Relationships

There’s a distinction here between what we may say we expect and what we truly feel we are entitled to. Abused women feel they are entitled to so very little. They settle for crumbs from the banquet of life. Quite possibly because they don’t believe that there is a banquet of life.
An abused woman who is still emotionally enmeshed with her partner will always say that (in between smashing her self-esteem to pieces) he offers her the best thing she has ever had.

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.