Guest post: Abuse isn’t actually a reaction to the other person
Originally a comment by ZugTheMegasaurus on She had been brought up to make the people around her happy and comfortable.
I have been, at various times in my life, a rape victim, a legal advocate for domestic violence victims, and a survivor of domestic violence. This “why did she stay” question crops up in virtually every discussion of any man-on-woman violence, and there is one fact sorely lacking from the conversation: “she” did not think like an abuser. It’s so simple, and it doesn’t stop within gender lines, and that’s probably why people don’t see it.
Anyone who has been abused will probably agree on one thing: the abuse doesn’t make sense. We know this is true from an objective standpoint too; abuse isn’t actually a reaction to the other person or their behavior, but is instead something that is internally-generated by the abuser. That’s why saying “It’s not your fault” is more than a nice platitude; it’s actually the reason that no amount of effort on the part of a victim to change will ever be enough to end the abuse: it wasn’t about her in the first place.
The reason abused women stay with their abusers is that they see their abusers as people who love them, and they expect that their abuser is pretty similar to other people in that category. When a person who loves you attacks you, it’s confusing. You don’t just move that person into the “monster” category and leave; you twist yourself in knots trying to figure out what the fuck happened, to pinpoint what exactly went wrong, to identify whatever element made things go so suddenly bad.
People frame this in a way that makes it sound like women are stupid or naive or unprepared, but that’s wrong. The victim is the one who is acting normally; what’s wrong is the situation that’s been created by someone who is sneakily operating on a totally different set of rules. It’s very easy to identify a “bad guy” after the fact and say, “Who would spend time around such a bad guy?” Somehow people forget at the same time that “bad guys” had to earn that reputation at some point, and usually get it by hurting somebody who had no way of knowing.
“The reason abused women stay with their abusers is that they see their abusers as people who love them, and they expect that their abuser is pretty similar to other people in that category. When a person who loves you attacks you, it’s confusing.”
Along those lines, we also groom girls to see the attack as a sign of affection:
http://viewsfromthecouch.com/2012/02/you-didnt-thank-me-for-punching-you-in-the-fac/
This is quite an oversimplification of why abuse victims stay with their abuser. There are those who daren’t leave because their abusers have made the consequences clear; those who have nowhere to go and nobody to turn to; those whose children would be put at risk of retribution; those who are literally held prisoner, not allowed out without their abusers and kept locked inside at all other times, etc.
When my mother was trapped in a relationship which contained elements of all of the above she was more than aware that love played no part in that man’s actions. As one of their children witnessing it, it was bloody obvious to me too.
What was described happens not just in romantic relationships. Friends and relatives with serious personality disorders can be abusive financially, emotionally, etc., and there can be a long period of thinking you have communications problems or something. I had a friend who slowly became more and more bizarre in his behavior and I gradually developed a sense of panic about dealing with him. I started avoiding him completely for my sanity, and it wasn’t until I read up on NPD that I realized that, by refusing to follow his “script” for our relationship and trying to set healthy boundaries, I had triggered a hostile response from him. He decided at some point I was his enemy and while still talking about our friendship and how much I meant to him, he set out to make me as unhappy as possible.
Once you see how it works, it’s much easier to get what’s going on when you see it happening in a new context. But we really do expect other people to be ethical and emotionally healthy-ish.
@SJ #2, in the situations you describe the casual bystander has no trouble understanding why the abused person stays where she is. I think Zug’s point was more about those situations where the entrapment is much less obvious from the outside.
Here’s how a domestic violence counselor I know responds to that question: Why doesn’t HE leave? After all, if he’s hitting her, he must be miserable.