The only reason many men stay in unhappy relationships with abusive women is out of love and concern for their children. I’ve lost count of how many of my coaching clients have said, “If it weren’t for the kids, I’d have left a long time ago.” Some men stay because they believe they’re protecting their children from abuse or acting as an “abuse buffer.” Some men stay to be certain that at least one parent is giving care and attention to the kids. Some men stay to give the kids at least one good adult role model. Some men justify staying by telling themselves, “She’s not abusing the kid(s), just me and I can take it.”
Some men stay because they’re afraid if they make the healthy choice—ending the relationship—that their wife or girlfriend will limit or deny access to the children and teach the children to hate them (Parental Alienation). If the mother in question is a high-conflict and/or abusive personality-disordered individual (APDI), these fears are most likely well-founded.
Finally, some men stay because they believe divorce will be too traumatic for the children, which begs the question, is ending an unhealthy, abusive marriage more traumatic than exposing your kids to spousal abuse throughout the course of their childhood? Are well-intentioned men protecting their children by remaining in abusive environments or are they exposing them to harmful neurotoxins that will negatively impact their psychological development and ability to have healthy adult love relationships?
You don’t need to be a shrink or neurobiologist to recognize that it’s harmful for children to witness abuse—psychological, emotional and/or physical—but how harmful is it? Is it better for your children if you stay with their abusive mother or is it better for you to end the relationship and offer your children a second home, free from abuse? *That is if you can get a fair custody settlement.
Dr Douglas Fields, PhD writes in Rudeness is a Neurotoxin:
Stress is a neurotoxin, especially during development of a child’s brain. Studies have shown that children exposed to serious psychological trauma during childhood are at risk of suffering increased psychiatric disorders, including depression, anger, hostility, drug abuse, suicidal ideation, loneliness and even psychosis as adults. Using modern brain imaging, the physical damage to these children’s brain development can be seen as clearly as a bone fracture on an X-ray. Early-childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse and witnessing domestic violence undermine the normal wiring of brain circuits, especially those circuits connecting the left and right sides of the brain through a massive bundle of connections called the corpus callosum. Impairment in integrating information between right and left hemispheres is associated with increased risk of craving, drug abuse and dependence, and a weakened ability to make moral judgments.
Corpus callosum abnormalities have also been implicated in individuals with sociopathy or sociopathic traits, Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and, I suspect, other high-conflict personality disorders. According to MentalHealthMatters.com: “Abused and neglected children exhibit a variety of behaviors that can lead to any number of diagnoses. However, the effect of early abuse and neglect on the child can be seen in just a few critical areas of development. These areas include emotional regulation, response flexibility, a coherent integrated sense of self across time, the ability to engage in affect attunement with significant others (empathy and emotional connectedness), and conscience development.”
Exposing children to abuse, even if the abuse is not directly aimed at the child, is still a form of child abuse. Essentially, exposing children to a parent who is abusive, models abusive traits and behaviors, has emotional regulation deficits (i.e., borderline traits), has difficulty developing and maintaining emotional connections, has a chaotic and unintegrated sense of self, is lacking empathy and isn’t capable of affective attunement places a great deal of stress on the child and his or her developing brain. By remaining in an abusive relationship and not providing your child(ren) with a healthy, alternative home, you may be helping to create another generation of abusive and potentially personality-disordered individuals. We need more research to determine if having an alternate healthy environment helps reduce these risks.
Dr Fields also writes:
A series of studies by a group of psychiatrists and brain imaging scientists lead by Martin Teicher, of Harvard Medical School, shows that even hostile words in the form of verbal abuse can cause these brain changes and enduring psychiatric risks for young adults. In a study published in 2006, the researchers showed that parental verbal abuse was more strongly associated with these detrimental effects on brain development than was parental physical abuse. In a new study published in the July issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, they report that exposure to verbal abuse from peers is associated with elevated psychiatric symptoms and corpus callosum abnormalities. The main causes are stress hormones, changes in inhibitory neurotransmitters, and environmental experience affecting the formation of myelin electrical insulation on nerve fibers. The most sensitive period for verbal abuse from peers in impairing brain development was exposure during the middle school years. Why? Because this is the period of life when these connections are developing in the human brain, and wiring of the human brain is greatly influenced by environmental experience.
The decision to end an abusive relationship should be a relatively easy one. Unfortunately, when children are involved, the decision becomes incredibly complex—especially for men because of the double-standard and unfair bias toward women/mothers present in Family Law. Fathers in abusive relationships often have to make the ultimate sacrifice that we would never require of mothers in similar situations—namely, to choose between their own well-being and protecting and maintaining a loving relationship with their children.
Why do we put fathers into this double bind? Why should kind and loving fathers have to make the choice between their own physical and mental well-being and their children? Our system bends over backwards to help abused women to protect themselves and their children. Why aren’t fathers and their children who are being abused by female partners afforded the same supports and services? Why do many judges, attorneys and custody evaluators fall down and pray at the altar of the Golden Uterus—even when there is real evidence of emotional and/or physical abuse abuse toward men? Furthermore, even if the courts recognize that the mother is abusive toward the father, why is she awarded at least 50/50 custody and often more in most cases?
