Emotional Abuse and the Election

This article, originally titled "The Black and White and Gray of Emotional Abuse," and published by the Good enough, mama. Substack, felt like the perfect SHERO crossover as we head into next Tuesday.

Written by Molly Knipe

I have been tuned in to what the virtual zeitgeist has to say lately about emotional abuse and I’m concerned  that emotional abuse, and abusers in particular, are being portrayed in a way that is far too black and white. In actuality emotional abuse isn’t black and white at all, which is why it can be so difficult to spot when you are in the intense attraction phase of a relationship, and why it can be so difficult to extract yourself from once you are already entrenched in the relationship. 

I know both professionally and personally about emotional abusers. Emotional abusers are foremost two things: human and hurting. While I am not condoning emotional abuse, I think demonizing emotional abusers does not bring anyone closer to understanding or healing— not the abusers nor the victims.  

Emotional abusers DO NOT KNOW they are being emotionally abusive, usually. They are not like the Wizard of Oz, sitting behind a mental curtain orchestrating how they will hurt their victim. Their behavior happens as an organic reaction to feeling threatened— usually the threat is that they will lose their partner. This doesn’t mean the abuse is okay by any means, but when we paint them as contriving, manipulative masterminds, it doesn’t engender true understanding. They are people in pain, they don’t know where the hurt comes from or how long it’s been there, and they want it mirrored. And so, they create pain in others.

One key reason healthy people can feel trapped in a relationship that is emotionally abusive, is that often the abuse enters the relationship gradually and is reflexive in nature. Abusers start small. Just like we all give “trust tests” early in a relationship to determine if a potential partner is really going to be there for us, (a term coined by the modern couplehood and relationship guru John Gottman), emotional abusers give what I think of as abuse tests, to see if you are going to stick through the damage they cause. They start small and see how much you will take. They learn how much you can bear and push just over that threshold until next time, when they push a little farther. But by “reflexive” I mean that they are actually reacting to their own pain and trying to direct the pain they feel inside themselves— the distrust, anxiety, and discomfort of being intimate with someone — outward, which ends up causing them more pain. It creates for them a self fulfilling prophecy: some deep part of them feels worthless and so they attempt to make you feel worthless too, almost ensuring that intimacy will be destroyed and they will continue to feel worthless. This does not mean the victim should draw on his or her compassion and remain in the emotionally abusive relationship. I believe most people on earth are deserving of compassion and love. That doesn’t mean that they are deserving of intimate love when they cannot receive it and must hurt the person who delivers it. 

An emotionally abusive relationship does not change in all the ways the victim tricks herself into thinking it will change. It does not change because her partner finally sees how much he is hurting her, it does not change because through test after test he finally begins to trust her, it does not change because she proves to him she is not like the women from his past and this time is going to be different. The primary way it changes is that one person exits, and the emotional abuser goes on to abuse another victim.  The secondary way it changes is that the emotional abuser has such a string of failed relationships that he has a stroke of insight and decides that he wants to be different and he seeks help— but this is rare. It’s rare because emotional abuse often comes from people with disorganized attachment, mental health issues, addiction, or personality disorders. Insight can be slow to come to people coping with these issues.  

Continue reading the remainder of this article for free at Good enough, mama. here.

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Amee Vanderpool is feeling a lot of girl power and writes the SHERO Newsletter, is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines, and an analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.

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