Contrary to my style, I want to start off with my point of this and the following posts this week. See, there are many barriers to a woman or man leaving an abusive relationship. Some of those barriers are self-imposed by the abused; some are legitimate fears for safety; some are financial concerns; some are fears of how others, especially inside the church, will react if she/he decides to divorce the abuser. My desire is to address these barriers, specifically the last one – so that those who are going thru this time can find hope in the midst of dark days — and for those that want to really and truly help friends and family members without unintentionally heaping more abuse on the burning soul of the abused.
The best way I can figure out how to do this is to take you inside the life of an abusive household for a day to see if you can spot what is going on. To see why it is so hard to figure out from the outside that it is abuse, and why it is so hard from the inside to untangle the very deceptive spider web of abuse. For, unlike drugs, alcohol, sexual addictions, gambling and the like…there is no “tangible” substance for abused women and men at which to point their finger. Even more true for those that don’t actually have the physical wounds of abuse.
Are you ready? Here we go: (This is just a hypothetical day that I or another abused person might have…not saying any of this is true from my own life.)
She awakes at 6 am after a somewhat sleepful night. She had been roused by her husband at 3 am telling her their toddler was awake and crying. She never quite understood why he never just got up if he was already awakened…but because this is what you signed up for she dutifully dragged herself out of bed to get the child’s stuffed animal that had fallen on the floor. She thought about that phrase “because this is what you have signed up for,” for a moment. Did she really sign up for all of this? Sure, no mom is every ready for the full onslaught of motherhood…nor is any father she assumed. However, she did think she would have a little more help on the childrearing side than she was getting…instead of the pressure to always be the perfect mom and wife, housekeeper and cook, the 1950s wife if you will but on top of that the pressure to some how work from home in “all her spare time”. But , she long ago gave up feeling sorry for herself. The only person who seemed affected by that was her, for when she brought any of this up to him…he would remind her in not so loving ways, “this is what you signed up for.” For now, she needed to get going if she wanted to get her workout in and be back in time for him to leave. She new if she was even a few minutes late he would get upset – even if he wasn’t out of bed yet himself. She respected the fact that he would have a long day at the office and she knew he didn’t like to have to start the day off watching the kids, but instead sleeping as long as he could or checking in on his computer.
On her way home from the gym, there was a little fender bender that held her up. She was impatient, almost ready to curse to herself for she had only left enough time to drive home without an accident in the road. If he was up and saw she wasn’t on time, oh, she must be on time, she must be on time. She was rather relieved when she pulled up to see the lights were all still off. No kids, no husband yet. She let herself in and started cleaning up the dishes from last night while preparing the family’s breakfast. The door down the hallway opened 30 minutes later and she listened for the sound of footsteps so she knew who to prepare herself for. They were slow and steady – her husband. She braced herself for whatever might come her way, quickly thinking thru the line of excuses she could make in hopes of diverting his anger. In a shear moment of luck, he simply said “good morning” and went and sat down at his computer. She felt herself exhale, not knowing she had been holding her breath. She new better than to bring attention to the fact she had been late, for it might start the morning off poorly for all. She quietly prayed he hadn’t noticed, for she really hated it when he thought she was being disrespectful. She wasn’t a disrespectful person by nature…her mother had trained her up right. She had always been the one out of her friends that stood out for using her manners. She had been working hard on trying to not unknowingly be disrespectful to him…but it is really hard to not do something when you don’t know you are doing it. She would ask him to make lists about what he needed from her in this area, but she would never get them so she kept on guessing.
A few minutes later the kids ran out excited for the start of the day…asking for her to turn on the TV. When she asked him to get it…he said, “Well, now if your mommy could be home on time from the gym kiddos, she would have been done with breakfast by now and could have helped you all turn on the TV.” Ouch, there it was…she should have guessed. She was so tempted to tell him it wasn’t her fault, that there had been an accident…but he would find some way to blame her. Either she shouldn’t need to go to the gym in the morning, or should have left earlier to ensure she left ample time to get home in case anything happened, or something she couldn’t foresee. (Of course, when he noticed she wasn’t working out – she was sure to hear about that as well…so she guessed it was better to work out and be late some times than to be called mean words.) No it was better to just issue a quick apology and get on with her day. But he didn’t hear her apology, and before she knew it he was raising his voice over the TV asking her to apologize. When she commented she had apologized, he quickly replied that she hadn’t. When she said he must of not heard it, he said he didn’t like being called a liar. When she said she wasn’t but that could he just accept that she had said it, he stood up and approached her with eyes wide and a look on his face. It wasn’t an extremely bold move, not one that would catch the attention of outsiders…but one her kids and her knew quite well. It was their signal to “stop pushing his buttons” as her counselor had told her in their last session. While her inner heart was taking a nose dive because she knew she had apologized, for the sake of the peace of the family she quickly apologized in a louder voice and asked him what he wanted for breakfast. This, for the moment, diverted anything from happening as he loudly said, “thank you dear,” and then to the kids, “see that kids, it’s important to apologize to one another in the family or others when you have messed up.”
