What is she doing with that guy? I thought she was too smart to date a jerk like him!”I overheard someone say that the other day. When it comes to dealing with abusive relationships, I prefer to focus on the ways to contain the abuser and get him to eliminate his bad behaviours, but sometimes it is important to take time to address the questions that we hear about victims of abuse. And this is one that I hear a lot: Why do so many smart women make such bad choices when it comes to relationships?
Let’s talk about it:
Q: My friend is a really smart woman, but she got into an abusive relationship. How is that even possible?
A: Because becoming involved in an abusive relationship has nothing at all to do with how smart you are. I have done a lot of research on this issue. I have worked with a whole lot of abusive men and with many, many battered women. In my opinion, whether or not someone gets involved with an abuser has absolutely nothing to do with her intelligence. Rather, it has everything to with luck.
There are a huge number of abusers out there. And a lot of them are extremely sophisticated. And incredibly smart. So unless a woman can read other people’s minds and/or predict the future, she has
no way of knowing whether or not her new relationship will become abusive. Most abusers will wait until after they’ve gotten their hooks deep into you before they start yanking you around. Significant abuse rarely occurs at the very beginning of the relationship.
Q: But if it is all about luck, then what can she do to be certain that it never happens to her again?
A: Nothing.
Q: What? Do you mean to say there is nothing that any of us can do to ensure that we never find ourselves in that situation?
A: Well, that’s my sense of things: it really is just a matter of luck. And unless you choose not to be involved with anyone at all, there is nothing that you can do to eliminate the possibility that when you begin a new relationship you may in fact be getting involved with an abuser.
Q: Isn’t that kind of scary to think about?
A: Yes, it is. But the key is not to focus on the impossible task of predicting the future (or on the energy-depleting exercise of always preparing for the worst), but to focus instead on learning to recognize abuse if and when it happens, and being ready to respond appropriately at that time.
Some men who behave abusively will actually change their ways if they see that continuing their bad behaviour will mean losing the relationship altogether. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that it is only a very small minority of abusers will ever actually change their ways. And the chances are that your guy won’t be one of them.
The only generally reliable way to stop being abused by your partner is to stop being in a relationship with him. And even then the abuse doesn’t always stop.
Q: My friend feels so stupid that she didn’t see it coming. Aren’t there warning signs?
A: Glaring behaviours like torturing small animals, a violent past, or active drug or alcohol addiction are often pointed out as warning signs that someone is not good partner material. But short of that, a lot of the behaviours that we may see in retrospect as having been warning signs of abuse are in fact some of the exact things that we also experience as being simply part of the process of falling in love: someone sweeps you off your feet, wants to spend every waking (and sleeping) moment with you, obsessively thinks about you... the continual phone calls, the texting, the messaging, him surprising you at work or at school or when you are out with your girlfriends...
“I just want to be with you all the time!” is such a common feeling early on in a relationship. But it would take a pretty well-functioning crystal ball to accurately assess whether this is romantic love talking or if it is something far worse: an initial tactic of abuse and control that is actually saying “I want you to only be with me all the time.”
Q: My smart friend’s abusive boyfriend tells her that he loves her. And she believes him. How can she think that? Doesn’t she understand that abuse is not love?
A: I believe that many abusers actually do love the people they are hurting. But abuse is not an acceptable way to treat anyone – especially not the people we love!
Q: My friend also says that she loves him even though he treats her badly. How can she love a guy like that?
A: It is entirely possible (and very common) to love someone who is abusing you. A lot of abusive relationships end not because the love is gone, but because the pain of staying has become too great. We all have the capacity to love someone even though they are hurting us. But when someone is abusing you, the cost that you are being asked to pay is simply too great.
Q: They had some early fights. Wasn’t that a sign of things to come?
A: Even during those blissful early months most couples will experience conflict. An early fight or two or three is normal. One of the tasks that new couples face is figuring out how to manage conflict in the relationship. And at this early stage it is pretty difficult to know if someone’s anger is an honest response to the situation (and perhaps being enhanced strong emotions of a new relationship), or whether his anger is actually serving as a tactic of abuse and control.
Q: She let him do things that pushed her out of her comfort zone. Why didn’t she stop him?
