When the Abused Become Abusive

One of my passions in life is to help victims of domestic violence heal from abuse. In the twenty years I’ve been doing this work, I have seen some amazing transformations. God specializes in turning ashes to beauty, and I often tell people that those who have come through and overcome the traumas of abuse are some of the most remarkable people you’ll ever meet. They have a depth of character and faith that is unparalleled by most in this world.

But sadly, I have also seen many victims who have never healed. The vast majority of these individuals manifested symptoms like anxiety and depression, but recently, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in my work. Lately I’ve had several encounters with former victims who have become abusive themselves.* Scripture warns us, “Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn their ways and get yourself ensnared” (Pr. 22:24-25). After living with abuse for 23 years, I know this was true for me. One day, about a year after leaving my ex, my children were misbehaving on a trip. When they didn’t straighten up after a first and second warning, I lost it. I slammed on the brakes, pulled over, and yelled at them with the harshest words I could find. The shock in their eyes said it all. They were used to seeing their dad that way, but I usually held it together better than that. As I pulled back onto the road, I felt a familiar tug on my heart. The Spirit of God within was so grieved, I finally pulled back over and apologized to my daughters for acting that way. I told them that we had all learned to be angry, but promised I would do everything in my power to unlearn and overcome it.

In the years that followed, God set me free from my anger. I learned to place my strong emotions in His loving hands, and trust His goodness so that I didn’t need to fret about the people who hurt me along the way. I learned to forgive, and leave justice in His hands. Unfortunately, some people who have experienced abuse never learn these lessons. Statistics show that children who grow up with abuse are more likely to become abusive, and the same is often true of adults coming out of abusive relationships. When people hurt us, it is natural to put up walls and try to protect ourselves. The problem is that those walls very often turn into self-made prisons. We grasp for control to ensure nobody will ever hurt us that way again, and usually the outcome is that we end up hurting others. We become quick to judge and slow to listen. We even assume evil motives in people who are genuinely on our side.

This is what I’ve been seeing in ministry lately. One lady we tried to help soon began to blame us for all of her problems. She wanted to dictate exactly how we helped her, and when we were unable to comply, she lashed out saying we were the cause of all of her troubles. The thing is that she had all of those problems before we even met her. She also had a trail of broken relationships, and had alienated nearly every friend and family member. We tried to help, but eventually realized that no matter what we did, it would never be enough. She would never be able to believe that our actions weren’t laden with selfish motives. The more comfortable she became with me, the more verbally abusive she became, and finally I was forced to cut ties altogether. As much as I wanted to help that dear woman, I couldn’t. The very act of trying ended up hurting me. This is probably the hardest part of working with victims.

Many victims who fail to heal end up repeating the same abusive patterns that caused them harm. It may not become physically abusive, but they are masters at stirring up misery. They come across as self-righteous, and critical of those who don’t agree with them. They twist your words to fit their own self-seeking agendas. Victim /abusers don’t have ears to hear. They only hear what they already believe, based on their past experiences. When you try to reason with them, it only ends up hurting you. Filled with self-pity, they use guilt to control you. They are easily offended, and assume evil motives on your part. Basically, their actions are the exact opposite of God’s description of love in I Corinthians 13:4-7. Rather than giving their hurts to God, and applying His truths for healing, these wounded abusers simply continue to give power to their abusers by carrying on their traditions.

 

 

*Note: Many abusers accuse their victims of being abusive, and often counselors wrongly believe that abuse is provoked. This article is not referring to situations like that. Those who counsel these situations must learn the dynamics of domestic violence in order to be able to discern truly abusive patterns.

Caught in a Deadly Cycle

Guest blogpost by “Stephanie.”

I am 22 years old. I am going through a divorce from my first abusive marriage when I meet my second abuser. I have no clue what the next few years will be like. My mother is dying from cancer. My father has lost his job, and it’s all my parents can do to live off unemployment and pay the nearly $1 million in cancer bills for my mom’s care. I feel scared, worried, and very uncertain of the future. Mark comes into my life, and I feel like he brings stability in a time when I’m very vulnerable. He is quite a bit older than I am, and he works with me. He definitely knows all the right things to say, and in no time at all, he has swept me off my feet. Flowers, sweet notes, and he even programs my computer at work to have sweet messages pop up when I log in to my computer, as he is the software developer for the company I work for. This is it, I think. I have found the one! Within a year and a half, we get married.

It doesn’t take long for me to realize that Mark is a very jealous person. He bites and pinches me, saying that it’s just a joke, telling me he’s leaving his mark on me so people will know that I am his. The bites and pinches leave bruises, and people start asking me why my arms have black and blue marks all over them. My mother has since passed away, and, being adopted, I reach out to try and find the birth mother who gave me up.  It was my mom’s dying wish for me to find her since she knew that she wouldn’t be here for me. When I do find her, we have many phone conversations trying to catch up for the years lost. Mark gets very jealous, and he starts counting the minutes I spent on the phone with her, even though those minutes were spent on my 45 minute commute home from work and it doesn’t cost anything extra.  He also begins to count the number of text messages I send to her and other people, and compares the number of text messages on our phone bill to the number in my cell phone. He goes through my phone regularly, and when he notices the number of text does not match the number on the phone bill, he interrogates me. He has a drinking problem and it is very evident. Whenever I get home in the evenings, he is always drinking. He works five minutes from our home, and I work 45 minutes away, but he tells me that because his job is more stressful and because he brings in a higher income, the bulk of the cleaning and maintaining the house should belong to me.  I should be very grateful for him providing a six-figure income, he says. He goes behind me and wipes his finger on the furniture looking for dust and inspecting my work, after I clean, almost always telling me I need to do better. His punishment of choice when I do something he doesn’t like is the silent treatment.

