Comments on: The Mystery of Loving an Abuser

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:03:26 +0000

I reared my comment again and it is a jumbled mess of a composition. :)
Just one funny bit for those still suffering:

Sex alleviates tension. Love causes it.
Woody Allen
:)

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:55:14 +0000

ps. I am not much of a typist really as you can see and not a native speaker. I did not reread what I have written. I can advise to all victims that the best help they can get is from their families and humour, at least those were the factors that have helped me to finish the matter I think. My personal motto is in the matter is.
WHAT DOES NOT KILL YOU … MAKES YOU STRONGER.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:49:10 +0000

Dear Dr Carver

I have been a victim of female abuser for a long while. Just lately I have recognized this and I hope, no I am certain I have ended the matter permanently. Well I hope I have ended it though I feel that by trying to find explanation to the things that have happened I might still get under her influence, but this feeling is confronted by my reason which tells me i should get behind this phenomenon. I have just read few of comments and the strange thing is that i have known about Stockholm syndrome did even a bit of superficial research about it on the internet. What would interest me is the person of the abuser. Why has she become well… those people who try to find cure and healing will know how to name them… (this is a public forum after all… sometimes it is hard to say that monster is a good word to describe them.
Would it be possible to be in a multiple abusive situation, meaning that one person controlls and abuses another who in her turn also abuses another (who happened to be me in this case). I am wondering if this is the result of me trying to shift the blame from my abuser to the one on top of the … so to say “food chain”. The thing that scared me almost silly that by trying to somehow cope with the situation i have tried to copy my “abused abuser”, my girlfriend. I started having fantasies about her being abused by the top man, and i feel that by doing this i have very much deepened my I have dependence of her. Finally I managed to escape and tear myself away from her influence (at least i am now quite sure i have escaped)by confronting the man on the food chain… who is an older man about (my exgirlfriend and me are both very much younger). The impulse that drove me to the confrontation with him was mostly the combination of jelousy fear of what i might find out about my ex and finally i wanted somehow protect her from her “tormentor”. Finally the whole confrontation ended in civilised conversation with him, frankly in the end i almost felt compassion for the man who described himself as a person who can not make my girlfriend understand that it is over between them, and he is also so to say a victim of the situation. He also showed concern for her just as I did though in a more reserved way, and he was and still is I think controlled and blackmailed by my ex. He is married by the way and does not want to upset the peace of his home. He said or rather hinted that when my ex-girlfriend so to say admitted her love and affection towards him, he was tempted and agreed to start a liason, thinking my ex would sort of grow out of this passion. I was somehow concerned that something was wrong with my ex, because she sort of left hints that have led me to this. I interpreted this as a sort of cry for help, by which I know now that she only wanted to strengthen the bond between us or more exactly to be able to influence me a lot more. I have to admit that i think her a very intelligent person… or at least a very cleverly manipulative one.
Dr Carver please after reading this short description of the case, which is not a full account since I have left out a lot, tell me if there is a slight possibility that my ex could have been a victim of some assault or some kind of trauma or if she is also a victim who tries to cope with the situation just as tried to do.
I now see thru her quite well and know her also very well and i see how confused she is that i am not reacting to my usual behavioural pattern that she knows and knows how to use to her own intentions.
I have come to the conclusion that by resisting I either make her reaize how twisted and well let me admit in some way evil she has become or she would block me out of her life as she does in situations when she is not in control. I am relieved that I have freed myself of her, I somehow pitty her and would like to try to help her, but I know it is not really possible for me.
To finish in a way I regard my entry not only as a question but - as the result of self analysis - as an answer that I hope I have found.

