Having just read a post on Lovelyish about how to tell if your relationship is abusive, I really started to think about abusive relationships, and my relationship specifically. I have been abusive to my boyfriend.
I know very well that abuse is not always treated with the attention it deserves, and that many women are suffering right now and don’t know what to do. But what about those of us whose anger gets the best of us, and we ourselves, lash out? No one tells us what to do, and we are shamed into hiding for fear of being demonized.
The original post detailed five signs that you may be in an abusive relationship, but it was one-sided. All of the points are completely valid, but if you are doing them to your significant other, you are the abusive one. It is hard to admit and hard to come to terms with, as no one wants to be seen in such negative light. But from personal experience, I can tell you that if you were to see a counselor or therapist, it is likely that there are underlying causes to your fits of anger.
1. Jealousy. It is normal, but at a certain point, if your partner still thinks you’re being unreasonable, maybe you are. This can stem from such things as low self-esteem and insecurities. It makes sense that if your boyfriend’s best friendis some hot chick, you’re going to feel jealous. What you need to do is sit down and put everything out on the table with your partner. Explain what makes you jealous. Look deep inside yourself. If you want the relationship to work, you’ve got to do it.
2. Name calling and verbal abuse. This is somewhere between jealousy and violence, in my opinion. What you have to realize is that words can hurt, they can cut deeply and sometimes it is hard for a person to recover from the wound a word can leave. If you think that you have verbally abused your partner, think about the words you have used. Ask them for their input. It may be helpful to completely eradicate them from your vocabulary, the same way you automatically stop saying curse words around your grandmother or teachers. If you train yourself not to use these words, they hopefully will stop coming to mind when you are angry. Or this extra step will cause you to think about your words and express yourself in a calmer, more rational way.
3. Violence. It is less normal and can stem from unresolved anger issues, substance abuse, and some types of depression, just to name a few. If you have ever slapped, punched, pushed, kicked, scratched, or otherwise injured your partner, you should seek help. Whether it be because you were mad at them, or if the pressures of the day built up until they spilled over at home. If at any time you feel that you must injure your partner, or you both get in a physical fight, you should call someone; campus health centers, local counseling, the police, a hospital or a trusted mediator.
If you feel that you are abusive to your partner, you are not alone. You do need attention and help from a counselor. No one is abusive just because they’re a bad person. There is always some deeper cause, and while the person being abused hurts, the abuser is hurting as well. I want to make it clear that I am not endorsing that every abused individual stay with their partner, but I sure am glad that my boyfriend is helping me, rather than leaving me.
Would you continue to date someone who was abusive, Lovelies?
guest
great perspective on such a touchy subject. It’s important for people to understand both sides of a situation so important as this one. It sheds some serious light for anyone who may be going through something like this.
orchid / 137 posts
I did when I was a little younger, but I didn’t realize how messed up it truly was until here in the last 2 years. It’s sad to see others in abusive relationships. I think it’s important for friends to watch out for their friends’ relationships, especially if things seem really wrong/off.
guest
Whoops, I guess I missed the memo.
guest
The difference between you and other abusers is that you know and admit you have a problem, and you WANT to change. Many abusers lack that, and say they’ll change just to keep their SO around, and not follow through. That is just the absolute most important part to turning around an abusive relationship.
guest
I have abused my boyfriend and he has abused me, both verbally. Sometimes I retaliate when I am hurt by him and the things that come of out of my mouth, regrettably, cannot be taken back. The only thing I can do is learn from this and try my damnedest to be better.
guest
if he has the heart to continuously verbally/physically abuse me, then I won’t stay long, because why be with someone who doesn’t love and care about me in return. love and trust is earned. I won’t stay around if he is in denial and refuses to change and recognize his bad habits.
guest
I did continue to date someone who abused me because he isolated me and manipulated me so much that he was literally the only person I felt I could rely on. Eventually I was able to stick up for myself and get the balls to leave, thank god.
guest
I’ve been the abuser most of the time. My boyfriend only started to retaliate when he believed it was the only way to stand up for himself without leaving me. It wasn’t until the last year that I realized a past diagnoses of BPD was correct. We are painted to be these horrible, manipulative people by those that are less infortmed about the disorder. But I’ve had to tell myself over and over that I am not a bad person. The personality disorder and my twisted thinking is bad, but it doesn’t have to be apart of me. Anytime I feel any sense of someone rejecting me I feel an intense darkness grow inside of me. I still have not found all of my answers but I truly love my boyfriend and I want to have peace in our relationship. It is insanely hard work to clear your mind of old habits and seemingly permanent negative emotions. It’s like being a child and needing to re-learn almost everything. Not all abusers can relate to my personal story but more often then not there is a reason behind what they do and they need just as much help as the abused.
guest
I would not stay with somebody who is abusive, because they don’t deserve or care about me if they are. Abusive people don’t give a damn about anybody but themselves. I hope they seek help, but they aren’t hurting or suffering because of their actions.
lily / 5148 posts
I’m bipolar so I can’t control my moods or my actions so I end up doing things by hurting my bf, nothing intentional but it happens. He knows it’s not directed towards him but he doesn’t listen to me and not come close to me when I get into moods.
I lash out at anyone if I’m in that mood.
guest
Both my exes verbally abused me, I don’t recall verbally abusing the first ex of mine but I’m pretty sure I have verbally abused my recent ex, but not to his extent.
guest
No, I would not. I dated a guy who was sweet at first, and then started showing his nasty, controlling, abusive side. I dumped him, but unfortunately, he manipulated my mom for a while into letting him come into my room to try to persuade me to stay. In fairness to him, I have to say that several years later, he got in touch with me, apologized, and said that he had been doing therapy to help with his problems.
I don’t regret breaking up with him though.
orchid / 141 posts
@lilblucherrygrl@xanga - Sadly, I was/still sort of am one of those people that correlates BPD with abusive behavior; If, however, you do have BPD and you are learning to manage, more power to you. The hardest part for someone with BPD is wanting to improve themselves in the first place, or admitting something’s not right. Keep fighting.
OP: There is a stigma in our society that men can only be the abusers and women can only be abused; very few have their eyes open enough to see that the reverse happens very often, perhaps even without the abused or abuser realizing it.
orchid / 155 posts
I’ve been in a lot of abusive relationships and the truth is, I was partially to blame for them: reason being is that I thought I hadn’t done anything to annoying or that I pushed the figurative buttons of my partner when deep down, I knew I had. I’ve been in relationships that I’ve thought were irreparable and I only left when I realized if he did something drastic, like taking his own life, I’d do it too because I wasn’t sure I could exist without him. You can’t really begin to understand abusive relationships until you understand what codependence is and how it’s on both sides. I admit, I sort of enjoyed playing the victim when my ex would pummel on me. Poor, innocent me, he’s abusing me again. A part of me liked the attention I got from family (let’s be honest, I was an introvert with few friends because I don’t really feel that I’m an interesting person and it tends to spill over in my social life) because it was attention, none the less. I wasn’t this invisible entity that no one knew existed any longer. I didn’t know how to get attention any other way other than be the victim of someone’s rage and I ended up looking like some poor, pathetic individual that needed saving because I was innocent and good and he was corrupt and bad. I am a little corrupted- I like to tell myself it’s out of loneliness, but in truth, it’s because I’m just aiming to overachieve what I can/cannot do. My thought patterns aren’t always what I’m told is healthy, neither was his. Society doesn’t ever bring up what the victims of domestic abuse did wrong in the relationship. Yes, we do wrong, but maybe it’s not as terrible as beating an innocent/smaller person, it may be just snapping or being frigid towards our partner or helpless. I don’t think we should call the people in this situation “victims” because they do things to encourage the beatings. We’re more entrappers, sometimes, simply because we feel invisible with everyone else and they only pay attention when we’re in this relationship. It’s not fun while it’s happening, but when we start getting people making a fuss and actually ringing our phone instead of it being silent because we’re so invisible, that’s not anything I wanted to loose. If I had to endure beatings and make him so annoyed that he lost his temper and hit me, the bruises would inspire concern from people outside the relationship. That was how it was for me. Call me a drama queen if you must.
Just look at the way it’s portrayed in Hollywood: Innocent woman gets seduced into a relationship and then he starts hitting her, and she says he’s not that bad and puts up with it. The way it was for me was I didn’t have a lot of friends, I was unhappy, and yes, I think he preyed on that, but when he hit me, it sort of lit up in my mind that it made me special and it would make people care about me for once, so I kept on with him. It wasn’t glamorous as what’s on TV, but it made me visible for once.
