Spiritual trauma: did you have any?

[_beastie]

I wasn't nearly as ... ummm... spunky back then. And I listened to the counsel of my bishop. That was a mistake. I wish I'd reported him to the police. Too late now.

I've heard stories like this before, unfortunately.

by the way, not only did my former bishop become golfing buddies with my ex, but he called him to be a counselor in his bishopric. The bishop was a known hot-head, and it's possible he just thought my ex was a fellow hot-head. One of my then sister-in-laws stopped going to church after my ex was called as a counselor, because she couldn't abide seeing him up there on the stand every Sunday.

[_charity]

In all fairness to charity, it was I who first used the term "doormat". If you'd like to take that up with me, I'm game.

Victims of abuse DO become doormats to the abuser, in effect. But they MADE us that way. Charity can't fathom how an assertive individual could end up trapped in an abusive relationship. Apparently she thinks that people end up trapped in abusive relationships only because they made bad choices, were already doormats, or (fill in the blank with some sort of personality flaw). What she doesn't understand is that - lacking the understanding of how the cycle of abuse works - ANYONE can end up trapped in an abusive relationship, given the right combination of factors.

I see this attitude a lot in larger society. God help a woman if she couldn't figure it all out right away, after the first event, and stuck around to work it out. In the eyes of the ignorant, that becomes her condemnation.

MADE you that way? Only with your tacit permission! This is what I have been talking aboiut. You see women as weak, unable to protect themselves, at the whim of an abuser. One of my daughters was married to a man who was verbally and emotionally abusive. She gave him some time to clean up his act, gave him an ultimatum, and when he wouldn't make the minimal chagnes, she booted him. She is TBM, married in the temple, believed that marriage should be forever. But she did what she had to do to maintain herself and her children.

[_beastie]

MADE you that way? Only with your tacit permission! This is what I have been talking aboiut. You see women as weak, unable to protect themselves, at the whim of an abuser. One of my daughters was married to a man who was verbally and emotionally abusive. She gave him some time to clean up his act, gave him an ultimatum, and when he wouldn't make the minimal chagnes, she booted him. She is TBM, married in the temple, believed that marriage should be forever. But she did what she had to do to maintain herself and her children.

Once again. Most victims of abuse do not fully understand the cycle of abuse. The abuser capitalizes on that, and works diligently to ensure that the victim's sense of self, confidence in her ability to perceive the world accurately, is eroded if not destroyed completely. It is not possible to protect yourself against that which you do not fully understand. YOU do not fully understand the cycle of abuse, and you have background in psychology. How do you expect others, with NO such background, to fully understand it?

I'm glad your daughter got out. Were the children his, or from a previous marriage?

by the way, now I know why you really don't respect victims of abuse. You believe we gave "tacit permission", and that we were weak.

[_charity]

How do you expect others, with NO such background, to fully understand it?

Youi know when you feel bad, even if you don't know why that other person is treating that way.

I'm glad your daughter got out. Were the children his, or from a previous marriage?

His.

by the way, now I know why you really don't respect victims of abuse. You believe we gave "tacit permission", and that we were weak.

I respect women's rights to make choices. Behavioral theory is that we repeat behaviors which give us something. We fail to repeat behaviors which do not provide a return. Some people get in situations where their availalbe choices are limited. The purpose of a healthy society is to provide an adequate range of choices, or at least allow choices to be supported.

[_beastie]

Youi know when you feel bad, even if you don't know why that other person is treating that way.

So you're of the school of thought you should end a marriage when you feel bad, or when the spouse makes you feel bad? I doubt it. Sometimes marriages have problems that can be resolved, and while those problems are being resolved, the spouses sometimes feel bad. This is why I brought up Mormonism - not to "blame" it for being abused, but to put into context why I stayed in the marriage so long. I believed that marriage - like life dedicated to the gospel - wasn't meant to be easy, it was meant to be "worth it". I had already endured a horrific mission as a devout LDS, and actually tried to talk the mission president into letting me go home. The french people treated us very badly, we endured cursing and rudeness every single day, repeatedly. On top of that, our leaders continually chastised us for a lack of success. And my first companion was extremely negative and hard to be around. I was miserable every single day of my mission. I was far more miserable on my mission than in my marriage, because at least in my marriage I wasn't around him 24/7. Yet I was told, and believed, that giving up was wrong, that I'd set a pattern for giving up too soon for the rest of my life. So I stuck it out. I stuck it out because I believed the "prize" was worth it, in the end. (the prize of serving the Lord) Missions were idealized in the LDS culture, just like marriage was idealized. So I wasn't entirely surprised when my marriage turned out to be hard and miserable, too. But did that mean I should just give up?