These are mostly rhetorical questions, but I’d love some real answers and real solutions to them.
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Given my understanding that personality disorders are likely caused (or at least heavily influenced) by childhood trauma, couldn’t this form of abuse be responsible for causing a PD?
My ex had an extremely dysfunctional childhood — to the extent that I don’t even know the full details — and she was very likely BPD. That her daughter was clinically diagnosed BPD suggests to me that disorders can be “inherited” due to parents repeating the same behaviors they witnessed in their own homes.
Food for thought?
Hiya Fred,
Those are the dots I’m connecting based on the research. This also explains why so many kids who suffer from PAS becoming mini-me’s of the offending parent.
The research I linked to also shows more similarities between the brain structure of diagnosed sociopaths and the personality disorders currently classified as Cluster B.
I witnessed, almost nightly, my drunken father berate my mom , mercilessly. I was the oldest boy, and would, often, try to come to her defense. This would result in a redirection od his anger and he would focus on me. I was, routinely, told how worthless I was, what a terrible athlete I was,how I had never made my little league team on my own but had beenpicked because my dad. a big shot lawyer and former judge in town, had called in a favor.
Essentially, I heard things about myseof that no child should ever hear from anyone, let alone a parent who was supposed to love him.
My dad was a skilled litigator, a Harvard law school grad. I was completely mismatched at 10-15 years old to compete with his verbal skills. And, he fought really down and dirty. He knew my insecurities and fears and would not hesitate to go to those areas.
It still boggles my mind how someone so bright could be okay with reducing his child to tears almost nightly for years. Many ,many nights, I cried myself to sleep. Then, I would get some type of restituiton the next day, maybe a baseball glove or a trip to Yankee stadium. But, never, ever anapology or acknowledgement of what he had done, even after he stopped drinking.
I know this altered me, hopefully in a way that, rather than becoming like him made me a conflict avoider(strange for a litigator,myself).
I have noticed that the children of abusers often go in one of two directions. Some follow in the footsteps of the abuser, wreaking the same havoc ontheir ownfamilies.
But others seem to do a 180, going way too far in the opposite direction, having low senses of entitlement and learning to appease their own abusers in an effort to avoid conflict. Thye also seem to gravitate to abusive spouses and vice versa, as this is what they know and the typical disordered abuser sense that this type of person will tolerate their abuse.
So, I agree witnessing and being the target of parental abuse has an effect. But, I think it is just as commonthat rather than becoming abusive, these kids grow up to be targets for abusers.
I have to wholeheartedly agree with Ron7127. (as a disclaimer: I found this site 6 months ago while doing research for a friend who was in an abusive relationship with my then (BPD) friend-we have both dumped the abusive b*tch).
Dr. Tara is amazing and I applaud her efforts.
Anyway, I have watched my ex do EXACTLY what Ron describes above to my daughter. I left him because I figured that someone had to take a stand against his narcissistic (not that I knew he was NPD at the time) petty insulting abusive tirades. BTW- he NEVER apologizes even when he’s proven to be wrong.
When I became strong again, he started to ridicule and verbally abuse my oldest daughter (the younger one can do no wrong). it’s seriously tragic BUT now instead of glossing over the abuse I can hit it straight on with HER. We can talk about it instead of pretending that it’s not happening (which it seems is what FAMILIES with abusers do. they often pretend it didn’t happen).
TO ME, this is the best part of the equation. it gives her the information that she needs to (try and) reject his belittling mocking horrible verbal abuse and to know that REAL people (healthy people) don’t treat others like that.
Again, thank you Dr. Tara for posting these articles. they are amazing and very valuable for both sexes.
Yes, the family dynamic is to doownplay abd deny anything is going on. My dad , routinely,would drive us kids around while drunk, opening the driver side door and puking while driving. No seatbelts back then , either. I knew every bar in town, as we would stop at multiple watering holes while he was out “picking up cigarettes.”
BU, stilll, to this day, I do not think some of my siblings, the younger ones who were not targeted or aware due to age, do not recognize the extent of the abuse. And, my mim suffered in silence, for the most part.
I vowed never to be like that with my kids, and, while I am sure I have made mistakes in raising them(notably exposing my sons from my first marriage to my monster second wife), none of my kids have been berated or insulted or torn down.
I am thnakful for this site. But, I think many of us coming out of relationships with abusive partners are already confused , due to their constant criticism, as to who was the abuser. So, I just wanted to point out that my reading and interactions with others who have been with women like this leads me to beleive that not allchildren of abusers become personality disordered.
There is an alternative route they often follow. It is not the healthiest of routes, either, as they get involved with abusers and suffer at their hands. But, this problem seems eminently more treatable than a personality disorder, and, it , usually, does not cause harm to others but hurts only oneself.
I will admit that my boys were harmed, hopefully not too badly, due to my willingness to expose them to a monster for a time.I have apologized and owned my failure in my duty as a dad to them and we are on good terms.
Great article. Very informative. Men should also keep in mind that when they’re in the midst of the abusive relationship, they are depleted, and distracted, and exhausted — so it’s difficult to impossible for a man to be the best parent he can be while he’s still enmeshed in the abusive environment. And you’re teaching your kids to grow up and have unhealthy relationships. Your kids need you to get them into a healthier, less chaotic environment.
It can be discouraging jumping through the legal hoops to get yourself and your kids to higher ground. The legal process is very, very stressful on children ( as well as their parents), it takes too long, theres too much uncertainty and bias, it’s expensive, and these high-conflict women just seem to have an innate understanding of how to use the legal system to further abuse and terrorize their families. BUT – it does end and there is resolution and (relative) peace on the other side, and I regularly see children bloom and thrive once they are through the court proceedings and settle into establishing two homes.
Ron and Artemis, you both make excellent points. I agree, there seems to be primarily two tracks for kids raised in abusive households—they grow up to be abusers or they’re primed to become the target of abusers in their adult relationships. Perhaps there are some kids who make it through unscathed due to resiliency and psychological hardiness, but I suspect they’re the exception and not the rule.
Best,
Dr Tara
I’d also like to add an avoidant track. That’s what I tend to do, but I’m working on overcoming that.
“they grow up to be abusers or they’re primed to become the target of abusers in their adult relationships”
I guess neither of these should be a surprise — those are the two roles that they observe as they are growing up.
As far as the “why” questions Dr. T raises towards the end, personally I think those are the rub of the matter. I’m not sure why, and I’m not sure if understanding why would make a difference, but my opinion is that for some reason our culture and our courts have failed to understand what is special about being human.
This isn’t original – I came into realizing this reading Daniel Amneus (who does go overboard a bit but his central point is solid), but Amneus notes that human beings are unique among mammals for creating childhood for our young.
In other words – what makes mammals mammals is that mammalian mothers, as part of their own childbearing cycle, are responsible for infancy, something you don’t see in reptiles and fish for example. Infancy gives mammals a period during which they are protected, cherished, instructed, cared for, etc. It is usually 6 weeks (i.e.: cats) to 2-3 years (i.e.: cetaceans) and can be even longer, though not by much, for simians, the group to which we belong.
But humans are unique because with humans, men have “imposed” themselves onto what has long been the biological province of women by way of fatherhood. Fatherhood effectively creates the possibility of childhood, where children are protected, cherished, instructed, cared for, etc, for another 10-12 years beyond infancy.
This long period of stability allows for neuro-cognitive development that is unparalleled in the animal world.
The theory is marvelous really. One can imagine that 50000-500000 years ago, with children being effectively weaned at ages of 4-7, that humankind did “make it”, and probably had the raw survival skills necessary, but survival would have been brutal and frankly, quite ape-like, and probably remained so until fathers consistently got into the picture.
Once the did, the way that that was adaptive and led to our present state should be fairly obvious.
The theory also explains much of what we see in relationships and marriages, going far beyond personality disorders. The average marriage lasts 7 years. That average is basically reflecting two extremes: on one extreme are couples who get to the end of the reproductive cycle, get the children out of toddlerhood and into school, and mom is restless, can’t put her finger on it, but just cannot be happy with dad, and itches to move on (for an EXCELLENT treatment of this see the book Women’s Infidelity by Michelle Langley, which explores the powerful anthropological reasons why this occurs, and why it occurs at that stage so consistently). The other extreme constitutes couples that survive this turbulent period and manage to pair-bond for what often lasts for a lifetime. Between the two, we get the “average” marriage of seven years.
The bottom line is that culture and as it relates the subject of this article – the courts – both recognize the role of women as mothers, but they fail to recognize that we are not just mammals, we are human, and the natural unfolding of being human as children age is that children loosen their early bond to mom and grow their other bonds as they move through childhood, but the anchor and center of how they are able to form those bonds, is through the bond they have with their father.
Having experienced it, I don’t use the word “evil” loosely, but it is an evil thing how courts and everyone tied to them is do utterly, completely, glass-eyedly devoid of understanding of the criticality and centrality of fatherhood. This is already long so I’ll spare the examples.
But the culture has a role to play here too. 400 years ago, children 7-11 years old started spending lots more time with dad, often girls included (see for example Sir Thomas More). Increasing industrialization has loosened the role of fathers in their families and decoupled much of fatherhood from child-rearing by seeking a distribution of labor that put more childcare with mom than ever was the case in earlier times and by making men bread-winners away from the home.
The result is that where men in 1600 probably were raised from an early age understanding that as adults, they would have a considerable responsibility for their children, and women similarly were raised having this expectation of men in their families, today men are raised with the concept of: “career, essential and central; child rearing – totally optional, woman’s work but there is you want to do it”.
This is an attitude, one that is hostile to children, that needs to be rooted out and replaced with one that enshrines both parents. Myself – I wonder if what we really need here isn’t so much a gung-ho effort to get women out into the workplace, as much as we need a gung-ho culture-wide push to get men and women to put families and child-rearing first. Child-rearing isn’t the only thing one does as an adult, but it is the most important thing anyone does, while they are doing it. We need to correct the culture to recognize this, so that all institutions: schools, places of worship, courts and employers, so that they all recognize that once people are parenting, while they are parenting, that is basically the one thing that the entire culture should rally around supporting.
The Women’s Movement has been right to create opportunities for women to get out in the marketplace in equality with men, but arguably, it has failed completely to pull men back into the role that they have had in raising families for most the last 10000 years before industrialization.
In my own situation, it was my stepkids. There was never any real issue of her abusing them, particularly since she thought they were as perfect as she was. The problem arose whenever I tried to discipline them for the normal things that siblings will do to each other. She’d immediately jump on me, and tell me to stop yelling which, of course, took the focus off whatever one of the kids was doing at the time. The fact that I wasn’t yelling, but simply giving a short, sharp reprimand didn’t matter. Whenever she had to discipline them, she’d threaten with all kinds of ridiculous punishments, that were impossible to follow through on. It didn’t matter, since she never followed through on discipline, anyway. And the kids knew it, to the point where my stepson would deliberately do something to his sister, then immediately apologize, because he knew that would mean he was off the hook. I could see the wheels turning whenever he did this. They learned that “Sorry” was just a word that got you out of trouble, not a true expression of remorse.
I recall once, shortly before I left, when my 14 yr. old stepson and 12 yr. old stepdaughter were helping clean up the kitchen. They were bickering, as kids do, but I saw my stepson pick up one of my expensive, sharp chef’s knives, and look right at his sister with a clear look of “If you don’t stop bugging me, I’ll use this.” Of course, I immediately stopped it (verbally, not physically). And, true to form, my NPD jumped on me. I had to just walk away but later, I tried to talk to her, to find out if she really understood what I had done and why I had done it. She just couldn’t begin to grasp the concept that threatening your sister with a knife was something that had to be dealt with immediately and harshly. I had spoken harshly to her child, ergo, I was abusive and wrong.
She claimed the kids were afraid of me, which was absolutely wrong. The kids adored me, and I them. I even pointed out to her that every day when I got home, my 14 yr. old stepson would come running to the door to greet me, get a hug, and start telling me about his day. The two major projects he had at school that term he got 100% on, because I worked with him on them (appropriately, of course, he did the work, I provided the guidance). Afraid? I don’t think so.
When I finally left her, it was on a Monday morning, and I just laid the stuff I was taking out on the bed. She was in the bathroom, and came out just as the kids were getting up. She started throwing my clothes out the door, so I just grabbed everything, put it in the car and left. Later, she accused me of not saying goodbye to the kids, and used that as justification to forbid me from ever seeing them again.
She shared joint custody with their father, who is a good father. But, in the circumstances, the chances of me, as the stepfather, suing for any sort of custody or visitation was useless. So, I had to make the decision to walk away forever, even though they were as close to me as my own son. 🙁
just remember…the little time you did get to be with them…they got love. And a little goes a long way. They won’t forget you.
I agree with David, you may not be in communication with them, but you made a huge, positive impact on their lives and I’m sure they know it and appreciate it. My mother had a long term boyfriend for at least a decade who was sort of like a stepdad to us. Whether it was taking us out to a fast food place for dinner when she passed out one New Year’s Day or trying to get her to see my side on some issue (brave soul!), it meant a lot to know that another adult saw what was going on and tried to do something about it.
As of this year, I had to start dealing with my childhood. It wasn’t a pleasant thing but am feeling the effects of all the long talks with friends, family, counseling and therapy sessions. How my Dad survived 25 years of BPD behavior (and 2 attempts on his life) is beyond me. Then you realize you had to survive the first 20 years of your life with it as well. All the time, you never knew what happened. Then when someone comes along with the PD, you can easily relate back to that being love (gaslighting, unreasonable/unobtainable demands…the list goes on). He’s a great guy (my Dad) and I’ve been able to help him understand what he went through. His dilemma was in the late 60s and early 70s…it was almost unheard of to get custody then. He really had no choice to protect his children.
Apologies in advance for the length.
(1) An excellent and very well-researched article, Dr Tara!
And glad you’re showing factual evidence using ongoing research in brain wiring and neurotransmitters. As I’ve stated earlier, your logic has always been more in line with what neuroscientists are factually proving. Instead of vague theories (such as the one that always baffled me in psychobabble ‘the inner reality is the SAME as outer reality’??!! which to me is the blueprint excuse for ‘feelings are facts’) that I’ve seen some psychotherapy academia sprout, your articles always have the clarity of logic and proven facts with rational insights. I was happy to see that one of the articles you’ve linked includes biomedical engineer Barbara Oakley’s book ‘Evil Genes’ in its bibliography. She is one of the pioneers along with a few others to relate borderpath wiring in women to soc—th wiring (calling them as Machiavellian personalities) and her book had been recommended by evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker.
My friend in neuroscience also recommended to look up on how the hypothalamus in the brain is greatly affected by stress and is linked to depression. It seems studies have shown the longer the exposure to sad/conflicted situations – the dour effects on the hypothalamus keep increasing. (which is why NO Contact is of course the best remedy for overall mental sanity from abusers.)