A: Because she was falling in love! And what is falling in love if not being pushed a little bit outside of our normal comfort zone? Relationships test our boundaries. They are meant to. Letting someone in closer than you typically let other people in is in fact a hallmark of intimacy. It’s what makes you partners rather than just “friends with benefits.” She took a risk. And if you want to have deep and enduring love in your life, that’s exactly what you have to do. Take the risk.
She is not to blame because the risks she took did not pay off. The blame belongs entirely with the person who took advantage of her and treated her tender areas with such contempt.
Q: But she has gotten involved with a number of abusive men. Doesn’t that say something bad about her?
A: It does say something about her – but that something is not bad. What it says is that despite all of her failures in love she has still been willing to give it a try. What it also says about her is that she has managed to get out of all of those situations – which is no easy task!
On the other hand, what it says about the world is pretty bad. It says that there are unfortunately a lot of abusive men out there. And her ex-boyfriends likely went on to abuse their next partners as well. So the abuse wasn’t about your friend. It really wasn’t. If they hadn’t been abusing your friend, they probably would have been abusing someone else. It wasn’t about her!
Q: So it’s not because she’s dumb?
A: No! I know many, many, brilliant women who have been involved with abusers.
Q: And it’s not because of the family she grew up in?
A: No! I know women who grew up in violent households who were later abused by their partners. But I also know many women who grew up in happy homes who were later abused by their partners. The only thing these women had in common was that they were unlucky in whom they hooked up with.
Q: And it’s not because she is weak?
A: Not at all! A lot of abusive men are actually attracted to strong, successful women! They are drawn to the woman’s great dynamism. And then, like vampires, they set out to suck you dry of all of your vital life energy.
Q: But shouldn’t she have somehow known what was going to happen?
A: No! Abusers lie! That is what they do! They lie about who they are! And about how they are! They lie constantly!
And please internalize this message: You never know when you are being lied to! You simply never know. For instance, as I sit here looking out the window at Canada’s beautiful Bay of Fundy...
That is a lie.
I am not actually at the beautiful Bay of Fundy. I am actually at a friend’s cottage on New Brunswick’s beautiful Grand Lake.
I am actually sitting in my house looking at the beautiful St. John River flowing by. And that’s the truth. But how could you have known that if I hadn’t told you? You couldn’t!
You are never to blame for believing a lie that you have been told! The shame is not on you for believing it. It is on me for lying to you in the first place. Believing what you are told does not mean that you are dumb or naive. It means that you are a person who operates in good faith. But the person who tells you lies is being mean and manipulative.
Q: So you seem to be saying that a really smart woman – or any woman, for that matter – is not to blame for having gotten into an abusive relationship?
A: No!
Q: Really and truly?
A: Really and truly! She is not to blame!
Really! And Truly!
Yes and No
From experience with both abusive and non abusive relationships, all of the answers a pretty spot on. The only thing I would disagree with is the obsessive calling and wanting to be around all of the time. In a non abusive relationship, he started off that way - we both called each other and then settled down with a normal contact pattern. Then I had an abusive relationship which had nothing like that happen. He did isolate me, but used other ways to do that. I think the strategies they use to groom before the violence are adaptive to the persons circumstance. I also think that the strategies evolve like any situation. I am sure many who have abused women and continue to do this for the clutch of control will intently read documents like these and become more cautious at not giving away such signs. Its parallel to the strategies used in war, in fact some abusers even quote from the art of war as a means to advise others on how to combat anti-violence against women movements. The book, "War on women" is so correct. There is a great war on women, pervasive in culture and combating such things does require strategy and perhaps a little tact could be adopted. Information on detecting an abuser needs to be divulged enough so that women can be alerted, but not too much that an abuser can successfully mask those behaviors. One of the most successful ways to combat such things, is perhaps creating a survivor mentor network where those who have had the experience are hypersensitive enough to pick up on others behaviors and help others needing to break out. I think the best method in detecting early signs is to simplify it with looking at the erosion of power based on a diverse range of factors rather than specifics as I am sure there are many behaviors that lead to complete power erosion that are not really discussed in general articles about signs.