Aslaug's Axe Shed

Today, I found myself in a surprising but sadly not shocking situation. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless for the purpose of this blog entry, told me that her boyfriend had threatened her.
Suffice to say, for a moment, I had to restrain myself not to channel a certain axe-wielding lunatic I sometimes write about.
I promised her I would not give out too many details, but what I can say, I will. Because this is an ugly, ugly thing and I want my opinion to be heard. Somehow, I doubt many of you will disagree with me on this, but that doesn’t mean I should keep quiet about it. Domestic violence and partner abuse is one of the vilest, most awful ways of treating a vulnerable human being. Love, when given, is a beautiful and deeply moving thing. But it also leaves the person giving it in a vulnerable position. You place trust in someone to such an extent, that you basically give them all the tools that need if they want to totally destroy you.
And sadly, some people take advantage of that. And I say people, not “men”, because partner abuse happens with both men and women being abused, and both men and women being the abuser. But in this case, the guilty swine was a man, so if I slip up and use male pronouns at some point, you’ll all know why.
There are several kinds of partner abuse, of course. The most readily recognizable is actual, physical violence in some form or other. Where blows are struck, or even worse. When someone you know is in a relationship, and they suddenly and unexpectedly develop an inability to see that the door they are about to walk into is open and in their way … “No, don’t worry about my black eye, I walked into a door” … or when they become incapable of standing on their own feet … “The bandage on my head? I fell and hit my head in the living room”, there is clear and good reason to be worried. If it happens once, it might simply be an accident. Hell, I have a scar on my forehead just by the hairline, from running into a door at the age of five. I bled profusely, I screamed like a stuck pig and I was happy as a clam when the doctor didn’t need to use a needle, and just glued the wound, and told me that I wasn’t to wash it for five days. No bath for five days? I guess I learned to love doctors that day! My point is, accidents do happen. But repeatedly and over and over again?
There are so many misconceptions about this, that it isn’t even funny. One of them is “only guys do this” but all evidence says that women can be abusers as well. Another is “it’s probably best if I don’t ask” or “it’s not my business”.
No, it’s not better if you don’t ask. Chamberlain thought he could stop Hitler too, by simply giving in. Appeasement doesn’t work on bullies, and that is what partner-abusers ARE. Bullies of the worst kind!
And yes, it is your business.
It is, because if you don’t make it your business, you become an accomplice. A silent witness to a criminal act, to a wrongdoing, to an act you wouldn’t think you would ever be capable of perpetrating yourself. But if you don’t act, you allow it to go on. Even if the abused person hates you for it, even if they scream up a storm, even if they protest and complain, you have a duty to act. To not let the wrong stand uncontested.
I’m proud to say that is what I believe, and I have acted on it in the past. I would again. But today, at least, my friend was well aware that she needed to get away from her abusive boyfriend.
Now, that got me to thinking. This isn’t the first time someone has told me that her boyfriend was abusing her. It wasn’t even the first time in the past year. Apparently, people trust me to help with this, and I do try. But ultimately, it is the responsibility of all of us. We all have to help. We all have to do what we can to assist people who are thusly caught in a destructive relationship.
And how is it destructive? That is not a simple question, nor are there simple answers. Obviously, if someone hits you, that is destructive in itself. But it goes deeper than the physical injury, and either the abuser doesn’t realize this, which makes him or her an ignoramus, or they do know, and it makes them sadists. Pick and choose. The point is, the hurt is far deeper, because as I said, you have placed yourself at the mercy of someone else, and the abuse is as much emotional and psychological as it is physical. The fear, the distrust, the doubts, the self-chastisement are all utterly destructive things that come with something like this. Some people are strong enough to stand up for themselves the first time they are abused, saying “you did this. And now I’m gone” but those are few and far in between. Usually, we have invested so much of ourselves in a relationship, that we want to try to make it better. “He didn’t really mean it. He’s so sorry afterwards, and he apologized and … and … and … and ……… and”.
We’ve probably all heard the standard phrases. The problem is, they don’t become any more true, the more they are repeated. The abuser is not sorry. They are simply playing their part in the tragedy. Of making the weak victim stay put, by making them blame themselves.
“I shouldn’t demand so much of him/her” or “It really isn’t his fault. If only I …”
These too are commonplace. As is “I can’t leave him. He promised he’d never do it again, and I love him!”
Some people listening to this get angry with the abused, blaming them for their spinelessness. But that is not the case. Even strong people can fall into this. The psychology of abuse is very distinct, and it is insidious and evil. None of us want to admit a defeat, and giving up on a relationship is, in itself, a defeat. A bad one, for most of us.
And many times, in fact most of the time, the abuser will make the abused feel like they have no alternative. Like no one would help them, no one else would want them. Like the abuser is their only chance to make it in a big, hostile world. And like any skilled torturer, they will repeat this … over and over again, until the abused believes it. A particularly cruel method is to say something along the lives of “if you leave me, I’ll kill myself, I swear I will!”
My response: “Want me to set up the cordon so you won’t be disturbed while you fling yourself off the top of the nearest suspension bridge?”
It places the abused person in a position of unbelievable guilt and fake responsibility. Because the abuser has no intention to kill him- or herself. He or she simply wants to keep the abused in a position where they are utterly unable to escape, by imposing a false responsibility on them that no human being should ever have to bear.
It is incredibly vile, but I have personally witnessed strong, wilful people fall prey to this. We all think we are immune. But none of us are. We all want to love. We all want to be loved. And the human condition, that most of us are desperately insecure, thinking we are not worth loving. So when we find someone, we often think “okay, I’ve found the only one who will ever feel this way towards me!” and we will fight, tooth and nail, to make it work. Divorces are on the rise, but how many of them do we hear about that are good? How many “happy” divorces do YOU know of? And how many happy ones in COMPARISON to the “bitter” ones?
And here is the clincher: How many divorces have you run into, where one or both will afterwards say “I should have gotten out of this years ago!”?
Personally, I know a lot. And the reason is the same every time. We struggle so long and so hard to make things work that we exhaust all possibilities of retaining some kind of friendship afterwards. This even goes in the case of marriages that go awry, not because of abuse, but simply because people drift apart.
In the case of abuse, it isn’t worth it trying to salvage a friendship. But it is worth it to get out as quickly as possible. If that involves restraining orders or other safety measures, then so be it. An abusive relationship is NEVER … EVER worth salvaging for ANY reason. Not even if there are children involved, because every time daddy hits mommy … or every time mommy makes daddy sit in a corner and cry from self-loathing, the kids are the silent witnesses, who end up carrying the scars around for life.
“I should have gotten out of this years ago, but we tried to make it work for the children’s sake”
Good grief, that line is so common it’s practically standard issue in any television drama about strained marriages or divorces. Not because it’s original, but specifically because it is a line a lot of viewers can relate to.
Abuses in relationships are ALWAYS wrong. Like with rape, there is no legitimate excuse for it. It is the deliberate destruction of at least one other person … slowly but certainly.
As the Declaration of Independence states:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
But an abuser does not consider his or her partner equal. An abuser does not respect unalienable rights, and they shackle Liberty with guilt, self-doubt and uncertainty. They crush Happiness, for selfish, morally indefensible reasons. And in the end … they are all too often responsible for the loss of Life. Either through deliberate, direct reasons, or because they drive others to end it all.
I hope my friend will be alright, and I will help her as much as I can.
Because it is my business that she is well.
Because it is the business of all of us.
Because by turning the blind eye or shirking my responsibility to help … I am just as bad as the man drawing a knife on her.