By: Kira

Kira — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:09:30 +0000

I’ve read your artical and other like it on a few seperate occasions. the reaction I have to them is always kind of the same, but I’ve never tried to post any questions to the authors before. See, I don’t want to give a faulty portrayl because I’m emotionally worked up, but I think I need help. I know I need some kind of answer. I think I am in a mutually abusive relationship. I don’t know when or where things started, or how, or if it was all just accidental. I met my husband when I was 15, he was 19, we dated for awhile, secretly, until my grandparents who I was living with at the time found out and told us we were never to see one another again. I never dated again until my husband and I met again several months after I moved out of my grandparents home at 18. I had a decent job for a kid ust starting out with no college and no parental support, and a nice little nest egg of eight hundred dollars. Enough to have moved into my own place, I was living with a friend who’s mother was charging me 200 dollars a month to live there, a very nice deal, even for a tiny room in a full and busy house. Then my husband came for a visit to see the older sister of my friend with whom he’d been friends for a long time. Three months later we decided to move in together to save money since we had lived in seperate towns and were seeing eachother constantly and couldn’t aford the gas money. A year later we got married and I was 5 months pregnant. I was pretty much isolated from my family due to gas concerns and because I was not particularly close to my family as it was. I was also no longer working because I had been laid off and my husband told me it was fine and he liked me being home. I had actually gone back to work for a while but the pregnancy forced me to quit because I could not stand up for more than a few minutes without nearly fainting. We lost that child and six months later got pregnant again hoping for a successful pregnancy this time. I don’t know what I was thinking, I’d never liked children, but the romanticism and adorable little girls I saw every day at my job seemed to have sabatoged my good sense. The second pregnancy was sucessful and I hated being a mother. My husband worked all the time and would never watch our son for more than an hour so I could nap, even on weekends. He’d almost never change a diaper, and house chores? I’d never done them before really, but now I was exclusively responsible for them. I think both of us were far too young to consider having kids. I considered giving our son up for adoption, not wanting to give him to my own family members and hoping to find a home for him that would take him in and adore him and never pass him around like I was a kid, and hoping to avoid letting my hormones and building frustration allow me to cause him harm emotionally or physically. My husband talked me into letting his mother, who is agressive, loud, very mean verbally and who I hate and who hates me, take him for a few weeks and said that after a few weeks I’d want him back. I didn’t. My husband never explained anything to his mother, never. He didn’t tell her what was going on, why she was watching him or for how long. She had no idea that my only experiance with babies was one or two bottles and diaper changes. She wouldn’t really even talk to me, or rather, she wouldn’t listen. She’d talk a lot, about how horrid I was, what I was doing wrong, what to do, and not about just my son, but the entire time I’ve known her about -everything-. The way I sweep, the way I wash dishes, the fact that I’m a bad housekeeper and that I need to be doing that and on and on and on.
My husband was raised in a house hold with a very dominant woman who, though she works, is also very particular about upkeep on her house. His family bassically felt that a woman should be “Barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen”. While my husband says that he doesn’t feel that way, he also refuses to do any housework himself. For three years I was stuck in a house isolated from eveyone outside of his family because we had no money for gas. We couldn’t afford for me to go get a job because we were too far away from the jobs for me to look, much less actually get there for the first week or two before I would get my first check. For three years I begged him to get us moved. I didn’t want to leave him, I love him, Leaving him hadn’t even occoured to me. Then one day we realized we had access to free wireless internet in our appartment. I began making online friends who told me that I was in a bad situation. I realized I really was. I began to reassess things an finally I realized that I could not spend the rest of my life living like that. So finally I told my husband, “look, we have to get moved to somewhere where I’m not trapped like a rat, to where I can go back to school and get an education and a better job so that we don’t have to live in poverty anymore, or I am going to find a way to do it myself, by myself.” Nothing changed until he lost his job a few months later, partly because our fights and whatnot were making him late to work. My husband has never hit me, he has pressured me into doing things I didn’t want to, but I retaliate when he makes me upset by biting, poking, pinching and scratching, not hard, just enough to make him notice because he doesn’t notice my “No”s or get my “That really upsets me”s, or my “Let go”s. But maybe I’m the abusive one blaming him for my own messed up self. He never defended me to his mother till we moved, and I’ve never actually witnessed him doing so. He reacts badly to the idea of me leaving him. He’ll scream wordlessly like a wounded beast, then he’ll put his head in his hands and start crying soundlessly, he’ll make me feel like a monster for considering it. I’m convinced by things he’s said and how he’s reacted that he’ll break down, go into a massive depression and his life will be bassically over. He’s told me that I’m the only woman he’s ever loved or ever will love. He’s lied to me and others about the strangest things for the oddest reasons. He’s convinced me that I will never find someone to replace him because I’m too selective. His brother’s are both violent destructive criminals, and while my husband has no record some of the things he’s told me he’s thought up to do to someone who really pissed him off make me worry abuot what he might do if I left, not perhaps to me, but to others I encounter in the future. I wonder here if I am simply paranoid.
We have moved to a town with a community college where he got a job after he was fired. I’m going to school now, but I still feel like this might not be the reliationship for me. He says he’s changed, and that he is changing, but he hasn’t much. But maybe I’m too demanding. He has nerve damage, sleep apnea and works a very physical job. So maybe I’m expecting too much to want his affection, to want to have time where we talk and reconnect, to have a little help with the house chores, like, I dunno, him to take out the trash once in a blue moon, or wash a few dishes? Maybe I’m the one being abusive, maybe we both are. I’m so confused and lost and I don’t know what to do. I love him. I don’t want to leave him and hurt him, or be alone, but I want to follow my dreams freely, I want to have room to grow, to maybe find someone who has more in common with me, someone who can understand my passions, not just say they want to help me reach them. Someone who was raised in a way that made them turn out as honest and inquisitive as I am. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we’re both just growing up and I need to give things more time. Please, I desperately need some direction.