And what about the power of prayer? You earlier said someone should be held accountable for ignoring the spirit. I prayed every DAY about my marital problems, I PLEADED with God to show me the way, I PLEADED with him to help me know how to help my husband. My husband needed help. I never felt God was telling me to leave him. It was only when I lost belief in God altogether, and just made the decision logically, that I concluded I HAD to leave him. There are a couple of reasons for this. As a believer, I had the hope that, if I stuck it out in worthiness, that one day God would soften my husband's heart, and we'd be together in the next life, the way we always should have been. How many times were we told that, in the CK, we'd be HAPPY to be with our spouse, even if we had some problems now, because of WHO THEY WOULD BE in the CK??? Once I lost belief, I realized this life was all I had, and wasn't willing to waste anymore of it on him. And because of God and prayer, I believed he could change. I believed that the most powerful agent of change was the power of God I also, at times, felt God was actually telling me something during prayer, like the aforementioned "It's better to love than BE loved."

I thought it was silly to expect your spouse, or your marriage, to be "perfect". That was an immature invitation to failure. So the kicker is how much imperfection do you tolerate? As I mentioned before, everyone said marriage was hard, particularly the first few years. Mine was certainly hard. But how did I know it was an unacceptable level of hard??? And when I sought help from my spiritual leaders, they not only did NOT help me see what was happening was unacceptable and intolerable, but they MINIMIZED it and NORMALIZED it. Do you know what it's like to go to the bishop and try to tell him how your husband verbally attacks and shreds you over and over, and to be told this is NORMAL MALE BEHAVIOR, "locker room" behavior, and I should talk to HIS WIFE to get advice on how to deal with it??????????

You can deny it all you want, charity, because that is what you do - you cannot admit the church has been wrong about something even as you insist it's unreasonable to expect the church to be perfect - but the culture of the LDS church is what encouraged me to stay as long as I did.

It's not a coincidence that I divorced him shortly after losing faith. And he was very insightful when he realized that my loss of faith meant that he was at serious risk, when before, he knew I would NEVER leave him.

My own particular reasoning involved my faith, but other victims of abuse have other reasoning that is just as powerful to them. No one likes being abused. No one likes being made to feel bad every day of his/her life, so when victims of abuse stay, they have created powerful internal reasons justifying that. I believe that only STOPS when one fully understands the cycle of abuse, and accepts that you, the victim, are powerless to change it.

That is why it's not enough just to realize you feel bad. You must understand the cycle of abuse to free yourself from it.

His.

Well, then, obviously she stayed long enough to have children with him. She didn't get out while the getting out was "easy". Why?

I respect women's rights to make choices. Behavioral theory is that we repeat behaviors which give us something. We fail to repeat behaviors which do not provide a return. Some people get in situations where their availalbe choices are limited. The purpose of a healthy society is to provide an adequate range of choices, or at least allow choices to be supported.

Society still fails in that regard, and my own society certainly failed me in that regard, as well. And you grossly oversimplify human relationships with your above assertion, "you knew you felt bad", which evidently is a signal to end the marriage. If every married person divorced when they "felt bad" in some way related to the marriage, just about everyone would be divorced.

[_beastie]

One more point I forgot to make, which I wanted to make earlier, as well, for different reasons.

Abusers are human beings. They are hurt human beings. Yes, they hurt their victims, and it's easy to demonize them because of their behavior. But the people who know them and - yes - love them, realize what potential they have, and realize how hurt they are.

