Is it Excitement or Certainty?

This is the epitome of fun unless it's prolonged and makes you sick

Know what you know, see what you see and believe what your guts are telling you.
Susan R. Grout

I always bring this phrase into counseling as early as possible with my clients. However, things get a bit wonky when it comes to choices in relationships. Sometimes excitement takes the place of certainty in people's lives. I have seen this over and over again with people who fall in love with the ones who are going to bring them heart ache and chaos. This, by any other name, is excitement and especially for those people who were raised in chaotic homes it feels semi comfortable or at least familiar. Best to give examples.

Years ago a young woman that I worked with "Rose"* lived with then married a man who not only frightened her but also had a drug problem. Her excuse was that when the relationship was good, "there is no better feeling in the world" he was everything that she desired, smart, sexy and sometimes fun to be with. However the question I posed to her, which I use to most of my couples in therapy, "by percentage how much of the time is this relationship warm, wonderful, comforting, sexy, loving, and safe." "Ah,"  she said, "maybe 20% of the time." "Explain to me what the 80% looks like and why that's OK." "Well, I've had other relationships and they were so dull by comparison, in him I never know what's going to happen day to day and it really keeps me on my toes." "And this is a good way to live?" I said. "Well, it's what keeps me coming back to him and I've been unable to leave him for over ten years."

In a nutshell Rose's relationship became based on fear--- not love and she kept desperately trying to turn the man into a kind, good, competent lover who she thought she was getting at the beginning of the relationships. Had she only put on her 'Lois Lane the reporter' outfit and interviewed all of his former lovers, family and friends, she would have indeed punctured his veneer as a 'great guy'. He was inept, especially around women and I believe he was misogynistic, not my favorite kind of man. Truly the way he held on to his women was to subtly at first, and later overtly, belittle and humiliate them make them doubt and distrust themselves. Then they believe that they are the lowest of the low and it's hard to stand up for yourself when you're reduced to crawling. In essence, this is the classic abusive pattern. When I pointed this out to Rose she said, "he's never so much as shoved me!" And I said, "yeah, but verbally he's been bashing you for years." [see the post of 6/10/12 "Now Spit, Songs from the Little Shop of Horrors."]

How on earth do sensible women [and a few good men] fall prey to this abuse and put up with it? It's all based on fear, insecurity and power. The bullies of this world have an addiction to being in control [in power] and a degree of narcissism ["if it's good for me it's good"]. Add to that mixture the bullies have an enormous fear their partner is going to leave them. Hence, they become more controlling still, striking fear into their loved ones hearts. In the macro climate these are the oppressive dictators of the world, in the micro climate these are the abusive beasties of households. Terrorists all. So in answer to the question as why do they stay, it's because of the 20% that's good and the lies that they tell their victims about how their lives will be ruined if they protest or leave. The women keep irrationally hoping that the dictators are telling the truth. They aren't.

Tonight I was listening to Terry Gross on the radio interviewing Carole King the famous musician. Carole confessed in her new book that she was in an abusive relationship with a man who occasionally hit her. She said, "I couldn't decide if I should put that in the book. My now husband said, 'just write it and see if it feels right.' I decided to leave it in because if just one woman reads about me who had money and everything going for me could be in an abusive relationship, they could too and they could get help and get out as I finally did."

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.     Helen Keller

Some of the Roses that I worked with had the good fortune to make new friends and build a better support system and were able to move on. This was with a great deal of mourning: more for the relationship that might have been and for the loss of their dreams than the reality of the abusiveness they experienced. Then they had to forgive themselves for staying as long as they did with their untenable situations. Letting go is essential to getting on with life, always.

The sixteen points below are copied from my post of 6/10/12. Here is roughly what I see as essential to recovery from abuse or traumatic relationships for the Roses of my practice:

1. We work diligently toward the ability to respect, admire, love, trust and value yourself and spring forth from love in all of your dealings with yourself and others. [I wrote this for workshops I did in the late '80's.]
2. Go to someone that you feel safe with and start the process of telling what did happen to you. [Therapist, group, priest, rabbi, shaman...]
3. Give yourself enough time to see if that person [that you feel safe with] is trustworthy and then inch forward for deeper secrets from your past that make you feel imprisoned.
4. Educate yourself on the best methods of recovery including the 12 Step programs that have a remarkable history of success.
5. Establish a safe living environment, establish relationships that enhance you.
6. Let go of people who strike fear into your heart no matter how attracted you are to them.
7. Face your grief and sorrow over what happened in the past with the knowledge that this too shall pass.
8. Be willing to let go of repetitive destructive thoughts [the brain may want to return to these thoughts because it is an old habit].
9. Be willing to love without fear.
10. Be willing to challenge yourself.
11. Remember that life is a "cha-cha" and you will take a step backwards occasionally because you are human.
12. Forgive yourself, and do make amends to the ones that you have hurt.
13. The truth is no one is better than you and no one is worse than you.
14. Be judicious prior to being open with people.
15. Learn to value your opinions.
16. Never forget that the abuse/trauma happened but be willing to forgive. Even the Jews had to come to this conclusions about the Holocaust.

Another one of my dictum's about life is to find something amusing each day, and to commit to staying loving and open. None of us has to be victims of our pasts, life can be wide and open. Break away for the old tired refrains, be willing to live in the present and face the truth of your life don't go back to sleep.



*Rose is actually a compilation of many of the women I've seen in abusive relationships.

susansmagicfeather copyright 2012 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved