Free Yourself From an Abusive Relationship: Seven Steps to Taking Back Your Life

Preface

Do you feel that you are in a relationship that is harmful? Do you feel isolated? Many people who have been harmed by a partner feel afraid and embarrassed because of the abuse.

You may feel unable to talk with friends, family, or others about your abuse, yet you may need help and support. Abusive relationships are isolating, in part because abusers often keep their victims away from the support and assistance of others. They are aware that such isolation leaves them, the abuser, in control.

You may also feel alone because family, friends, and others do not want to become involved. They may have their own problems or concerns, they may not know how to help you, or they may think your abuse is none of their business.

Their attitudes may have been fostered by society’s general response to domestic violence and abuse. Despite increased national attention in recent years, many people are unaware of how often violence in families occurs. In the past, society has viewed family and partner abuse as a private matter, and family, friends, and even law enforcement have not wanted to become involved. This has made getting help extremely difficult for abuse victims.

If you have tried to get help, you may know that it is often not as available as it should be—and that many people do not want to acknowledge that abuse exists. Yet the numbers of victims harmed by abuse and the facts regarding domestic violence are shocking.

Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between ages 15 and 44 in the United States—more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined.[¹]

Although either gender can abuse the other, women are most often the victims of domestic violence.

At least 35 percent of female homicide victims with known assailants die at the hands of their husbands or other intimate partners.[²]

Abuse causes extreme physical and emotional damage to its victims, both adults and children; and it is important to recognize that violence between adults in families also breeds violence in children. If you have children, you need to know that children who are raised in violent homes are likely to become violent themselves and are at greater risk for criminal behavior and substance abuse:

Violent juvenile delinquents are four times more likely than are nonviolent juveniles to come from homes in which their fathers beat their mothers.[³]

A child raised in a violent household is 74% more likely to commit a crime against another person, 50% more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol.[⁴]

Even if you are abused and feel you are in danger, you are not alone. No matter how confused, lonely, or isolated you are, help is available for you and your children. There are resources and support systems available to you, and part of your help can begin right here.

Introduction

Abuse is a thief in the night, destroying, plundering, and devastating its victims. It causes damage, destruction, emotional and physical pain, severe loss, and disfiguration, and leaves lasting scars.

Abuse can creep into a relationship slowly, verbally, as humiliating comments or devastating criticism: You’ll never understand this no matter how many times I explain it. What are you doing this time, dummy? You look ridiculous! Or it can enter a relationship swiftly, physically: a shove through a door, a knife slashing through skin, the shock of a bullet. Abuse can be open and in-your-face or it can be subtle and devious. Abuse betrays love, ends trust, and destroys life.

As common as abuse is, many people are unsure whether they are being abused—and many do not know what to do even if they are aware they are abused. Abusers lie to and manipulate victims. They blame their victims for the abuse; they deny their abusive acts. Because of this and the danger involved, it is difficult for victims to confront the abuse in their relationships.

Fear, confusion, anger, dependency, and danger from abuse can surround a relationship and make freedom seem impossible; yet abuse can be stopped, and freedom from abuse can be attained. If you are victimized by abuse in your relationship, the seven steps in this book can help you become free from abuse. Each step contains important information to guide you on your individual path toward freedom.

These seven steps are not easy, but you can accomplish them. They require you to question yourself and your relationship. They may require change, and facing danger. But taking these steps will bring you to freedom from your abuse.

Step One, Recognizing Abusive Behavior, is essential to freeing yourself from abuse. Although some abuse is obvious, other abuse is subtle and can be difficult to identify. Is calling you names abusive? Is blocking a doorway abusive? If you are denied access to information about your finances, are you being abused? What is emotional abuse? These questions and many others are answered for you in this first step.

Most abusers have common patterns of behavior. They often minimize their own abusive behavior. They may lie or twist facts so victims are unsure what is happening or who is at fault. They often blame their victims for the abuse. Through this first step, you will learn to recognize certain types of abusive behaviors you may have wondered about. You will also learn how some victims deny and minimize the abuse, and you can assess if you are denying or minimizing your abuse. When you complete Step One, you will know what abuse is and who is responsible for it. You will know how to tell if someone is abusing you emotionally, financially, physically, sexually, socially, or spiritually.

Each chapter in Step One ends with a checklist that can help you answer questions you may have about abuse in your relationship.

Step Two, Learning About Abusers and Victims, contains important information about abusers and their dangerous behaviors. What are the warning signs of an abusive personality? Which types of behavior indicate more danger than others? This step can help you recognize potential danger in your relationship and make vital decisions about your safety.

Step Two also explains why victims often stay in or return to abusive relationships—and why leaving abusers can be difficult and dangerous. It discusses victims of different ages, such as children, teenagers, senior citizens, and those in special circumstances: victims who live in rural areas, are from different cultures, are disabled, are partners of same-sex abusers, or are male victims. Completing this step can help you avoid danger and re-victimization.

Step Three, Preparing for Emergencies, outlines what to do and where to seek help if your abuser becomes violent. It contains essential information to use in your home, in court, and with local law enforcement. You will learn how to make safety plans for your children and yourself, and where to seek help—shelter, legal assistance, advocacy services, and other community resources. It explains the different types of legal and court protection you can request, reveals the questions you may be asked by law enforcement and courts, and explores the negative complications and consequences of entering the court process. Knowing the information in this step before a crisis arises can be vital for your safety and well-being.

Step Four, Getting Help After a Crisis, gives you an awareness of how to make important decisions that can affect the rest of your life after a violent attack. Should you seek medical attention? Where can you go for immediate and longer-term help?

This step can help you with major decisions that you may face immediately following a violent attack. Where will you go? Who can you stay with? Should you keep evidence, get an attorney, ask for your abuser to be arrested? How will you survive financially? How can you protect yourself and your children? Step Four offers important information regarding basic decisions about safety, shelter, work, money matters, and transportation. It provides assistance with obtaining support from social service agencies, work, family, and friends.

Step Five, Making the Decision to Stay or Leave, asks you to assess your circumstances and choices. Your relationship is unlike anyone else’s. What will be best for you if you live with an abusive person?

This step is necessary if you do not know whether to stay in or to leave an abusive relationship. It offers suggestions for getting support or help and for making plans for your safety and your future. It can help you decide what actions to take. Making changes and taking action in abusive relationships is not easy. People who are abused often love and hate their abusers at the same time. They can be confused, angry, afraid, and unable to make good decisions. Step Five offers ways for you to stabilize and to think clearly in the midst of chaos.

Step Six, Learning to Heal and Rebuild, takes you through stages of healing and recovery. After being involved in abusive relationships, victims need time, support, and techniques to help them heal from emotional and physical damage.

This step describes the stages of grief and loss you may go through. It discusses the feelings of depression, anger, betrayal, mistrust, and devastation people who have been abused experience. It explores ways to heal and rebuild your life after abuse. With the work, exercises, and knowledge in Step Six, you can begin to feel good again.

Step Seven, Remaining Abuse-Free, describes ways to stay free from abuse that endangers you and your children. What precautions do you need to take? How can you work toward a safe and healthy life?

The information in Step Seven can help you work toward personal safety and financial security, use caution in new relationships, and take safety measures for your children. It can show you how to establish healthy relationships free from abuse.

Although abuse is complex, the way out is easier when you follow these seven steps. By taking one step at a time, you will learn information and gain the strength that can help you take the next one. You can make changes at your own pace and with information that your abuser does not have—information that is vital when you seek help.

The steps need to be taken with caution, with your safety and your children’s safety uppermost in your mind. They need to be taken with care. But as you follow these steps, you will become more aware of choices that are available to you—and you will learn how to become free and remain free from abuse.

If you are in a relationship that is confusing, or if you wonder whether your partner is abusive, please answer the questions that follow. If you answer yes to any of these, we hope you will read the rest of this book.

Are You Being Abused?

Are you afraid to challenge your partner’s opinion?

Do you accept blame for your partner’s actions?

