i am still finding comfort in reading all that i can on the topic of abuse. i see myself and my experiences as a survivor reflected in the stories i read and it can bring me comfort and clarity. i read and re-read, letting the information sink in and ground me, offer me reassurance and validation.
in the introduction to the book the verbally abusive relationship, three significant facts are shared right from the beginning:
1. generally, in a verbally abusive relationship the abuser denies the abuse.
2. verbal abuse most often takes place behind closed doors.
3. physical abuse is always preceded by verbal abuse.
today i want to address these facts and my experiences of them.
1. one of the things i am beginning to gain an understanding of that initially i found most devastating was the fact that my former partner denied being abusive. there were moments in which he would acknowledge or admit that he may have behaved in an abusive way, and even moments when he would state adamantly that he was 'working on it'. however, he primarily hid behind the idea that he was not abusive, and accused me of being abusive to him or causing him to treat me the way he did. this was painful for me to hear and, sadly enough, something i believed… i believed over and over again that he was being honest when he told me he was 'working on it' (whatever that meant). i believed that maybe i was treating him in such a way that made him abuse me, and that i was somehow the cause of his behaviour - that if i only treated him better, he would stop being abusive. because of this, i tried so hard to better myself, to make him stop abusing me. i figured i could change his behaviour by changing my own. i started looking into non-violent communication and, as i am in the field of communications at school, started pouring over my notes and material to see if there were ways it could help inform my relationship. i tried everything that i could - listening, being empathetic, attempting not to "over-react" or take things "the wrong way" as he said i did. as i was trying, i was working under the assumption that he was trying too - that we were both working towards the same goal: a healthy and mutually harmonious relationship. the more i tried, the more i searched for new things to try, because nothing was working… i was not being treated any better by my partner and i was wearing my self thin believing that i could make him treat me better. i was literally making my self sick.
through my reading, i have been recognizing the fact that there was absolutely nothing i could do to make my partner stop abusing me. it does not matter if i was the best and most compassionate and attentive partner in the world; it does not matter if i was overbearing or difficult or immature; it does not matter because an abuser is not motivated by rationality. the abuse was irrational. i was operating on the assumption that it was rational - that he was mistreating me because i had done something wrong, had upset him, or otherwise deserved to be mistreated as a rational response to something i had said or done. i believed that if i could only change my behaviour, my former partner would accordingly change his. i have to accept the fact that this was absolutely impossible. it is hard to let go of this.
in my former partner's reality, he was not being abusive. he was simply acting out the way he has been trained to treat womonfolk. when he and i first began our relationship, he was in the process of ending a relationship with his former partner. he seemed genuinely remorseful of the loss of their relationship, and spent many hours crying and lamenting to me about how hard and sad it was to let go of her, and telling me stories about the various ways in which she had mistreated him, and how hard he tried to support her and be a good partner. i fell for it completely, believing and encouraging his belief that he had been the victim of abuse in his relationship with her. she was moving through a lot of hurt and pain herself, and had expressed that she felt she had been abused by him. i am deeply ashamed to say that i did not pay attention to this statement on her part, and instead let my former partner, who was at this time simply my charismatic new lover with a sob story, dictate my opinions of her and of the relationship he held with her. i developed a strong disliking for her and encouraged my former partner to break free of the abuse. i am now quite sure that any "abuse" he may have experienced from her was most likely counter-abuse - her need to act out and defend herself from her abuser by adapting some of his own abusive tricks to use against him. in my former partner's reality, he was the victim - he was not the abuser.
2. the majority of the abuse i sustained from my former partner happened when absolutely no one else was around. this made it extremely difficult for me to label what had happened as abuse - i had no perspective but my own, which i had learned to doubt and second-guess through my former partner's own disregard for my perspectives. towards the end of our relationship, i began to recognize how disorienting and triggering it was for me to be alone with him, and began suggesting having discussions with a third party present to witness. it does not surprise me that he did not like this idea, did not understand why i found it desirable, and did not agree to it but once (in my recollection). i began to avoid being alone with him for two reasons - firstly, he treated me better when we were around others; and secondly, i was able to gauge my responses to him based on how others were responding to him. i still remember the first time an old roommate witnessed an act of verbal abuse as it was occurring, and attempted to address my former partner and tried to get him to use more appropriate language… i was so relieved i started crying. i needed someone to see it and address it, so that i was not alone in my own perceptions that it was abuse.
i am extremely grateful that my former partner and i always lived with others in communal settings, because most of our roommates did witness the abuse from time to time and did attempt to address it, primarily by bringing it up with me. sadly i often excused my former partner's behaviour, or admitted that it was inappropriate but that i did not know what to do about it, as i felt ending the relationship or leaving him were out of the question at that point. i was not yet ready.
3. i never had fear of physical violence from my partner in the form of hitting, beating, or other assaults. my fears were of the sexual harassment and disrespect of my physical boundaries - touching me at inappropriate times and in inappropriate places and trying to make it a joke if i responded with discomfort or displeasure. the sexual abuse primarily happened behind a closed door, and was not witnessed by others, which is why i think it took me so long to realize that what was happening was sexual abuse. now, with perspective and space enough to talk about and honour my experiences, i have no doubt that the sexual abuse was absolutely inappropriate and that i did not deserve it. i was not obligated to have sex with my former partner in order to keep him from crying or being angry with me - which is behaviour i learned. sometimes during our sex i would leave my body completely in order to keep myself safe, and would time to time even cry. i don't know if my former partner didn't notice or didn't care.
i don't know if i was ever at risk of being hit by my former partner. i don't think i was. however, i can never be sure. i feel blessed that i did not have to endure any physical abuse of this sort, and blessed that i was able to recognize the abuse for what it was when i did - i know that many womonfolk can be stuck in abusive relationships for years, even decades, before they are able to finally escape.
what it comes down to though is that no abuse is appropriate - whether emotional, verbal, sexual, physical, financial, psychological, etc… and no one deserves to be abused. this can be hard to let sink in, as often there is a small voice inside of myself that whispers "maybe it was your fault. maybe you did deserve it," and it is a matter of learning to reassure that voice that no, it was not my fault. and no, i did not deserve it.
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