(2) An associate at a firm I worked for – a kind, conscientious man who stayed on in an abusive marriage for 18 years only for the sake of the child after he’d been trapped by a pregnancy – says today that had there been advice available to men like this before, he’d have left years ahead both for his sanity and the kid’s. “Why aren’t fathers and their children who are being abused by female partners afforded the same supports and services?”
(3) Another point (and this is purely based on personal experience) and perhaps more to let out here: I wonder in the case where a parent is not abusive, how much bullying and verbally abusive much older siblings affect the younger children?
In my case, my parents were quite nice – though more like pacifists, which made them unintentional‘enablers’. Verbal abuse came from my bullying older sister (a classic narc displaying many of the traits in many of your articles, who had taken after our paternal grandmother.) She had never faced any abuse herself, but had quite simply been spoiled and pampered at an early age by my then doting parents (and I think her wiring just lacked empathy.) The grandma too was spoiled, pretty and a HUGE drama-queen. I will not list here the innumerable mean ways in which my sister (who I loved a lot then – she was a pretty, girly, fairly intelligent woman) belittled and mocked me from an early age (I was more like the Lisa Simpson of the family) continuing her bullying to my teens and even later until I finally went no contact recently. Early on, my father, instead of objective discipline would simply tell us ‘girls to solve it amongst yourselves’ – an apathetic stance which I would later see happen in the workplace/academic world too where senior personnel would treat female bullying as some ‘girl thing’ rather than distinguish that there are some girls who are mean, cunning and abusive and some who are calm, intelligent but targeted by female bullies.
My mother on the other hand took a different stance at my sister’s bullying/abusive histrionic ways – which I think is a THIRD way in which a family member behaves to cope and which I saw later in life become my pattern in dealing with future men/women displaying borderline/narcissistic traits. (I seem to have inherited more of the characteristics of my mother’s side of the family.)The stance my mother took was telling me to be ‘emotionally detached and look at the histrionics from a comical standpoint.’ She would also advise ‘rising above to a higher mind state and calmly observing your own emotions before reacting.’ My mother managed this very well both with her mother-in-law and my sister because she is naturally a very calm, rational person who does not even scream or lose her temper. (but that too might be her brain wiring – she was a Math whiz and professor, studied philosophy and also practiced yoga and meditation for years.)
Years later I asked her why she couldn’t discipline or be strict and just to my bullying sister way earlier instead of training me to be always ‘strong, unaffected and only see the bright side of life.’ This had later caused me to almost be in denial and be overtly ‘internally strong’ when I did feel occasionally sad or deliberately belittled by a bully, and should have taken out time to cry, which I wouldn’t – instead forcing myself to ‘look at the bright side of life’ in a Monty Pythonesque way. She acknowledged her mistakes though she also said that her advice might have helped me to be more resilient. Honestly, I don’t know – perhaps it has, but due to this early training I too am unable (almost incapable) of angry outbursts or screaming (and for a looong time got more interested in buildings, astronomy, geography and things which did NOT require dealing with people or loud emotions). I wondered if it was repression, but it’s not even that – it’s just some weird logical spock-like prism through which I started viewing the world and found humour and comedy in the darkest/dramatic moments. For instance, my mother had once said that when histrionic people do their gesticulations and verbal diarrhea – just ‘don’t hear their words but see their antics and it does seem comical like a cartoon film.’ She was right – and it’s true that often with my first boyfriend (who had bpd) I would find his rants and facial and hand gestures during rage attacks hilariously comical, though I’d feel sad too later at his verbal arrows but was unable to express any anger.
So I wonder if developing gallows humour becomes a third way of coping drama/conflicts witnessed while growing up. Maybe it is a healthy outlet and maybe it creates more resilience in the long run, but I for one know I had to literally force myself to cry at times later in life, as it was hard for me to express loud negative emotions verbally; and even then I could express them only through writing, not verbally. I did develop a high HCP-tolerance due to my sister’s antics. But thankfully also found that that same equanimity and spock-like ways later turned out to be the most successful antidote to not get infected by narc/B/H poison. As though Logic could solve emotional puzzles.
So I’m seeing here 4 ways (for the moment) in which children from drama-at-home environments react:
(1) Become disordered themselves and imitate the abusive parent, becoming their mini-me
(2) Veer off 180 degree in the other direction, learning to become appeasers, rescuers and pacifists (ron’s point)
(3) Be given a realistic perspective and given objective information by a caring parent to decipher healthy vs. unhealthy behaviour and the discernment to reject abusive behaviour and taught that healthy people do not treat others’ that way(artemis’ point, and a great parental gift to a child.)
(4) Develop a ‘be tough/emotionally detached/logical problem-solver’ attitude or develop a strong sense of humour as an outlet and coping mechanism. (this I now believe can lead to emotional repression and force-diminishing pain, unless the person is naturally wired to be more logical or meditative and then it’s fine.)
(5) ?? I think this might include the ones who are extremely sensitive and caring as children and tend to become self-sacrificial caregivers and prime meat for abusers in the future or end up developing passive/aggressive coping mechanisms?
…actually – I just checked – more than the hypothalamus – there was a study done on changes to hippocampus volume and PTSD from prolonged exposure to stress.