For most of my marriage I did not know what bipolar was, much less that it was what was wrong with my husband. But I knew something was psychologically wrong with him, and kept trying to push him to get help. At first we thought it was ADD, which isn't uncommon with bipolar, due to the disorganized thought patterns and periods of hyperactivity. He even agreed to go to our family doctor, who happened to be an LDS friend, for that, and tried ritalin. That didn't work, obviously. Throughout our marriage I kept encouraging him to get help, and kept asking him to go to a "real" therapist with me. (real as opposed to LDS counseling, which we tried once and was as much of a waste as going to the bishop) He only agreed at the end of our marriage when I told him I wanted a divorce.

My husband, like most abusers, could be incredibly charming and fun to be around. He was intelligent and articulate. He was a believer (or so I thought at the time, after I lost faith he said he never believed in the first place and was acting to please me and his family, who knows what the truth was, I doubt if even he knows). He was the father of my children. I could see great potential in him, if he could just get a handle on his demons. This life was our time to "get a handle on our demons", isn't it? Mormonism continually preaches hope and the possibility of change. It's often hope for a better future that keeps victims trapped, which is why I say it's important to understand the cycle of abuse to free oneself from it.

My children have struggled, as well. They keep hoping he'll change somehow. It's hard to give up on someone you love.

[_Moniker]

MADE you that way? Only with your tacit permission! This is what I have been talking aboiut. You see women as weak, unable to protect themselves, at the whim of an abuser. One of my daughters was married to a man who was verbally and emotionally abusive. She gave him some time to clean up his act, gave him an ultimatum, and when he wouldn't make the minimal chagnes, she booted him. She is TBM, married in the temple, believed that marriage should be forever. But she did what she had to do to maintain herself and her children.

Once again. Most victims of abuse do not fully understand the cycle of abuse. The abuser capitalizes on that, and works diligently to ensure that the victim's sense of self, confidence in her ability to perceive the world accurately, is eroded if not destroyed completely. It is not possible to protect yourself against that which you do not fully understand. YOU do not fully understand the cycle of abuse, and you have background in psychology. How do you expect others, with NO such background, to fully understand it?

I'm glad your daughter got out. Were the children his, or from a previous marriage?

by the way, now I know why you really don't respect victims of abuse. You believe we gave "tacit permission", and that we were weak.

This conversation is very sad, to me.

[_Trevor]

My children have struggled, as well. They keep hoping he'll change somehow. It's hard to give up on someone you love.

Well, in charity's rich personal experience with spousal abuse, she has learned that she should blame herself and others for a collective failure to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. After all, her abusive spouse has told her that it is her weakness that is to blame for the abuse.

[_beastie]

This conversation is very sad, to me.

It is sad. Abuse is pretty common, and results in significant human suffering.

Of course, this makes me wonder why Charity's God hasn't always spoken clearly to his leaders so they would know how to deal with it. No, I don't wonder, actually, that was rhetorical. Charity's God doesn't exist to speak anything to his leaders, and his leaders, like every other human being on this earth, are just figuring things out on their own and are heavily influenced by their culture. When our culture began taking abuse more seriously, so did the LDS church. Once again, instead of being the trailblazer, the LDS church lags behind.

[_Moniker]

How do you expect others, with NO such background, to fully understand it?

Youi know when you feel bad, even if you don't know why that other person is treating that way.

Yes, but often times women blame themselves for being treated poorly. Often times these men do not reveal their real nature for quite some time and it's startling for the woman to be treated poorly. Here's a man that has been adoring, calm, reasonable, loving and slowly changes to reveal their real nature. Now, while he reveals his nature he blames the woman for the change -- it's her fault. And, unfortunately, even those that do know the cycle, do understand the dynamics, have difficulty recognizing their own situation. I don't think it's wise to call women that have been in the abusive cycle weak -- these are some of the strongest women I'll ever know, and have ever known. Even those that do not get out put up with abuse, humiliation, and degregation that many of us could not weather -- they do it while putting on a facade for their family, their friends, their communities, and their children. Often times these women are some of the most loving, compassionate, sincere humans that I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. I wish they all got out -- but when they stay there is no denying that these women are "tough" in their own way -- they must be, to carry on.