This sucks.... Don't know what to do...

[Craig]

Thanks for the advice Craig ........ I don't understand why I keep picking psycho women, who like to pay me back for every wrong ever done to them by a man since their conception .... but I do .....

I'm sure that someone has a simple explanation for your behavior that probably isn't correct for you. If you want some feedback on this you might start a thread on it. I think a lot of people (not most people) would find it interesting, share your experience and want to discuss it.

[Cecelius]

To the OP: You can be as supportive of her as you want, but there is no upside in trying to rescue her -- she's a grown up girl and she can end the pain this guy causes any second she wants.

 

She's just too weak to do it. Don't hate her, pity her perhaps, but certainly do NOT date/fall in love with her, unless you are shooting for golden wings in the afterlife.

 

You think this borderline personality is going to flower into a supportive woman at some point in the future? That is decades away for her. Do you plan to watch her try to cheat on you for all that time?

 

Don't be a jerk, but get your heart away from this girl.

[Sevenmack]

Originally I was responding to Outcast, who made a similar statement. Anyhow Craig, you're wrong on whether I've done research on this. You should actually read, not insinuate. And you will remain wrong. Besides my mother's abusive relationship and those of other relatives, there's also the research of folks who actually work in domestic violence such as Linda Mills at New York University, who not only knows about domestic violence as a social worker and lawyer, but as someone who came out of an abusive relationship. Or social workers who actually deal with both men and women and note the gray areas that are involved in domestic abuse.

 

The simplistic would like to believe that abuse is all about 'he hits and she gets hit.' Sorry but this, like most of life, is far more complex. As Mills noted herself, simplistic thinking often underestimates how the abused get themselves into such situations and repeat the patterns over and over.

 

But it's not just reading DV research. There's also literature, which has as many insights into the human psyche as any research. Dostoyevsky's "Notes from Underground," for example, which talks about the man with the lingering toothache, who despite complaining about it, doesn't do the one thing that would end it: Pulling the absessed tooth out.

 

Then there is that thing called real life. Take the more consensual abusive activity of bondage and domination. One would wonder why anyone would participate in getting spanked, tied up or pinched as some sort of sexual activity. But it goes back to other issues, including the joy of being dominated.

 

Now abused women aren't 'enjoying' anything in the traditional sense of her being happy. But as Mary mentioned in the DV thread, these are women who are empty inside, lacking self esteem to use the more traditional phrase. These women as much make unhealthy choices that they are rational. Are they? Hell no; abuse isn't rational. But they make the choice anyway. Part of it is because they really don't see their issues through an objective lens; part of it is from growing up in families that may not interact in a healthy manner. But the propensity for getting into abusive relationships don't simply develop from nothing.

 

The ultimate argument I'm making isn't about whether the abuse is wrong. It is. Adults shouldn't hit other adults in personal relationships period. But as we've accepted long ago that adultery is the result of two people, so is abuse. And for abuse to end, the abused not only needs to get away from the abuser, they need to work on the underlying issues and choices that have led them into abusive relationships and will lead them back into similar relationships.

 

Hbeezee's woman needs to break off all contact with her ex; she will pay dearly if she doesn't. But it takes more than just leaving an abuser or cutting off contact. The woman has some real issues, issues that help set the patterns that have led to her abusive situation. Because no one just lands into abusive relationships; it results from decisions, both rational and otherwise, that lead to some cowardly man (or woman) pummelling another emotionally, physically or both.

 

No one can help what an abuser does to them, but they aren't powerless over how she reacts to the situation or over making decisions to get out of this relationship and staying out of other abusive relationships.

 

Just telling her to leave isn't enough. She must learn the lessons, both about the men she chooses and herself. If she doesn't, all she'll do is endanger her child and herself again, but under a different guise. Confronting this reality, along with getting out of the relationship and putting the guy in prison where he belongs, is crucial to her own recovery in the long run. Believing otherwise is ridiculous.