Abusive Relationships

 7/5/08

The July 1st Billy Graham column was about someone who keeps getting into abusive relationships.  Unfortunately, or fortunately, Graham has no clue to the nature of abusive relationships and why individuals fall into them time and time again.

Question: 

Why do some people never seem to learn from their mistakes? I have a friend who got into a really abusive relationship with someone last year, and now she's about to fall into the same situation with someone else. I've tried to talk to her, but she just doesn't get it.

Billy Graham’s Response:

As you're discovering, one of life's most frustrating experiences is to try to help someone who is headed toward almost certain disaster -- and then have them ignore you. Why is this? Psychologists point to various reasons why some people seem determined to act unwisely and put themselves in harm's way, even when it brings them great hurt. Some people, for instance, are rebelling against their upbringing, or have a hidden conviction that they aren't worthy of true happiness and deserve to be punished. Others are so desperate for love that they'll do anything that promises happiness -- even if that promise is false. But the Bible says there is a deeper spiritual reason why we act this way (and we all do, to some extent). That reason is sin, which is like a terrible virus that infects our souls and cripples us morally and spiritually. This is why we need Christ, for only He can take away our sins and help us live the way we should.

Jen’s Advice:

Ok – about the only thing in Graham’s answer that even has an inkling of reality in it is when he says that some people think they aren’t worthy of true happiness.  Everything else is just off base and actually hurtful.  Apparently, if this person wasn’t so sinful, they wouldn’t be in an abusive relationship.  AARGH!  I hate this sort of blame the victim mentality.  But, then, that is Graham’s answer to pretty much everything.  It just means, in this case, he hasn’t a clue why a woman would enter into abusive relationship after abusive relationship so he falls back on some standard language about the importance of becoming a Christian.

Now, unfortunately, I have dated a couple of emotionally abusive individuals.  Not for long, but enough to realize just how much damage these jerks can do in a very little time and how much work the victim has to do to recover from them. There are 2 basic problems that are confusing this girl and that are causing her to drift back to an abusive relationship.  What follows is how I dealt with these issues and learned how to be in a normal happy and healthy relationship again.

First things first.  If you have been a victim of abuse, even if it was subtle and didn’t involve physical violence, you will still need to relearn what it is like to be in a healthy relationship.  Finding a healthy relationship after abuse is difficult for 2 main reasons.  Trust and Passion.

The first problem is with trust.  Abusers denigrated their victims in sometimes very subtle ways.  The first abusive guy I dated used to correct my posture, make comments about my complexion and once commented that I looked like I was gaining weight (which would have been a good thing because at the time I was underweight – but for him, this was a bad thing).  The 2nd guy used to make negative comments about my singing and would get morose anytime I was happy.  While I was smart enough to know these guys were wrong about their assessments, it still took quite a bit of time for me to get use to receiving compliments again.

And that is the first problem a victim of abuse has in dating someone nice.  Nice people say nice things about other people.  But, if you are used to being denigrated, even if unfairly and even if it wasn’t for very long because you ending a dating relationship over this very issue, it is still very hard to trust that someone new is complimenting you because they really mean it.  Here is what happens.  Abusive people aren’t just abusive.  They can be very nice and flattering.  In an abusive relationship, a compliment is almost always followed by something mean.  And, as stupid as it seems to someone who has never dealt with these issues before, trusting compliments after an abusive relationship really is a problem.

I remember thinking that the really nice guy I dated after the first jerk had to be lying since he kept telling I was beautiful and intelligent. My emotions were screaming – this guy is lying – he doesn’t think you are pretty, he is only saying that to get close to you, and then he is going to start being mean – because that is what the last guy did! It was horrible.  I just had to keep reminding myself that I deserved those compliments and that it was the screaming in my head that was out of line. 

The only way past this is to have your intellect override your emotions. You just have to tell yourself that compliments are a good thing and don’t mean that danger is coming. If someone is complimenting you, even if you think you don’t have a future with him or her, keep dating him or her.  After an abusive relationship, you need to become comfortable again with receiving compliments and that requires you to date someone who is nice.  While it might be uncomfortable at first and your warning sirens might be going off on full tilt, it won’t take long to become comfortable receiving compliments again.

The 2nd problem is that even if a victim of abuse manages to get past the first few dates with a nice person and no longer associates compliments with hidden dangers they will then run into the 2nd problem that prevents them from dating someone nice. Passion.  Abusive people are often very passionate people. When they do express love it is in very overwhelming terms.  And that is the problem. If you are a victim of abuse, you get used to extreme highs as an expression of love.  And, when you don’t’ get that from someone new, it is very hard to trust that they even like you let alone love you regardless of what they say.

Healthy relationships slide comfortably into love. They don’t hit you over the head and they don’t make massive declarations of love in as part of some intense emotional drama that plays out on a near constant basis.  Normal people don’t have to hurt you before they can show you how much they love you. And again, for those of you who have never had to deal with this, it is obvious, but for someone coming out of an abusive relationship, it is really hard to get your head let alone your heart around normal levels of passion.

When I was dating my husband, I actually started dating him because I knew he was sane and normal and I knew I needed to be with someone like that to relearn how to be in a normal healthy relationship.  When we started to get close, I remember being very uncomfortable with his expressions of love.  VERY UNCOMFORTABLE! Even though I intellectually knew he was a nice guy, I was still an emotional wreck over the way he was expressing his love for me.  I didn’t want to be told he loved me because I was seriously concerned he would turn him into a monster, like it had the last guy had.  I didn’t want to express my love for him for the same reason.  I didn’t trust he really meant it anyway because there wasn’t some big dramatic I can’t live without you moment that demonstrated how deeply and passionately he loved me.  I could go on, but you get the idea of what sort of nonsense was in my head.  Fortunately, my husband is a very patient man.

It is hard to do, but again, your head has to override the nonsense coming out of your heart.  I had to tell myself that it was ok, and to just play it out and see if he turned into a monster.  He didn’t and we eventually got married and are currently living happily ever after. 

The best advice I can give to a person recovering from abuse is to find someone boring. Abusers are emotional charged people. They are constantly dealing with internal problems and things are always wrong in their lives.  Healthy people are boring by comparison.  But boring in a really good way. Find someone boring and get used to the fact that in normal relationships, compliments are the norm and don’t contain hidden dangers.  And most importantly, that true love has a peaceful quality to it and it doesn’t have to be painfully dramatic to be felt intensely.