Are you apologetic for your partner’s behavior?

Do you blame yourself for a bad relationship?

Are you afraid of your partner’s temper?

Does your partner hit you?

Does your partner criticize what you do and how you look?

Do you question your sanity?

Are you concerned about your children’s treatment by your partner?

Do you feel restricted from seeing friends or family?

Are you forced to have sex in ways you do not want?

The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous

nation, because in the degradation of woman the very

fountains of life are poisoned at their source.

LUCRETIA MOTT

A journey of

a thousand miles

must begin with

a single step.

LAO-TZU

Step One

Recognizing Abusive Behavior

Step One is vital to freeing yourself from abuse. It can help you learn to identify the many types of abusive behaviors—emotional, financial, physical, sexual, social, and spiritual. Identifying abuse is the first step toward freeing yourself from its damage. It can also help you to deal with abusive acts and behaviors in your relationship. Recognizing and identifying abuse is the first step on your journey to becoming abuse-free.

Chapter 1

Identifying Abuse

Would you recognize violence and abuse if they occurred in your relationship? Many people do not. Domestic violence is behavior that physically injures or violates intimate partners or family members. Abuse is any harm done to a person; it does not have to be physical. Violence is a particular type of abuse; it is physical, and it often kills.

Because abuse can be subtle and can be denied, many people do not recognize it at first. They may only know that they do not feel good about the way their partner treats them. Aggression, anger, domination, intimidation, manipulation, punishment, and control are the main patterns of abusive behavior. Victims of continued abuse often fear their abusers. They often are—or think they are—dependent on their abusers. They may be afraid of the harm that will come to them if they leave or attempt to leave their abusers. If you are a victim of abuse and have feelings of fear and dependency, you should know that your abuser counts on these fears and dependencies to continue the abuse.

Abusers do not necessarily look abusive. They may be attractive, charming, and well dressed. They may be people we do business with, people who live next door, people we think well of and trust. Abusers are doctors, lawyers, mechanics, grocers, and teachers. They may be members of law enforcement, politicians, neighbors, family, friends—or casual dates.

Abuse happens among the rich and the poor; among people with influence and power and those without it; among professionals and the unemployed. It occurs in urban and rural populations and in diverse ethnic cultures. It is not restricted by age, social status, sexual orientation, or class. But—abusive behavior is learned behavior, and it can be changed.

PATTERNS OF DOMINATION AND CONTROL

Contrary to popular opinion, abuse is not an isolated or random incident in a relationship, it is a pattern of behavior. It is not a loss of control, but the opposite. No, the violent man is not out of control. He is a man at work on his own agenda, which is to train ‘his’ woman to be what he wants her to be, and only what he wants her to be, all the time.[¹]

Abusive behavior is a pattern that attempts to establish dominance and control over and to harm its victims.[²] Controlling, intimidating, humiliating, manipulating, punitive, and violent actions are used to reinforce one person’s authority over and oppression of another. Abuse may occur unpredictably or in regular patterns over a short or long time. It may happen occasionally or repeatedly. It may happen every day, every week, every month, or every year. All abuse ultimately reinforces one underlying theme: that one person retains control over the other.

In their research, R. Emerson Dobash and Russell Dobash found that the first violence is usually a single blow and is treated by both partners as exceptional; no one expects it to continue. The first violence, however, sets the stage for further abuse.[³] If you are involved with an abuser, mistreatment can break down your sense of self-worth and steal your personal power. It can enforce learned helplessness, an acquired feeling that you cannot do things right, survive on your own, or escape your abuse.[⁴]

The immediate benefits of battering and control are known by both abuser and victim. Men benefit from having placating wives; they do not have to bother with daily negotiations over children, housecleaning, or the allocation of each partner’s leisure time. Some battered women insure that everything runs smoothly so that nothing irritates their men.[⁵]

Tactics of domination and control are the cornerstones of violent and abusive behavior. Are these tactics being used against you?

