Are you naive?
One of the wounds that abused women have received is, undoubtedly, the wound of naivety. We tend to believe too readily. We are too easily deceived. Where are abusive partners are concerned, this costs us dear.
Annie Kaszina
What do you say to…
What do you say to the girl who “just wants to help” her abusive partner? Why “helping” an abusive man never helps him, or you.
“It’s me or the dog! ”
If you’ve been with an abusive partner for any length of time, you will have been subjected to a lot of ultimatums. Abusive men LOVE them – and they know just how much you hate them.
So, let’s look, for a moment, at the language of ultimatums; why abusive men use them so much, and what […]
Valentine’s Day – how many bad ones have you had?
How many bad Valentine’s Days have you had?
I can rank mine into 3 separate categories:
Teenage angst, waiting to receive the first Valentine – and wondering whether I would ever get one.
My married years, when the wasband would pointedly buy a card, engineer a fight, and leave the card in its bag, because “under the circumstances, […]
“I’m still ‘wishing and hoping’? Why?”
“Why is it that the feeling of waiting for him to call me to tell me that he is sorry and that he loves me won’t go away? How do I let go of the feelings of wanting him to show up and be the prince I want in my life?”
What will you do in 2011?
Being in an abusive relationship means you dream small and hope small – if you still dream and hope, at all. If you’re wishing for anything, you’ll be wishing to be “loved, and treated right, respected, and happy”, and a number of other things that all sound perfectly reasonable until…
“One more year and then you’ll be happy…”?
The news of Gerry Rafferty’s death felt like a personal loss. Rafferty was the poet whose song “Baker Street” epitomizes hopium addiction*, and the broken dreams of an abusive relationship.
“Baker Street” was the soundtrack of my hopeless marriage. Gerry Rafferty, in case you don’t know the name, was a singer-songwriter who co-founded Stealer’s Wheel, and […]
“The Most Wonderful Time…” Bah! Humbug!
Fairytale-itis is something most little girls contract in childhood. It lies dormant until they kiss their first frog, or Beast, or handsome prince. Then it triggers all kinds of madness including:
Not seeing the person in front of your eyes
Putting him at the very centre of your world – and yourself on the periphery
Disregarding your own needs and wants
Doing more back-flips than Andre the seal for a few lousy scraps of affection
How you leave an abusive relationship
Everything Susie said was self-critical. She should have jumped by now. She should have left her abusive husband. Susie wasn’t prepared to cut herself any slack at all. Intellectually, she knew everything I – or anyone else – could tell her. But, still, there she was, paralyzed… (Because it’s not what you know with your head that matters; what matters is getting your heart to the point of letting go of a relationship that does NOT work.)
Susie’s knowledge hadn’t percolated through to heart level, yet.
Abusive Men – Why They Don’t Want You To Be Happy
I was talking with a client who is taking that long, long walk away from her abusive husband and into freedom.
And, yes, it feels like a frustrating journey that never reaches its destination because every step feels like a ‘baby step’ – and baby steps seem so small, and insignificant, when there is such a […]
