I just read the post Dealing with the Abuser by Pastor Jeff Crippen. Lots in here reminds me both of my ex Phil, and of the ex-“friends” Richard and Tracy, especially Tracy. It’s validation yet again, helping to reassure me that I was correct, that it wasn’t my fault, that I didn’t deserve it. I’ll point out the parts which especially jumped out to me and why:
“This is a vital lesson to learn then in respect to dealing with an abusive person. Such a person, like Sanballat, has only one pursue – to destroy, to discourage, to instill fear, to mock and rob his victim of any sense of self-worth and confidence. Sanballat wants to control, to own, to exercise power, to be as God to his victims. Therefore, it is not wise to enter into mediation with an abuser. It is not wise to enter into couples’ counseling with an abuser. Communication problems are NOT the problem. The abusive person’s mentality is the problem, and it is his problem alone.”
“Like Nehemiah in his dealings with Sanballat, the Christian is NOT bound to meet with an abusive person. We are NOT obligated to maintain an abusive relationship, thereby permitting the abuser to continue in his power and control and abuse. …
“Mediation, communication, reconciliation and peace-making requires goodwill from both parties. But as we have seen, the abuser has no goodwill – he is malevolent toward his victims. He will only use such sessions to exercise more of his abuse, to work more of his deceptions, and to make it appear to the foolish that he is the one who truly wants to set things ‘right.’ Beware of Sanballat!”
…See it? We have already studied and learned about the abusive man’s tactic of making allies. That is, of deceiving people like relatives and friends of his victim into thinking that the VICTIM is really the problem. That the victim is crazy, or that it is the victim who is being unreasonable in not being willing to come to the negotiation table. That is what had happened in Nehemiah’s people. The enemy had cultivated allies from among Nehemiah’s own people!
While the paragraph specifically says couples’ counseling, the larger context is not an abusive marriage, but a man reviling Nehemiah (for wanting to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem) and bringing in flying monkeys to help with the abuse.
Both Phil and Richard/Tracy had flying monkeys–the friend they sent to “friend” me on Facebook so they could spy on me, who then posted a scathing “profile” description, which ripped on the false and defamatory image that Richard and Tracy had given her of me.
Then there was Richard’s friend, who heard–from Richard, not me–what had happened, so he came in to try to get me to reconsider ending the friendship–and he had a false view of what was going on, as well.
Then there was Phil, who made his busy-body friend think that I was the abuser and he was the innocent victim. The busy-body then came to me and gave me a long lecture on how horrible I was and how I needed to change to get Phil back.
This also reinforces that my husband and I were absolutely correct in refusing to have a “conference” with Tracy, that no good whatsoever could possibly have come from it–as evidenced by her further abuse when we refused. Heck, my priest also said that no good would have come from it.
Instead, as the quoted blog post proves, it would have been about Tracy refusing to listen to anything I had to say, and continuing to abuse and abuse and defame my character until she felt spent, while telling other people how horrible I was as well. This is how she behaved with me and with others, such as mutual friend Todd.
Then in the post we have the story of a woman who entered a passionate marriage–only to see, over time, his true colors. I’ve noted that the literature usually says that people end up in relationships like their parents’, but my parents were not abusive. This woman, too, did not grow up in an abusive relationship, defying the usual portrait of an abused woman. Rather, this man took advantage of her giving nature, and twisted her brain around so much that she no longer knew what was right.
When she objected to his physical abuse, and said she’d leave if it happened again, he somehow managed to turn *her* into a horrible person, guilting her.
After that evening, he did abstain from hitting me; the physical violence in our relationship was limited to him shoving, grabbing, and pinning me up against the wall with his arm across my throat. He ratcheted up emotional abuse. At that time I didn’t recognize the red flags. I believed abuse only involved hitting and punching: now I know that abuse can be verbal and psychological.
He used constant criticism and name- calling, telling me that I was a stupid, worthless woman who couldn’t do anything right, repeatedly. Over time, the Stockholm Syndrome (ie, Traumatic Bonding – being bound to one’ s abuser when the abuser alternates abuse and ‘kindness’) – set in.
Through humiliation and ridicule my partner taught me that to express my own feelings and needs was selfish. He made it clear that it was not safe for me to disagree with him.
If I said I wanted or needed something, he would withhold it. He was generous with other things, but not with what I wanted most – he deliberately withheld his love and acceptance.
My ex Phil also withheld the things I wanted and needed, making me feel like a shrew and a nag for them. He made it very clear over time that I was not to object to anything he wanted, no matter how distasteful or painful it was, and that I was not to disagree with him. Meanwhile, I was not to ask for anything. He ultimately left me for not following these rules, then brought in his flying monkey, manipulating him into thinking everything I did and everything I said about Phil’s behavior was abusive and wrong.
Those who know my story often ask why I stayed. First, I stayed because I truly loved him. Then, because I had sympathy for him; I knew he had pain in his life, and I wanted to save him. [WRONG motives, as Hunter now realizes].
Then in the blog post, it finally all came to a head with witnesses, at a July 4 party. The abused wife hesitated when her husband said it was time to leave, so he threw a violent tantrum, which led the witnesses to intervene. And that’s when she left him.
He called me from the gas station a block away. ‘Are you coming with me?’ he demanded to know.
‘No.’
‘If you don’t come with me now, you can never come back.’
This reminds me of Phil, a time when he was so obnoxious at a party that the other partygoers got upset, but he just didn’t stop. All evening, people kept saying, “Shut up, Phil.” I was mortified at his behavior, and how he disregarded everyone else’s feelings.
Finally, he left the suite, and someone closed the door behind him, pretending to have thrown him out. It was a game, though partly they meant it, being so very annoyed by him. They thought he’d come back in a few minutes.
Instead, we got a phone call. Mike answered and tried to talk to Phil, but Phil just kept plaintively wailing, “Nyssa. Nyssa!” So I had to come to the phone.
I said hello, but for a moment he said nothing. I tried to get something out of him, but it was harder than pulling a tooth. Finally he said, “I’m at the phone outside Krueger. Are you going to come here, or stay there?”
I didn’t want to leave my friends, but didn’t feel I had much of a choice. He wasn’t coming back to the party, either. My friend Cindy had long since left the party with some others, and then returned to Roanoke after bowling; she found him there at Krueger. He said to her,
“She’ll come here, if she knows what’s good for her.”
Whoa, whoa, I had nothing to do with his obnoxious behavior or the consequences it brought on him. I had nothing to do with his leaving, and didn’t want to leave my friends over his own bad behavior. If I’d known Phil said such a thing, I might never have gone back to Krueger for him. But I didn’t, so I went, and spent long hours comforting him. I don’t believe I told him that what he did at the party was okay, because I still thought he’d been obnoxious and annoying. Mike thought he shouldn’t have made me leave the party like that.
Cindy told me his words a few years later (we were co-workers), and that they left not because of Phil being obnoxious, but because they planned to go bowling at a certain time. It was a birthday party for Ralph, but he left it early, so we all thought Phil was the reason. Well, okay, maybe he was partly the reason.
Not only is this blog post by Jeff Crippen validating for me (which is helpful ever so often despite the passing of many years), but it’s also a validating and helpful post for people who are caught up in abusive relationships. Once again, see here.
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