Abused women speak constantly of what they are not, not what they are. They speak of their past projected onto the future. They are stuck with a picture of themselves at their lowest possible ebb that they graft onto the unknown future.
If he can change now- and change without outside help, why couldn’t he do so before? What’s changed – apart from the fact that you have moved out? Of course he will tell you that he now understands how much he loves and needs you. And where, precisely, does he put the ‘line’ that he now understands that he crossed? What does he feel is acceptable and unacceptable? What will he do if he feels you have done something wrong? Unless he has a very clear and specific game-plan as to how he will manage his reactions to safeguard you – which I doubt – assume he is not capable of delivering.
An abuses woman engages in a superhuman struggle to stay in a bad relationship. She will even talk about ‘fighting to save the relationship’ or the man. The last thing she will ever truly consider doing is walking away. She experiences more sadness at the thought of leaving than she does about staying, whatever the cost to her of staying.
Increasingly, I believe that the start of a relationship is a kind of sales negotiation. Of course that is not the way that most women see it. Normally we do not need too much persuading as regards the item of clothing or the man. It, or he, only needs to strike a chord or two with us, for whatever reason and we are gone, all critical faculties thrown to the wind.
Suppose that bad relationships are made at the very start when we allow the relationship to begin on the wrong footing, when we ‘settle for less’. It may be a ‘romantic’ relationship in which we think we will iron out the difficulties further down the line. Or it may be a friendship or business relationship where you think that just for now you’ll let yourself be put upon or pushed around.
He hasn’t loved you enough to care about not hurting your feelings time and time again and you are unable to love him unconditionally – and who could blame you? You have a great basis for a lousy relationship, but a truly lousy basis for a good relationship.
f I had a dollar for every woman who has ever written to me saying: “I didn’t know you’d been living with my husband/partner”, it would be a nice little earner – sadly. Sure, everyone is different. But abusive relationships are all much of a muchness. There comes a time, usually fairly early on in the relationship, when you get that sinking feeling in your stomach and you think: “This is really wrong. I should walk.” But then you don’t. Many women wait to leave until they know they are at rock bottom. But rock bottom is a moving target. Just when you think you must have reached it in an abusive relationship things get even worse.
I am well aware that for some people it may sound daft to enter into a dialogue with yourself, and ask yourself questions to which the habitual, emotionally battered you does not have good answers. But that is only one part of you, the part that has been shaped by your negative experiences. It is by no means the only part of you. You too are endowed with the human spirit that has miraculous powers of healing and regeneration.
Abused women are so anxious to get their needs and wants met that they fall over themselves backwards to meet all of their partner’s needs and wants. (There is no point in suggesting that they try to get boundaries respected, because they don’t even know where they might like to put a boundary.) Underpinning this anxiety to please is the misguided hope that it is their partner’s turn first and then it will be theirs. Unfortunately, it’s like giving a small child a much desired toy ahead of his or her little friends and hoping that after a reasonable period of time he, or she will say: “Ok, I’ve had my turn. You can have it now.” It just doesn’t work like that.
We become fixated on our partner’s potential – and of course he has potential, whatever we mean by that word. If he hadn’t had potential why on earth would we have bothered in the first place. Few of us have a robust enough sense of self, or are that crazy that we choose to have a relationship with someone we feel has less to recommend him than the average cockroach.
Over the next 5 days, I'll send you some lessons and tips that I've found have really helped women to heal from narcissistic abuse. Starting with the basics.
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