There are SO MANY rules to follow in abusive relationships that I can’t help but screw up sometimes and receive my punishment! It doesn’t help that my husband gets to change the rules at any time for any reason without telling me about them.
Here are ten of my husband’s commandments:
10. I am not allowed to touch any guy except for his best friend, his father, and our children, and if I talk to some other guy he’d better be a service person, store clerk, or one of the boys’ teachers.
9. I am allowed to wear low-cut dresses when we go out, but he reserves the right to complain about it at any time because those are “his” boobies.
8. I am responsible enough to pay the bills, but when our bills vary by more than $5.00 from the previous month, he reserves the right to tell me that I don’t know what I’m doing and must not be paying the bills correctly. Bill amounts should never vary month to month.
7. I am not allowed to disassemble any appliance in order to fix it or to assemble a prefabricated piece of furniture because only he can do those things correctly. Women can’t do handyman tasks.
6. I am allowed to choose my own kitchen appliances if he goes to the store with me because only he knows if the store is ripping us off or not.
5. I am a great mother! I am so great because he has given me the training I needed to become like his mother…Oh wait – no, I’m not always a great mother because sometimes his training is ruined by the interference of my screwed up thinking.
4. I am not allowed to complain about his drinking because I take a prescription pill for depression so I’m a hypocrite if I complain about his chosen vice. And it is NOT true that drinking has caused our marriage more problems than my prescription medication - my perception is clouded by the effects of the medication, and he is really tired of dealing with it.
3. It is true that he is a chauvinist, and he is allowed to be that way because it’s how he was raised and I knew it when I married him, so it’s something I’m going to have to get over.
2. He will not be happy until I give up on my stupid idea that what he does and says is abusive. I am easily swayed by the opinions of doctors and authors and counselors who are only out to get my money and will tell me whatever I want to hear. Until I return to his way of thinking, he will continue to be unhappy (and therefore, just plain mean.)
1. Since he’s been deployed, my decisions have not been in the best interests of the children. Therefore, there is to be no counseling and no more sharing with strangers the goings-on of our family. There is to be no more decision-making prior to checking with him, especially when it comes to extra-curricular activities such as going to the YMCA, or allowing the boys to make choices for themselves as to which activities they want to actively participate. If I make any more of these decisions without him, he is seriously going to risk damaging his career to request early R&R leave so he can come home and straighten things out before I make them worse.
Hmph.
Crazy making is a huge component of domestic abuse. All of the above “rules” are examples of crazy making! What are the rules you live by in your abusive relationships?
I was not allowed to initiate sex. If I initiated sex, I was a slut or whore and he would refuse. ONLY HE COULD INITIATE SEX. If I commented on a friend’s nice dress or that she looked really good I was a lesbian and wanted to have sex with her.
I think the one that annoys me the most is that I am allowed so little input on what goes on in our house because according to him…it’s his GD house and he says so. Not my house, even though we’re married and I’ve been with him over 20 years. Other rules : Crying doesn’t help anything, do something else for him no matter how tired I am, if he says so that’s the way it is.
You’re not the only idiot in the world, my dear. I can’t IMAGINE how I manage to even cross a street without his telling me when, where, and how.
Every thought I express, explanation I offer, and / or observation I make is WRONG.
Sometimes I get reckless, or maybe it’s brave or just foolish, and in the middle of being harangued about yet another whatever-it-was about which I don’t know Jack, I look at him and say,
“(His name), the sky is blue.”
So far he hasn’t argued about that, but I am always surprised when he doesn’t.
Every time I do a thing like that, the song “Flirtin’ With Disaster” runs through my head.I don’t know what it’s like in other places, but where I come from, the police won’t even show up for “just” verbal abuse. If I had a black eye, I could get help all day long from dozens of places.
Any mistreatment of, or rudeness toward, me by others is, variously and / or severally:
1. Their right to act how they want and not have to conform to my stupid manners thing;
2. My over-sensitivity and / or Rich-Girl Expectations;
OR — and THIS one is his perpetual go-to –
3. ALL IN MY MIND.
I regularly get reminded of painful and stupid mistakes I made in my life, usually ones that took place before he and I even met! It doesn’t matter whether a thing happened twenty-five years ago or twenty-five minutes ago: If there’s a way to abase, hurt, or — his favourite — HUMILIATE me by throwing it in my face, he will find and exploit it to the bitter end.
I only just recently saw “Gaslight” for the first time ever. It was so painful that I really thought I wouldn’t get through it, but I did. I had to keep pausing it and taking breaks, though. In the end, it actually made me feel better, because it gave me some OMG VALIDATION!
Remember that?
You know, you kinda have to laugh when they try to debase you for “having manners”! I’ve never heard the rich-girl expectations thing, but it does play nicely with “you’re too sensitive!” and, OMG, everything was always “all in your head, Kellie! You make shit up all the time!” I asked my ex to be polite – that’s all I wanted from him. A certain level of dignity to our discussions. But he wouldn’t allow it – he had to win. Silly me, I didn’t know we were competing until the last year we were together!
Validation for our suffering is so RELIEVING! It hurts, but then it feels so much better because we know we are not the crazy psycho bitches they want us to think we are. The nerve.
You know, every service I’ve spoken with in NC recognizes verbal abuse and emotional manipulation as domestic abuse. No, the cops may not give a flying f about it, but you can go to support group meetings and find some options and counseling. The stories you hear in the group will sound similar to yours. Many of them have escalated to physical violence. Don’t let the cops be the judge of whether you’re in danger. You get to decide when enough is enough.