THE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CYCLE

Does your relationship alternate between good times and times of violence and abuse? Or is your abuse a daily occurrence? Most abusive relationships may have consistent patterns of abuse, with the abuse occurring every day or several times a week or month.

However, many victims avoid looking at their abuse because of a typical cycle in which a kind or attentive stage filled with regrets and promises follows an incident of abuse. This tends to give victims false hope and false reasons to deny the extent of their abuse. Abuse in many relationships goes through a cycle of violence,[⁶] with recognizable stages. Knowing about these stages can help you to be aware when abuse may begin again, despite the good or manipulative intentions of the abuser.

The Violence-Buildup Stage: During this stage, pressure is rising. Tension, life stresses, and the struggle for dominance and control increase in the relationship. As in the early stages of a storm, tension fills the air and builds. Warning signs appear on the relationship horizon: words, glances, actions, and intimidating gestures indicate the abuse storm is approaching.

During the buildup phase, you may be extremely sensitive and attempt to avoid or prepare for the violence, especially if there have been previous attacks. You may think you can stay out of the way of or prevent your perpetrator’s violence, but the truth is that victims usually cannot stop an abuser’s attack.

Some victims become compliant or nurturing at this point, or they attempt to provoke an attack before the abuser grows extremely violent. They may try to avoid the batterer, to do everything right, or to manipulate the batterer’s moods and actions to lessen or stop the attack.

The Violent Incident: This is when the abuser explodes—lightning strikes. This stage is the peak of the cycle, and is characterized by direct violence and attack by the abuser on the victim. Batterers may use words, hands, or weapons. They may beat, batter, scald, burn, shoot, or kill. Police, friends, or family may be called, yet both abuser and victim may minimize the extent of injury and harm when outside help arrives. Denial, embarrassment, shock, confusion, and fear usually follow the violent incident.

Have you been attacked and then denied the damage done to you and violence inflicted on you? Have you reacted to abuse with numbness or disbelief? Have you been blamed or accepted responsibility for your own abuse? These are common reactions of people who have been battered and abused. Responsibility for abuse does not belong to the victim—only the abuser is responsible for abusive behavior. Abusing someone is a choice.

The Honeymoon Stage: This is the calm after the storm. Batterers and victims begin to function again after the shock lessens. In the honeymoon stage couples often return to types of behavior used in courtship. Batterers may feel contrite, guilty, embarrassed, or ashamed. They may show extreme kindness; they often offer gifts, apologies, and promises of no further abuse. They may make sincere attempts to amend their behaviors and repair the destruction that has occurred.

If you are a victim, you may feel confusion, fear, shock, anger, guilt, and relief. You may be overwhelmed by emotion. During this stage, victims often accept blame for the abuse. Batterers and victims may promise each other to change, and instill new hope in their relationship; they may convince themselves or each other that the abuse will not happen again. However, unless nonabusive behavior is learned, the abusive cycles continue.

The Back-to-Normal Stage: This is the time when the debris is cleaned up, coping skills are back in place, and the honeymoon phase is over. Old habits and patterns of behavior and communication begin to resurface. Life and normal behavior go on as they did before—but in the distance another storm looms, and the intensity of the next incident may be more severe than the last.

If your relationship has abusive incidents that follow the stages outlined above, carefully consider the danger you may be facing.

TYPES OF ABUSE

Abuse can be difficult to identify because it often consists of subtle or manipulative behaviors. Part of learning about abuse is acknowledging that batterers usually continue their abusive patterns. Learning about the different types of abuse can help you take the first step toward freedom from abuse.

Emotional abuse is the use of mental tactics such as aggression, anger, humiliation, sabotage, manipulation, corruption, intimidation, fear, dominance, power, and control to inflict emotional damage on another person.

Physical abuse is the use of bodily actions and weapons to threaten, punish, dominate, restrain, control, or injure another person.

Sexual abuse is the use of forced or unwanted sexual activities to dominate, manipulate, threaten, injure, corrupt, or control another person.

Social abuse incorporates other forms of abuse to dominate, manipulate, threaten, control, or damage another person’s social relationships.