2 and 4…sounds familiar.
I’m *this* close, Dr. Tara. stay tuned.
Even though she’s doing better now, my mother was a classic BPD. We (my 4 brothers, sister and I) never knew when or why the next tirade would happen. Lots of screaming, name calling, physical abuse and a good dose of “I hate you”. It’s hard to say that if my parents had split up that things would have been better because my dad was/is a weak man. But there would have been more peace away from my mother. Now, I occasionally suffer from PTSD whenever I hear a screaming or nagging woman but instead of cowering and being scared like I used to do, I get angry and just remove myself from the situation because I don’t want to hear it. As it turned out, I ended up picking not one but two women who were just like my mother with the second being worse than the first. (I once received a full-on nagging when I didn’t rotate the toilet paper…old in the front, new in the back and was accused of being in a sexual relationship with another man…that was demoralizing). Yes, my mother’s problems caused me a lot of problems of my own but with three years of counselling and group therapy I am doing much better. It’s been a long, long road but now my heart is more settled, I’m more confident, and more accepting of who I am.
Dr. T, I hope you are seeing, as I am, the progress in dealing with issues you mentioned in this article. I definitely have benefited from being able to articulate the issues, as well as refer people to sites like this, should they deny my statements.
I remember something Schopenhauer said about how children should never be taught religion because they are too young to understand the concepts involved. Parents should instead focus on providing the hard necessities a child needs – stable, safe home. But this may reflect how parents, and notably psychotic mothers, use this crucial developmental time to really warp their children’s minds.
Aside from all the obvious effects detailed above, one thing I noticed in the development of my relationship with my step daughters (tweens) was that they had no regard or respect for their father in day-to-day interactions. They weren’t necessarily nasty, they just demonstrated this quiet lack of regard when he would ask them to do almost anything. They ignored him, or told him to “wait a minute” and then ignored him, or often simply just said “no.” Even more astounding to me, he accepted these reactions on a consistent basis. I had to work to convince him that these responses (or lack thereof) were completely inappropriate and that he deserved something different. Sadly, these little girls (who actually have a very bonded relationship with their father) were simply mirroring their mother’s lack of regard, and their father had never understood that he was worth more than that. We still struggle with this at times, but things have greatly improved. We try to model respect for each member of our household, and talk openly about the feelings associated with how we treat each other. Sadly, my husband has no respect for his own father based on chronic and disabling alcoholism – how sad that we have to work so hard to help him understand his own value in our family. The long-term effects of these abusive relationships are quite pervasive and insidious once you recover from the big stuff on the front-end.
Thank you so much, Dr. Tara, for exploring the harmful effect of staying together in dysfunction for the sake of the children! I had been ‘feeling’ this for years, but could only rely on my own anecdotal evidence.
After I left, I found a marked improvement in my own two children. When I made the shortsighted (and short lasting) decision to let them move back in with him…BOOM! They were right back to the way they were before; the older one saying hateful, abusive things about herself, the younger acting very narcissistic and above the rules / disrespectful of me. They are wonderful, amazing and very sweet, giving children…when treated fairly and equally (with me).
Just recently, I have heard and seen more and more psychological experts reporting how a dysfunctional but ‘intact’ home is as bad for children as is divorce, if not worse.
I remember when I first went to college, betting myself that my own parents would be divorced by the time I graduated. So, even though I did the ‘5-year bachelor’s degree’ program (ahem), I remember feeling disappointed and kind of angry that they were still together…and we were thus still subjected to what I’ve come to call their little One Act Play: “better with an audience!!”
Goes something like this:
MOTHER FIGURE: Pick, pick, pick, nag, nag, nag (i.e. “You made me food, set the table and poured my milk, but you stupid shit, you didn’t pass me the butter without me having to use a calorie to ask you for it! Bastard!”)
FATHER FIGURE: (After having spent 1/2 hour getting everything completely ready, including setting the table), “The Butter’s right there! Here!”
MOTHER FIGURE: (walks away from table, crying, as father figure continues to mildly assert himself; locks herself in room. 3 of 4 adult children still fall for her feigned victimhood bull).
Yeah…this really set me up for some great relationships! However, like someone said, maybe we who end up cast in the role of ‘abused’ are better off…as we have a much better chance of changing and recovering and becoming truly healthy.
My parents are still married…after 46 years…and conventional wisdom / Christianity calls this a ‘success’…nevermind the emotionally crippling effects on their children. One of 4 admits to it. So maybe being the Black Sheet/ Scapegoat isn’t so bad after all…we are far more likely to seek recovery and see things as they truly are.
I’m so glad that others are finally waking up to this reality. It’s one of those things I always ‘knew’ but could never find any actual physical or psychological evidence. Parents and their relationship with one another teach children what a ‘normal’ and ‘loving’ relationship is…so it’s no wonder that so many of us find ourselves in abusive relationships if we’ve witnessed a parent abusing the other (or, them both abusing one another?)…we’ve never known any different. That’s what ‘love’ is…even if we consciously defy that belief, our subconscious has been programmed…until we figure out a way to reach that hidden code and shed light on it/decode the encryption.