He sits away from me and refuses to show any affection or love, and won’t communicate, but rather, sits there staring off into space. I feel like nothing I do is ever good enough and trying to win his affection is the hardest thing I have ever done. There are no more flowers or kind notes or sweet words from when we were dating. No, it’s like pouring water down a rat hole trying to make this man happy. It’s a never ending struggle. Being a people pleaser, I try to keep the house spotless, but there are many nights I’m tired from driving 45 minutes each way to work, and I’m also expected to cook dinner most nights.  One of his rules is that there must be two vegetables cooked with every meal.  This is something, he says, his first wife would not do. He always talks about how fat and lazy she was and how terrible of a person she was. I later find out that none of this is true, as I talk to her myself. She is a cute, bubbly, very happy girl who has a lot to offer, and he tore her down.  He monitors how long I walk the dogs, and tells me it needs to be at least 2 miles a day. It’s never his responsibility though, it’s always put on me. He often spends time upstairs locked in the spare bedroom playing video games.  Eventually, I start finding evidence of pornography he has viewed, although he denies it and tells me it must have accidentally downloaded. I know better.  He tells his parents that I accused him of viewing pornography, and his father called me on the phone, telling me I need to apologize to him, that he would never do something like that, and then begins to blame me, saying I must’ve been the one that looked up those videos.  Over our marriage, I have noticed his father is very controlling and dominating over his mother, and his mother suffers from severe depression, and I think that is the main reason why.  The pornography makes me feel like I’m not good enough, as he must want to look at other women for fulfillment.

 When he drinks, Mark gets more and more belligerent and angry. And he drinks very frequently. One night, he starts verbally slamming my birth mother and telling me that eventually, I may have to choose between him and her.  His parents back him up on this, telling me that I may have to choose between him and my biological family. I try to stand up to him for once, and I tell him that if he’s going to be like that, maybe I need to leave for a while to sort things out. This is when he jumps out of his chair, lunges towards me, grabs my shoulders, and slams me up against one of the square columns in our big, beautiful, very expensive house. My spine hits the corner of the column as he shoves me against it and I can’t move. I am terrified as the wood digs into my back and spine and he grabs my arms with every bit of strength he can.  I finally manage to wiggle out of his grip, but he grabs me with both arms and is squeezing me so hard and in such an angry rage that he is shaking. I begin to suffocate, as he has my mouth and nose sealed off.  Finally, he lets me go, and I am hyperventilating and walking in circles. He tells me that I’m doing it for attention. I truly can’t help it, how I wish he would see that. He tells me that if I tell anyone anything about that night, he will divorce me. Not wanting to be alone, not wanting another failed marriage, I don’t tell anyone. The next morning, I wake up and go into the bathroom and see my body is covered in bruises.  It is almost summer, so I have to wear long sleeves to work to hide it. This isn’t what a marriage is supposed to be, is it? How could I have made the same mistake twice?  All I ever wanted was to be loved. I know that I have a lot to offer a partner. My parents taught me how to be a loving person, and although I’m not perfect, I want a happy marriage and to be in love and share my life with someone who loves me back. And, if I leave this one, who would possibly ever want me? Especially with me only being in my 20s.  What’s more, who would believe me anyway? He seems like the nicest guy you would ever meet to anyone who doesn’t live at home with us. He holds doors for old ladies, knows everything right to say, and seems very mild-mannered. No one knows the violence I live with at home.  I keep asking myself why he hurt me like he did. After all, when we first started dating, he actually had tears in his eyes when he told me he couldn’t believe the things my first husband did to me, and how he would never lay a hand on me. And now look at what has happened.  Shortly after this incident, Mark tells me he wants to buy a handgun. I keep wondering why he wants a gun, as he has never had one before. It frightens me.

 Not long after this incident, I finally get the courage to leave. Mark tells me that I need to pay him thousands of dollars, even though he has over $100,000 of his own in the bank. His reasoning is that there was a short time in the marriage when I did not work, and I need to reimburse him for, as he puts it, taking care of me. Not wanting to argue, I write him a check for the amount he asks, emptying my savings in the process. His parents hate me, and by this point, he has told everyone that I cheated on him, which I did not. He has made up things about me and made me feel so humiliated. I just want to crawl into a hole and die.

 I’m 26 years old, and I have left my second abusive relationship. I don’t know it yet, but this is not the last abuser to come into my life.

Thanks to my dear friend “Stephanie” for sharing her story.  I’ve know her since her first abusive marriage was ending, and have seen the devastating effects of domestic violence on her life. But I also stand amazed at her resilient spirit. Please pray for her continued healing and restoration.