I know this is a controversial thing to say, but I believe it. I’m not completely blameless when it came to him. I know that. And I still do think that the women who are repeated “victims” of abusive boyfriends/husbands are really attention seekers who seek out men like this because they have such low self-esteem and a huge lack of positive friendships and turn their men into codependents. I think we need to stop stigmatizing “victims” of domestic abuse as blameless and innocent prey that’s been attacked. I don’t think any of my abusive exes were “preying” on me going, “ooh, she looks insecure and lonely, I bet she’d be a great girlfriend to beat up! Imma talk to her because, y’know, I like hitting people.” I don’t think anybody really thinks like that. If anybody actually took the time to tell the story of domestic abuse from the abuser’s side and do this several times, they’d probably find a very insecure, lonely abusee who seemed to continue to do the same things over and over to piss off the abuser so she’d have something to cry over and get attention for. It makes both sides wrong. Yes, I’m saying it: both sides are wrong and need help.
guest
@Coffee_Kaioken@xanga - Thanks, I will. It’s hard for any person to admit that most of the time they’re wrong because their negative emotions influence them to say/do shitty things to those they love. But the hard work is worth it when the things you do start to make people smile instead of making them cry.
guest
Thanks for this brave post. When i was a kid I verbally abused one of my younger brothers; I would go into a blackout rage and say horrible things designed to prey on his weaknesses, and then have no memory of anything I said. I’ve since apologized, and learned to mostly control that anger. I’m working really, really hard never to do that to my fiance or daughter!
guest
@opheliasbones@xanga - Thanks for sharing this perspective. The fact that you have taken a serious, steady look at it and seen the more in-depth things about both partners that contribute to abuse is amazing. The original post is amazing. I am glad to see different perspectives on it than the normal “I was a victim” perspective. That is useful, but not the whole story, and I’m glad that the story can be told from all sides, and learned from. I hope that you have found ways to use your wisdom toward building better relationships. *hug*
guest
That is a really interesting question. I’m going to assume that I am not dependent on him and able to walk away from the abusive relationship. If he admitted to it, apologized for it, and seeked help for it, I’m hang in there a little long. If I see the abuse has stopped or lessened, I might stick in there if I love him and I know he loves me. I think for an abuser to face their issues and get help for them for not only his sake but the sake of our relationship is pretty significant. I wouldn’t continue to deal with it, though, if it continued despite his efforts.
I mentioned this in my comment of the post this is a response to that I haven’t had any boyfriends particularly abusive (closest thing was an untreated mentally ill guy who ignored me for MMORPGs and insisted I was trying to pick fights all the time). My main abuser is my older brother and he has taken none of these steps. I wish he would. I wish I could forgive him. But it’s hard when he’s never apologized. But then again, I don’t either. Really, only difference between him and I is he breaks shit and punches stuff, I cry and sometimes scream. And I’ve tried seeking help (no success, I would avoid my real issues for surface issues). We both are pretty verbally abusive toward my mom.
guest
I’ve abused my husband. I am so ashamed by it, and am trying so hard to never ever do it again. Whenever we get in an argument, I stop and think about what I’m saying before I say it. It’s helped a lot.
guest
@opheliasbones@xanga - This is very interesting. But as a child whose mother was physically abused for many many years, she NEVER had an attention seeking personality.
Part of the characteristics of many abusers is that they are extremely controlling. Therefore,she had NO friends, NO contact with people outside of those that HE knew. She never asked people for help and never received attention for her beatings. She hid for a very long time. And I am sure that to a large extent she is hiding a lot of pain even today. I don’t think that there was anything wrong of her and I don’t believe in the least that she is to blame for her beatings. She didn’t do anything to deserve it, and I would never ever want anyone to tell her that. She stayed for US her children because she was afraid that if she left, he would say terrible things to us about her like she never loved us otherwise she would not have left you. And knowing my dad, he would have said things like that and knowing us, I probably would have believed it because coming from your dad, one of your most trusted authority figures, what they say to a child is to the child, the truth.
So while I understand your point of view, I am very very reluctant to say that ALL victims of domestic abuse think the same way.
guest
I have a complicated relationship with my ex of 8 years. He was abusive verbally by calling my mean things or telling me i was fat/ ugly etc. He also would manipulate me and had a very keen way of making everything my fault. (ex: he cheats, it’s my fault for not being this, or doing that etc)
8 years later, even though we are not officially together, I still see him once or twice a week, I still miss him deeply when we are apart and yet I defiantly stand up for myself now and he never treats me horribly.