By: diana

diana — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 05:09:27 +0000

i cant believe other people go through these things to…….im not in love with my abuser but i get scared when i dont hear from him…kinda like i wnt to know what hes doing at all times?

By: Josh

Josh — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:29:57 +0000

Dear Dr. Carver,

My relationship with a victim of this syndrome has been educational in the extreme. I have been humbled by the power of an abuser to, in effect, remove the sanity from his victim–and the powerlessness of my love to help her. This is one of the strangest things I’ve ever witnessed, and the most painful, and if I had not lived through it, I would never believe such a syndrome could be true. It appears now my girlfriend will never be “free” of her aabusive ex-husband. Furthermore, she cannot admit, for more than a very short time, that she has stockholm syndrome, that she is sick, and that she is suffering the consequences of his control over her. (She is also, it seems, without a conscience in regard to who else is harmed by her syndrome…though there is not a mean bone in her body.)
I also now know that I will never be able to confront this man. I did, with her permission, then he compelled her to keep me at bay. And she complied. She is absolutely a wonderful human being, and it is a tragedy what has happened to her. She claims to be healing. She claims to be doing what’s best for her children. She claims that she’s a peaceful person. And she has always claimed she is not sick. But sick she is, soul-sick.
Lately, I have thought that the reason she cannot get to the truth, stay in the truth, and respond to the truth is because the damage done is irrepairable. I also think that she cannot face the truth without going crazy…because the truth is so bad. She cannot even remember the facts of her own history–and what they actually mean. Acts of violence, for example. And so much else.
I realize now that I have actually been unkind to her by trying to make her see the truth. I am with a woman who is missing part of her mind, and when I have insisted she be sane, it’s like insisting a woman with only one arm grow the one she is missing. It is not possible for her to see and admit reality. And each time I have demanded it, begged for it, made it as clear as it really is, she has turned against me…and harmed me in some way. I have wanted her to be free, and she can’t be. I have made her unhappy by trying to prevent bad things from happening to her, and I preveneted none of them. They all happened anyway. And yet I kept fighting her to face reality. That’s me who’s the fool. I have refused to believe she is a damged as she is.
I love her still and will not leave her yet. (When he is not harming her or she is not defending him, we have a wonderful time together.) But the hopes I had of having a mate who would one day truly be “free,” are all, at the very least, dreams–delusions of mine. I have two questions:
First, are their stories of women who finally admitted their syndrome and got better? And Secondly, what do I need to do to continue to enjoy the realtionship we have and to truly step back and accept her as a sick companion (without always trying to wake her up?) In other words, how I can I be the best boyfriend I can be, enjoy what good there is, and simultaneously keep myself detached from the insanity of both abuser and victim?
I want to hope that some day she’ll be free somehow, but I also want to give up and just accept that my girlfriend is insane and unable to admit she is insane. I want to live with the woman I really have to the best of my ability and to work with what I really have to work with. Thank you. And thank you for writing these articles and responses. You have truly done a great deal of good for a great many people.