The church / Christianity says to stay married forever…but what if your spouse wasn’t the one God intended for you? What if, like me, you were brought to each other from the disfigured thoughts of abuse? Things of the devil / the earth / human imperfection (i.e. guilt, shame, obligation, lust, fear….)? Could God ever sanction or bless such an illegitimate marriage? As a Christian, I believe that if God wasn’t present nor provided you to one another, then He will never bless it; that is not the spouse He intended for you.
Don’t let someone’s misinterpretation of the Bible chain you to someone who mistreats you.
God hates abuse even more than he supposedly hates divorce.
Would the God you choose to believe in choose someone for you who would do that to you? Would He want that for you?
I think that maybe Love is one of those things we have to learn what it isn’t before we learn what it is.
In dealing with the continued “Christian” backlash over my husband’s very public (thanks exBPD) divorce, we realized that in the exchange of marriage vows, people don’t promise that they won’t get a divorce… they promise to love and honor each other. For all the times we’ve heard “you broke your promise to GOD!” and “God hates divorce!” regarding his decision to leave this abusive relationship, I wish just once some good Christian would reflect on what they saw in their marriage, and what they see and hear on a continued basis in the wake of their divorce. Does loving and honoring someone mean allowing yourself to become completely devalued and living in a constant state of fear? Does loving and honoring someone mean you get to work 60 hours a week and then take care of the children and all household chores when you get home, despite the fact that your wife doesn’t work outside the home? Does loving and honoring someone mean that you tolerate someone reading your emails and text messages, stalking you physically and electronically, and recklessly spending the money that you earn to the point of financial ruin? If so, then my husband never broke a single vow – to her or to God. Although he has no love in his heart for her today, he continues to honor the terms of their separation agreement to the letter in all manner of support. Does he receive the same consideration from her? What do you think?
I couldn’t agree more, infojunkie. Marriage vows are a contract and I believe that abuse nullifies that contract. Abuse is the opposite of loving, honoring and cherishing. Not contributing to the marriage in a meaningful way—either by working outside the home or within the home—breaks the contract, too. For the ones who do work, many view their earnings as exclusively theirs and do not share their money with their husbands, yet expect their husbands to fork over their paychecks without question.
The reality is that this kind of woman believes she is owed everything, yet owes nothing to anyone, not even her children. They bleat, “In the best interests of the child(ren,” ad nauseum to justify their gross, entitled behavior, but it’s a lie. Whenever they say this, it’s a smokescreen. It’s about what’s best for them only. How is it in the best interests of any child to see his or her father degraded emotionally and financially? It’s not. It’s the great lie of the Golden Uterus.
Even after the marriage/relationship ends, these women still believe their ex-husband/ex-bf OWES them. I see it the other way around. I think these women owe the men they treat with such contempt an apology and money to reimburse them for the years of financial and emotional support the men provided while getting nothing in return but anger, cruelty, frigidness, lies, more lies, head games and and endless stream of grief.
Again, these women believe they are owed everything and owe nothing. I’ve wondered if this is yet another instance of projection. Perhaps, somewhere in their alligator brains, they know that it is they who actually owe these men, but their pathology won’t allow them to acknowledge it, so they project their “debt” onto their husbands and boyfriends. This kind of attitude/belief IS PATHOLOGICAL. The depth to which they feel owed and their almost caricature level of entitlement isn’t based in reality; it’s more garbage from the perpetual distort-o-matic machine spinning in their heads.
Dr. T, I find your idea of the BPD’s sense of entitlement as being an example of projection to be really helpful. The “light bulb” moment for me came when I realised that my exBPDgf actually believed that everything she was saying about me – like about how I was an abusive and neglectful partner – was true, and that they weren’t just manipulations. But I have always found it hard to reconcile her narcissism and sense of entitlement with the expressions of self-loathing and lack of confidence that I heard from her in her less-dysregulated moments. This projection idea is for me a really useful way of understanding this, so hopefully it will have the same effect on other people!
And while we’re on the subject of Christianity, I have found myself wondering, as a hypothesis, whether the women found guilty of witchcraft and burnt at the stake in the middle ages might have been BPD sufferers. I think it’s possible the BPD traits may have been perceived as signs of possession by the devil, ie the propensity to do “evil” (being equated to what we now call “bad faith”) as being the act of doing something which is technically justifiable, and yet deeply immoral and destructive – or, in this case, failing to honour the marriage vows of “to love and to honour”. So if anyone has studied the matter in a scholarly way I would be really interested in hearing your thoughts.
Hi ssscrambled,
Thanks for the kind feedback. I appreciate it.
As for the Salem witch trials, I think it’s a stretch to hypothesize that the men and women who were tried and killed for being witches were PDs. By most historical accounts they were all innocent, upright, law-abiding townspeople. Now, the group of hysterical teen-aged girls who made the accusations and started what you could refer to as a “colonial smear campaign,” are a different story.
They made false allegations against upstanding men and women in their community and essentially had them murdered so they could be the center of attention, wield power and exact retribution against grown-ups they didn’t like. What does that seem like to you?
