In my work supporting survivors of domestic abuse, I have become very aware that many women seem to favour familiarity in their choices, actions and thoughts, even when that familiarity is painful, uncomfortable and not serving them well. Freedom and choice can seem frightening, new possibilities, daunting. Remaining in a rut of negative thoughts and behaviour patterns can appear comfortable and familiar – destructive behaviour and unhelpful ways of operating will often have a secondary gain. When moving on from a bad situation, we will have losses and it’s important to acknowledge those losses because unless we do, we will tend to sabotage our own efforts to make positive progress.
The biggest challenge faced by women suffering domestic abuse is giving up the perpetrator and leaving the relationship. Because we’re concentrating here on post-separation abuse, most women reading this will hopefully have already met this enormous challenge – the rest should be easy! When dealing with post-separation abuse, to make progress, develop ourselves and truly survive the on-going experience, it’s important to acknowledge what we need to let go of before we will be free to embrace our relative freedoms and increased choices.
Giving up the hope our abuser will validate our mothering
It’s so common for women to go to supreme efforts to win validation from their former partner, especially when it comes to judgments on their mothering. It’s not likely he will ever validate us as a good person or loving mother. Giving up on the hope that he might will be liberating. It will also allow us to take back control when our sense of worthiness is no longer dependant on hoping that an abusive man who lacks empathy will stop being abusive.
“I was desperate to prove to him how well I was caring for our children. However hard I tried, he still called me selfish and lazy. I have learnt to get my validation from within and there is nothing he can say that will hurt me now. He’s lost that power.”
Giving up on the happy co-parenting ideal
Having left the abusive relationship, women have finally given up on the dream of happy family life with both parents lovingly caring for their children. However, post-separation, my experience is that many still cling to the hope that they can amicably co-parent with an abusive man. They often seem surprised every time he reminds them of just how abusive he is. The vast majority of abusive men remain abusive post-separation. Imagining they will give up their control just because the relationship has ended is fantasy. If we hope to amicably co-parent with our abusive former partner, we’re likely to be disappointed. Just as giving up on the hope that he will validate our mothering may liberate us, so will giving up on the amicable co-parenting dream. When we have a more realistic perspective, we’ll be more able to protect ourselves from unnecessary hostile communications, or be less surprised when they happen. Often, the best way forward having left an abusive man is to ‘parallel parent’. Unlike co-parenting, parallel parenting works on the basis of limiting communication to the minimum required to make essential arrangements.
“I think I had an idealised view that once the relationship had ended, we could have a respectful and mutually supportive co-parenting arrangement. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I had no idea that he would want to maintain his control over me after I’d left. At least I’m no longer deluded, I don’t offer him kindness in the hope of him reciprocating anymore because I now know that it’s pointless.”
Giving up on trying to please everyone
When in an abusive relationship, we generally work very hard in the vain effort to please our abuser and to do everything he expects of us, generally putting our own needs to one side in the process. Once we have left, this selfless pattern of giving to others and ignoring our own needs can persist, it becomes a habit. We commonly aren’t able to identify what our needs might be when we have brushed them aside for so long. Together with this, the low self-esteem and lack of confidence that commonly affects survivors can make us very focused on people pleasing – feeling unworthy of our friends can make us give more than we expect to get back in return. Unbalanced or abusive friendships can develop which may hinder recovery.
As women, we often feel selfish when we start to prioritise our own needs. It’s important we learn to identify the difference between making a choice and being selfish. Self-reflection can help us to identify the roots of our people pleasing behaviour. Girls and women are often socialised to believe that their role is to serve and please others. This behaviour can become part of our identity and being selfless is a quality we may have been praised for by others. We may believe it’s an important quality to have and this can make giving it up more challenging. I identify that the majority of the women I support have a strong people pleasing drive, and many consider it a bad thing to prioritise their own needs.
Being a people pleaser can also indicate low self-esteem and lack of boundaries. Moving towards recovery, it’s important to challenge this behaviour with a view to building strong boundaries, prioritising our own needs and developing mutually supportive friendships. Learning to understand our motivations and drivers following an abusive relationship is essential for good recovery.