By: michelle

michelle — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:40:35 +0000

I HAD A FRIEND GIVE ME YOUR ARTICLE ABOUT THIS STOCKHOLM SYNDROME THIS IS EVERYTHING MY DAUGHTER IS LIVING IN WITH HER HUSBAND HE LIES TO HER AND HE STAYS IN TROUBLE WITH THE LAW BUT ITS ALWAYS SOMEELSE PROBLEMS HE NEVER DOES ANYTHING THAT THE POLICE HAVE GOT HIM FOR LIKE LAST WEEK HE WAS IN JAIL FOR DRUG BUT HE TELL MY DAUGHTER THAT SOMEONE PUT THEM IN HIS CAR THAT HE HAS STOPPED SHE ISNT ALLOWED TO TALK TO US OR HE GETS MAD SHE HAS NO FRIENDS SHE NEVER GET TO GO ANYWHERE OR SEE ANY OF HER FAMILY WHAT DO I DO TO GET HER TO SEE THAT HE IS THE PROBLEM HE IS TRING TO MAKE HER HATE HER FAMILY IF WE SAY ANYTHING ABOUT HIM SHE JUST THINKS THAT EVERYONE LIES ABOUT HIM PLEASE HELP ME

By: Joseph M Carver Ph.D.

Joseph M Carver Ph.D. — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:10:24 +0000

Dear Trying: You are still being victimized by your ex-husband. Your reasons for maintaining contact are based in fear - fear that he’ll spread rumors, retaliate, punish, etc. HE KNOWS you are still afraid of him at some level - that’s why he still calls. He remains dangerous to you as all of his contacts are for HIS purpose and not related to any loving concern for you. You are totally correct…he does feel entitled to punish you and these contacts are part of the punishment strategy. His goal is to ruin the life you currently have with a new partner and new child. After multiple emails or phone contacts, he will have evidence he can use to blackmail you. Imagine how your new partner will feel when the Loser produces phone logs of your secret calls to and from his phone, not to mention emails. Keep in mind, the Loser has absolutely NOTHING to lose…and you have a new life to lose.

You are making a severe mistake if you feel being kind to the Loser will protect you from his behavior. This is exactly how you felt in the marriage - that “walking on eggshells” feeling that if you do everything perfectly, maybe he won’t be abusive. As you know from 13 years experience - that doesn’t work. We can love sharks but if we’re wounded and swimming around them, they will eat us. Being kind and loving doesn’t protect us from who and what people are.

As I mention in my Loser article, you must be an unplugged slot machine that stops giving anything - no calls, no emails, no acknowledgements. He’ll always be inventing drama - that’s how he lives his life and manipulates and abuses others. What we see as “drama” is an invented story to be used to contact and continue to victimize you. You’ve already lived this game.

