, and only really aggravated by his cheating). Are you a slut? If not, stop treating yourself like one; if so, stop being one, or stop complaining about it; these all require close relationships with people who think you’re not a slut to bolster your sense that you’re not one. One way to find out what you really think of yourself and also to find out whether that self-image is correct is to enter a relationship where everything possible is done to allow you to know yourself. That’s called psychotherapy when it’s done right.
Finally, I want to say that if you substitute the word, meth, or cocaine, for his name in your thoughts, it might help clarify things.
I hope you find your way.
Dr. Reality
Michael Karson, Ph.D. 