“I’d been putting Mark’s needs before my own for so long that I had no idea what my needs even were when he left me. I had to work very hard to establish what I wanted to do, to achieve and to strive for.”
Giving up on our refusal to entertain another relationship
We may feel justified in refusing to risk another intimate relationship, never wanting to be hurt again. We may have decided that all men are unsafe and that we can protect ourselves by remaining single. This might help us to feel safe and it’s normal to feel like this when we’ve been abused. However, having a healthy intimate relationship is a huge positive in life and is part of the normal human experience. To deny ourselves this possibility because we want to remain in our comfort zone is indicative of not recovering from our abuse.
“I’m done with men, I can’t trust them. I’m never going to risk being in this situation again. I’m staying single, it’s the only way I know I know I can stay safe.”
There are times when we may have very valid concerns around our safety, for instance if being stalked by a jealous former partner who could become unpredictable if he learned we were in a new relationship. However it’s generally the case that once we understand about domestic abuse and know the ‘red flags’ of perpetrator behaviour, and once we put strong boundaries in place so we have a clear understanding of the behaviour we will no longer tolerate, we will be in a safer position to being open to the possibility of another intimate relationship, and we’ll no longer feel the need to deny ourselves another chance.
Giving up on the abusive relationship dynamic
When women have been in an abusive relationship and enter a subsequent relationship with a kind and compassionate man, it’s not unusual for them to feel deep discomfort and dissatisfaction, they will sometimes end the relationship and seek another abusive man again. There are a number of reasons for this. Being allowed choice in a non-controlling relationship can make many women feel deeply insecure when it’s not what they’re familiar with and this ability to take control can feel disconcerting. Women sometimes tell me that they seek to be controlled in a relationship even though this control limits their options, denies them freedoms and makes them sad. Women may also feel unworthy of being treated with kindness and compassion when their self-esteem has been so badly knocked by abuse, so the kindness they are shown in a healthy relationship can feel very uncomfortable to accept and they may feel suspicious and nervous around non abusive people, as if just waiting for the abuse to start. Another factor is that if women were ‘trauma bonded’ in a previous abusive relationship, the intensity of love they feel for a subsequent non-abusive partner just won’t be as strong, so they may want to reject the healthy relationship as it doesn’t thrill them enough. I have worked with women who have been trauma bonded and I know it’s common for them to reject subsequent ‘nice’ men in favour of another ‘bad boy’ who will treat them abusively but thrill them on the rare occasions that he is loving. Emotional terror and ecstasy seem to go hand in hand. For all of these reasons, it is important to heal, recover and self-reflect before entering another relationship.
“I was trauma bonded in my previous relationship. Now I’m with a nice, kind man and we have two children together. I don’t get the highs I got in my abusive relationship. Sometimes this makes me feel sad knowing I will never get those feelings again, but I don’t get the lows either and the majority of my relationship with my perpetrator was a low. I am in a much better place now, it’s like I’ve come off the drug and I’m now living a healthy and stable life. I’m at peace with what I’ve given up.”
Giving up on thinking you can change a partner
Some women get into relationships with abusive men, not so much because they find them more exciting, but because they imagine they can change them for the better. Many women reflect and understand that there were worrying traits in their perpetrator early in the relationship, but they imagined that with love, understanding and empathy they could change their partner and help him get rid of his abusive traits and become a nicer person. This thinking is unboundaried, It’s rarely possible to positively change anyone and if you enter a relationship considering this, you might ask yourself why you feel the need to rescue someone by taking responsibility for changing them. Becoming a rescuer can get you into an unhealthy co-dependant relationship. When this happens, boundaries can blur and unhealthy relationship dynamics develop. Women may also experience a deep sense of resentment when they try to change an abusive partner but inevitably fail. They may hold onto this resentment following the ending of the relationship and carry a deep sense of having failed.
“I’d always been a rescuer, I think this was due to my own low self-esteem. I felt worthy when I thought I was helping others and this extended to my intimate relationships. I choose men who I thought I could fix. It never really worked though and I realise how unhealthy this thinking was.”
Giving up on your victim status
Feeling sorry for ourselves and eliciting sympathy from others can feel indulgent and familiar. When we can pin all of our life’s disappointments on our perpetrator, it lets us off the hook and we don’t have to take personal accountability for the way our life turns out.
Domestic abuse generally triggers low mood and anxiety. Low mood can sap energy and lead to apathy and lack of motivation to get much done. Anxiety can lead women to be fearful, especially wary of new experiences, they may feel the need to live well within their comfort zones and be reluctant to take on new challenges. Low mood and anxiety provide ready excuses for dismissing challenges. We may imagine that by not pushing ourselves, we can stay safe. New experiences can seem risky and frightening, so we may rely on justifications that we’ve been damaged by abuse and need to protect ourselves.
While the damage caused by abuse is real, limiting our horizons with self-protective behaviours that we believe will keep us safe can be counter-productive – inactivity generally makes things worse. Getting out, doing things, exercising, taking risks, setting goals, volunteering and facing fears will lift our mood. We may think there is no risk of ‘failure’ if we don’t attempt. However, the only real failure is not attempting in the first place.
“I cocooned myself in a protective shell after my relationship ended. I was too stressed to work, rarely went out and gave up on most of my friends. I thought I could keep myself safe by avoiding the world. It doesn’t work like that though. Two years into living this ‘small life’, I realised things were getting worse, not better. Going out became more challenging as time went on and more and more situations would make me feel anxious. My low mood became depression and on many mornings I would struggle to get out of bed. Counselling helped me to see what was happening, I realised I wasn’t a survivor, I was a victim. I’d blamed my abuser for the situation I was in but in doing so, I was giving him my power.
“Progress has been tough, it’s not always been easy and I’ve needed help, but I’ve challenged myself, pushed myself and got my life back on track and feel so much more resilient. I feel proud of what I’ve achieved and I’m much happier. I am most definitely a survivor now.”
Giving up self-blame
I talk about self-blame a lot because it’s such a massive issue for domestic abuse survivors. I rarely come across a survivor who has never self-blamed for her abuse. For many, self-blame has become such an entrenched habit that women will cling on to even when faced with irrefutable evidence that the blame is not theirs. It’s so important to let go of self-blame because until we do, we won’t believe we’re worthy of good things. Much in life is a self-fulfilling prophecy, if we don’t feel worthy of good things, it is highly unlikely that good things will come to us.
Changing the language we use can be useful in challenging self-blame. Instead of saying, “I am to blame because I shouldn`t have worked full time and neglected my children”, we might say, “I worked full time to provide financial stability for my children and allow us treats we wouldn’t otherwise have had.” Changing language and focusing on a more realistic perspective can help us to understand the motivation behind our actions which will generally be positive.
“I knew he was abusive, but on some deep level I believed I brought this behaviour out in him. I believed he was like this because there was something wrong with me, something not good enough, something lacking. I’ve had to work very hard to give up this belief. Writing down incidents of his abusive behaviour has given me objectivity. I’ve worked hard to believe that I didn’t deserve his abuse, that it was never my fault. I’m being kinder to myself these days and I’m starting to believe that I deserve better.”
When we’re able to name and acknowledge what we need to give up, understand the sense of sadness and loss this may cause, be prepared to do things differently, feel the fear of the unfamiliar, take risks, accept personal accountability, step out of our comfort zones and go for it, we can properly leave our victim status behind us. When we do this, a new and exciting world opens up to us.
Questions to consider:
- What thoughts, feelings or behaviours that are no longer serving you well are you still holding on to?
- What will you lose when you give up or let go of these thoughts, feelings or behaviours?
- What will you gain by giving them up and letting them go?
- What steps will you take to start to let go of thoughts, feelings and behaviours that are no longer serving you well or are destructive to you?
- What new and more positive thoughts, feelings and behaviours can you start to put in place?
“To properly survive, I had to question everything I’d been relying upon. I had to be brave and challenge old ways of coping that were holding me back.”
If you have found this blog helpful, please use the links below to find my books on Amazon.
One in Four Women – understanding men’s domestic abuse and violence against womenhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1739647912
Beyond the Break-up – understanding and surviving men’s domestic abuse and violence against women post-separation https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1739647920
Published 26 October 2024