Financial abuse is the use of money and money-related matters to dominate, sabotage, manipulate, threaten, control, inflict damage on, or take advantage of another person.

Religious and Spiritual abuse is the controlling, damaging, or constraining of another person’s religious interests, practices, or icons. It is purposely misstating religious purposes to abuse another person.

Most family and partner abuse involves behaviors from more than one of these categories. The remainder of Step One explores the various types of abuse in depth.

Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom,

not a guide by which to live.

ROBERT KENNEDY

Chapter 2

Emotional Abuse

Emotional abuse is behavior that attempts to undermine another person’s safety, worth, or autonomy. Emotional abusers attempt to make another person feel dependent, afraid, guilty, confused, embarrassed, unworthy, or helpless. To accomplish this, they often use such behaviors as verbal harassment, put-downs, intimidation, excessive criticism, and blame.

Emotional abuse may be obvious or subtle. It can occur with or without physical abuse, and is often combined with other types of abuse. It can involve neglect, ridicule, lying, name-calling, withholding affection, exerting pressure, or making comments to isolate or alienate you. It can include limiting your access to information.

Emotional abusers may use abuse as punishment and they may threaten physical harm to you or your family or friends. They may threaten lawsuits to take away your children, or threaten to leave the relationship, or to divorce you.

Emotional abusers may insist that they make all or most of the family decisions. They may not allow you to express your opinions, and they may make comments that attack your sense of self-worth. Emotional assault can occur before, during, and after physical abuse and is often denied or minimized by both batterers and victims.

Emotional abuse can be compared with intentional brainwashing. Emotional abusers usually leave victims confused, weak, depressed, angry, and numb, with unclear thinking—and yet loyal to their abusers, hoping the abusive behavior will change.

Do you think you are being emotionally abused? Learn to recognize different types of emotional abuse in your relationship so that you can stop accepting them.

PATTERNS OF EMOTIONAL ABUSE

Emotional abuse is used to depersonalize or weaken others and to increase the abuser’s power. It is used to strike at vulnerable areas, attacking victims’ confidence, boundaries, self-worth, independence, and individuality. If your partner regularly lies, is extremely critical, or attempts to alienate you from your children, these are patterns of emotional abuse. Emotional abuse can produce scars that will remain with you for years.

Emotional abuse may appear in a relationship in any of the following patterns. Do you recognize these behaviors?

Blame

Blaming usually takes the form of an accusation, of an abuser saying that you are responsible for something, anything, that has gone wrong. You may be accused of cheating, lying, or doing something you have not done. Abusers also often shift the responsibility for their own behavior onto their victims, refusing to accept responsibility for their own actions. Blaming can also include attempts to make others outside the relationship responsible for the abuser’s behavior.

Examples of Blaming Behavior

If you hadn’t aggravated me, I wouldn’t have exploded at you.

If you had dinner ready, I wouldn’t be mad.

I have to make the important decisions because you’re so stupid.

I only pushed you. If you weren’t so goddam clumsy, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.

It’s all your fault I didn’t have a good time.

A healthy person accepts responsibility for his or her actions.

Confusing Behavior

Do you feel confused by your partner’s behavior? Kindness followed by cruelty is characteristic of people who abuse others. It is difficult for the victim to know when to expect kindness and when to expect emotional or physical assault.

People who abuse with confusion can be extraordinarily attentive and sensitive; they can also be cruel and callous. In the initial stages of a relationship they are often very considerate and kind; later, their abusive behavior takes over. Lying is a common type of confusing behavior. Emotional abusers make false statements or omit the truth to mislead, confuse, or manipulate others, and create doubt.

Abusers who use confusion tactics may act unpredictably and impulsively. Their erratic changes support their controlling and oppressive behavior and are difficult for victims to recognize and act against. Such abusers may also act irresponsibly, expecting others to take care of the consequences of their actions. Keeping others in a continual state of chaos—by creating conflict, blowing mistakes and actions out of proportion, or being argumentative—is also confusing, abusive behavior.

Denying their abusive behavior and minimizing the extent of