You are not being heartless - although he will accuse you of that because guilt has always worked in the past. You are being self-protective…and protective of your new relationship and child. As for the rumors, if the start, you can drop the idea of protecting him (which he is counting on) and let folks know what really happened. Keep in mind, because you have accidently encouraged his behavior by allowing him to contact you frequently, he will increase his behavior when you try to completely detach. Don’t give in and continue on your current path.

You’ve won the relationship lottery - a good partner, child on the way, and new life. He’s trying to steal it from you and will if you allow it. This is no time to be kind - rather, save kindness for your new relationship and motherhood. He sees your kindness as a weakness and opportunity to victimize you, not as a positive trait. You need to defend yourself and not miss this opportunity to be happy.
Dr. Carver

By: Trying to Break Free

Trying to Break Free — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:39:29 +0000

Dr Carver,

I have written to you once regarding divorcing somone who was diagnosed as bipolar but has also been physically abusive. We are now officially divorced. It took a little over two years, but we are legally done. Starting in July of last year, I became seriously inovlved with a very caring, wonderful man and we are expecting our first child together in September. As much as I think one can tell in 8 months, we have a very good relationship. We have wonderful, open and honest communication.

My divorce though was just recently finalized. I got a new cell phone number becuase during the separation and divorce my my ex-husband was practicing some of the much cited phone techniques of calling up to 10 or 15 times a day, or inventing little “dramas” for reasons to call and/or text me. I kept my old cell phone though because of his tendency to become enraged when I try to limit contact.

Here is the dilemna: I still have that old cell phone, and he is still coming up with reasons to call, and I can’t seem to break free. I am not heartless and I would like to maintain an amicable relationship with my ex-huband. But if I am honest with myself, that is more because I am afraid that he will spread rumors that the divorce was my fault and somehow if I am nice enough to him, he will be kinder to me. And there is a part of my that does miss parts of our old relationship.

I have not told many people (friends, his family) of the real reason for the divorce. I agreed to file a no contest divorce despite the presence of domestic violence in our marriage. I have continued to make compromises to protect him.

But since I don’t want to continue hurting the new man in my life, how can I cut the tie to my ex-husband? How do you cut someone completely out of your life after 13 years with them? There are friends that say just delete any emails/text messages without reading them and get rid of the cell phone. I am having a really hard time doing that and am not sure why. It is not because I am still in love with him and can every imagine back together. The thought of ever living with him again sends shivers down my spine. My life is 1000% percent better without his controlling, stressful presence in it.

I thought it would be easier to break free once the divorce was legally over, but I can still envision ways that he can make my life miserable if chooses. He has a pattern of, if someone hurts or him or irritates him in some way, he feels justified to, in effect, punish them. How do I break completely free?

By: Joseph M Carver Ph.D.

Joseph M Carver Ph.D. — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:37:33 +0000

Dear Marge, The brain produces several dreams each night. The “mood” of the dream often depends upon our mood - depressed folks dreaming of death/dying while healthy folks have positive dreams. These same dreams combine our memories in odd ways. You may have had a positive dream of this abuser because your mood was good.

Here’s the problem: Our dreams are like our daytime daydream fantasies. If we think about winning the lottery - we smile and feel good. If we think about losing a loved one - we feel sad. In your case, a positive dream about this rapist produced a positive feeling. That positive feeling is, like a fantasy of winning the lottery, a fantasy that has nothing to do with reality.

Having a positive dream doesn’t make a person who raped you suddenly a good person. You still have significant reasons to dislike him and keep your distance. The dream has confused you because of the feelings it produced. Don’t be confused or tempted by this dream. His past hasn’t been erased and your positive dream didn’t fix him.

Don’t feel this dream is reason to change your position. If you dream you’ve won the lottery - don’t run out and buy a beach house. If I dream I can fly - that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t fly. I shouldn’t be jumping off skyscrapers. You should feel no need to change your original position on the rapist. We can be entertained by our dreams - but not controlled by them. If you contact the rapist, you will be victimized again. No matter what I dream - I still can’t fly. Dr. Carver