Or maybe I’m just mixing up characters that Winona Ryder has played;-)
No, I guess what I’m interested in is the continuity of the “human condition”, and whether these sorts of interpersonal issues have existed in the same form at different periods of time, but that we just have different ways of talking about them now. Something to think about anyway.
Dr. T:
I agree with the fact that marital vows are a contract, more so than a promise. While a promise is meant to be kept no matter what happens, a contract is an agreement between two parties.
Contract law states that if one party fails to ‘deliver’ (honor the terms of the contract–Love, honor, cherish, foresake all others, etc., in this case), that breaches the contract, which thereby releases the other party from their obligation to deliver.
If someone is either unwilling or unable to love you the way you need to be loved, you are free to let them go.
Dr. Paul Meier: “God wants you to defend yourself from abuse. He doesn’t want you to put up with that.”
Rev Joyce Meyers: “God turns a deaf ear to the prayers of the unjust.”
He doesn’t just not ‘hear’ them, he actively turns His ears away, and chooses not to listen. He has no interest in hearing what abusers have to say, until they turn themselves around and ask for change in their own hearts.
To hear those things helped me a lot, not just in dealing with parental issues, but also with AXH2, as he pretended to suddenly transform into “Mr. Christian America” when I finally decided to leave, basically telling me that he was the better person because he was willing to work on it (but I never knew what that meant, as he didn’t change one damned thing about how he treated me), but I wasn’t. I was the one going against God….bleah, bleah, bleah.
What would God do? Turn a deaf ear.
Unfortunately, the main problem is obvious – whether the man stays or goes the children are still exposed to the behaviour of the woman. However, my own experience is that it can be better for the children if a man is still there.
My parents divorced when I was about 5. My father couldn’t take the dangerous, angry, and aggressive behaviour anymore and decided to leave. Unfortunately this left me and my sister as easily accessible victims of someone capable of extreme physical, emotional and psychological abuse. So, OK for him, not so great for us. Also, a lot of rage was focussed on me in particular as a substitute for her to attack since she couldn’t do the same to my father.
About 7 years later she got remarried and had two more children. My stepfather turned out to have a mother with many of the same manipulative and abusive traits as my mother (it’s interesting that some victims of abuse are drawn to similar people – while for me any behaviour similar to my mother actively repels me). Still, I saw his influence in many situations when he prevented her from behaving in the way she had been able to do so before simply by being there as a witness, someone to point out what she was doing or trying to do was wrong. It wasn’t perfect though, she still continued to use psychological abuse and frequently resorted to emotional threats but definitely not to the extent she was able to previously … one significant detail was that she wasn’t able to physically abuse the way she had previously been free to do.
In this case at least I would suggest that the man being there can be better for the children in order to limit or prevent the damage she is able to do. But I guess it just depends on the people involved (my father messed up his second marriage so he was hardly perfect, but at least his new children didn’t go through what my sister and I did). I think the main problem is that the system still supports women getting the children when divorce happens leaving them exposed to further abuse. It shouldn’t be the case that the man’s only options are to leave, or stay with the woman .. when she should be the one who has to leave since she poses such a threat to him and the children.
I can totally relate to what this article is describing.
It’s been almost two years since I’ve since any of my kids. I’m dealing with it, trying not to have expectations that they will respond to my occasional requests to get together. I know they’d be very abusive if we were to see each other. I’d rather they want to be with me than try to force them. All in all it still hurts like hell that I don’t know what’s going on with them.
The following is an exchange between my son and I just after I left my ex (he’s the oldest 27, I have two daughters 22 and 19).
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January 10, 2010 [son’s initial email]
yo!?
hey. i was looking for my sleeping bag.
wanted to know if you seen it???
January 10, 2010 [my reply]
Yes, I have it. Send me your address and I’ll send it back to you.
January 11, 2010 [son’s reply]
ok? i don’t know why you think you could take it
i want it sent to [town], so you can send it to that address
please send it asap.
im extremely disappointed in the way you have approached your view on all of us. in my 26 years you have been nothin but a burden on me, meg , ains, and especially mom.
you have lost my respect, but most of all have lost me as a loving son and member of our so called ‘dysfunctional family’
i don’t understand how you can’t see passed your stubborn manipulative ways, and to overcome your self centeredness to achieve a long lasting relationship with those that have given you more than ample support and caring to help you accomplish your goals.
you have a long way to go before i can honestly say your worth a moment in my life. i have always given you the benefit of the doubt, and continue to suffer as a result.
i want you to know that i care about your well being, and hope that you’ll in time find what it is that our amazing family hasnt provided you.
im so relieved that you have at least realized that you aren’t a welcome person in our household nor our family. i expect you to acknowledge and honour moms, [daughter’s name] and [daughter’s name] requests with whatever issues they need resolved.
you owe us all that at the very least.
i expect an update on these issues, and will do whatever it takes to make sure that they are all resolved.
[son’s name]
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No son, what goes on between your mom and I is not your business. She’s the one who constantly complains to you about me. That’s why you hate me. The anger you have for me is going to eat you up. I love you but you’re acting like an asshole.
P.S. January 10th is my birthday.