“Oh, boy,” she thought…as her instincts told her how this day would go.
After another 2 hours at his computer, eating breakfast and once in a while pipping into the family life to ask them to be quiet…he finally left the house and she felt herself relax. It was always so much better when it was just the kids and her. She didn’t know why she was always on edge these days…maybe she needed to try to pray harder, especially for him and his walk with the Lord. He had swooned her in their early days with his apparent love for Jesus, buying her books he had found helpful in his walk, taking her to his church for he liked it better than hers where all her “dorky” friends went. He talked about how he would pray with her every night before going to bed, one of the only promises he did keep – that and about not going to bed angry which often kept them up until 2 or 3 am working thru the arguments …usually leaving her extremely distressed, confused and tired even though they had apologized and “made up.” He had even made claims about wanting to become a pastor some day and every once in a while would stand up around the house and start in on a sermon he would give. She was always really encouraging of these moments, “trying to encourage the good you see in someone,” as one counselor had told her to do.
Yet, in the 15 years of marriage, he had said many times not to question him about his faith, that he was having doubts and that if she questioned him it would only serve to push him away. She had asked many times to do devotionals together. She even went so far to buy books for them to work thru – but either ended up doing them herself or they sat around and collected dust. To be honest, the only time he brought the bible into the picture was in an argument to use the verse about how the wife was to be submissive to the husband to ensure they were both on track. While she knew this wasn’t the full intention of the verse, she somehow blindly followed his lead on this – waiting and praying for his faith to take off like he promised it would. Oh, that and to remind her they didn’t believe in divorce…even though he would threaten it many times in the heat of the moment. Others might be so surprised to hear this about him, especially his close friends since he was one of two Christians within his group. They would hear him talk about going to church every Sunday, or that he would always be bold to pray for a meal when they were with us, or hear him talk about the importance of the Lord and Jesus once in a great while. They didn’t know, not even his few close Christian friends, that she never saw anything of real depth to his walk.
The morning passed in a blur of changing diapers, cleaning up from breakfast, trying to do a bible study with the kids only to have them talk so rudely to her and yell and hit each other that she almost broke down crying. She didn’t know what she was doing wrong in her discipline approach…maybe she really was a horrible mother like he said. But no time to feel sorry for herself…she didn’t believe as a Christian she should ever do that. She would just have to do some more reading and prayer, and be more diligent on cracking down on their misbehavior. She would have to talk to him to see what he suggested first though to ensure they were on the same page and she didn’t do anything he wouldn’t like. For now, it was time to get lunch started – after taking a quick “pick up” loop. If she left it till the end of the day and he surprised them with an early return, she wanted to ensure he wouldn’t get upset by a cluttered home.
At 1 pm she was putting the 2 youngest down for a nap and to turn in for a quick 15 min nap herself. That 12 am bedtime after their “make up,” 3am waking and 6am workout was taking it’s toll. This is the part of being a stay-at-home mom that she loved…however she hated losing that time to work. She had always been an industrious worker…graduating with honors from both undergrad and grad school. She just new one day she would find the business idea that would take off, making them money so he could retire and she could prove she wasn’t a complete and dismal failure at everything she had put her hand too. She didn’t really believe this about herself, but since meeting him this seemed to be more and more true…and it was sure hard to shake. Yet, she had had another new business idea she was trying out…and while she never felt direct pressure to earn money for he had a very nice salary…she never could shake this still small voice that reminded her she needed to bring in so much money in order to earn her keep. Hmm, she wondered where that thought came from – it didn’t sound like her own. Maybe from her crazy childhood as he had mentioned. She would have to take that to her counselor at her next session.
However, there would be no nap today as he called her just as she was laying down. His timing was always impeccable. It started off nice with small talk, but then without asking what she was doing – he jumped into reminding her that they needed to get something done that she had forgotten about. Her stomach immediately dropped to the floor. “Oh no! How could I forget to do that for him? I am such a failure!” she ranted internally as he started in on her, “I don’t know how many times I have to ask you to right things down so you don’t forget, dear. What do you do all day that you can’t get this done for me? You are so disrespectful and don’t care about anyone but yourself. What do I have to do to get some help around here? Please tell me how else to treat you after all the times you keep messing up?” his voice was already very loud and getting louder through the phone. She asked him as softly and sweetly as she could to lower his voice, which he did not. She could hear him close his office door and felt her stomach drop to the foundation of the house. What did she do? What could she do to avoid him yelling at her? She didn’t mean to be disrespectful again…but to be honest she can’t even remember when he asked her to do this thing for him. He had mentioned that he was worried about her memory…that perhaps she should go get it checked out just in case. It seems he must be right.
In a low, but very angry and very loud whisper he continued to share how disappointed he was in her and that he didn’t know how else to get thru to her but to treat her like a kid. “If you are going to act like a kid, you will get treated like a kid,” was his recent mantra with her. However, she didn’t really believe this is how a loving parent would treat their child…and she wasn’t a child. She was an overwhelmed mother, who had at one time been extremely bright and engaging, the head of her class and great at remembering the smallest details for her business she had run with some friends before having kids. Motherhood had turned her into the worst version of herself was all she could come up with. And she also knew how hard his own parents had been on him…so she always tried her best to give him grace when he got this way. “You always hurt the way you were hurt as a kid,” was what he would repeat to her from his counselor. How could she argue with that?
She truly felt that she tried her best to give him as much attention as possible, but lately she felt herself slipping and becoming angry when he got angry. He would be so quick to negate any thought she had if it didn’t line up with what he wanted her to admit to. She knew she had a problem making excuses, something he had brought out in their first few months of dating. And she felt she was trying hard on this, but still felt at a loss because what she knew to be true about a situation and why she did what she did he always saw as an excuse and not what he wanted to hear. Recently, she was getting so frustrated that she couldn’t get her point across during their arguments that she was starting to yell back at him…and even sometimes getting angrier than him, slamming doors, throwing pots, you name it – anything to get him to stop being so angry towards her or the kids…but all it did was make her feel worse. Even odder is he would become eerily calm and collected the minute she started yelling…like he could just flip a switch on his anger unlike she could. He was always quick to point out her uncontrollable anger and that she needed more help than him, and she loathed this side of herself that she had never seen. She had never been one to get angry to the point of violence, not even during her early childhood at the hands of her abusive mother…maybe it was all the passive aggressiveness coming out from her childhood like he mentioned. She really was evil and really did need help…perhaps she really was mentally ill like others in her family. Another thing she needed to add to her list to talk over with her counselor.
She had learned that the best way to deal with him when he was like this was to shut up and let him have his say. He would always cool off faster than that and he seemed to appreciate that she knew him in this manner. Except, when he had calmed down, he would always push her to talk to him, and wouldn’t accept anything she said of her own as being valid. The anger would start to come back…in both of them this time. He would not accept anything she said as valid and would tell her that she was just making excuses, that she couldn’t ever own up to her mistakes…and if she did try apologizing first for something she wasn’t sure she even did, that was never good enough either and would generally lead into a disagreement. If she tried to honestly tell him she didn’t recall him asking, he would just come back with, “You know I have a better memory than you.” How could she argue with that? He had “proved” her right time and again.
After they had “made up”, she still felt confused at what her part was and how to be better next time. Yet, her training as a Christian told her that we all have our faults and that I have to do whatever I can to stay in this marriage…for even if she made a mistake marrying this man, she was bound to him for life and it was up to her to figure out a way for this to work. She wouldn’t dwell on the negative things about him and their relationship – for she knew marriage was work and that is why sex was the “benefit” of this work. Except sex to her was more like a “wifely duty” as they both called it. Something that he needed when he needed it …and if she wanted it then, well …it wasn’t something she could commonly ask for. For she knew if he did agree, she would be made to feel guilty or bad for needing it…and that she better do it quick so he could get on with his sleep. She found herself daydreaming about other men sometimes, not always in a sexual way…but just wondering what it would be like to be married to them? What kind of fathers were they? How did they treat their wives? Probably not any better than him, she would conclude…for he often commented on how lucky she was to have him cause there were much worse out there than him. But if she was really honest with herself, she often wondered what it would feel like if he was to just die. Would she be remorseful? Or relieved she was out of her duty to stay with him?
But she couldn’t entertain these type of thoughts, no she was a Christian, dedicated to serving the Lord and honoring her vows. So she would just have to focus on the positive. No matter how he treated her…she was so blessed to have a nice home, to be able to have birthed kids, to drive a new car and be able to buy whatever food and clothes she wanted. She didn’t have to worry about money, even though it was still a stressor between them for some reason. And by far, this was more than she had growing up …as he was quick to share how he loved being her prince charming – saving her from her past. No, he had his flaws as we all do and she just once again needed to try harder, love him thru his faults and be the most perfect wife and mother she could be. She could do it, she could do it…she had made it thru her childhood in one piece, she had found the Lord and He had provided him as her husband…she would not dishonor God with negative talk or thoughts…she would figure out a way or else die trying.
