Psychological abuse

Tactic #10 — Denial, Minimising, Blaming

by Clare Murphy PhD on February 28 2013

This is the tenth of 16 blogs discussing the patterns of tactics from my power and control wheel — Denial, Minimising, Blaming.

We are all responsible for the choices we make in life. We’re personally responsible for our own thoughts, beliefs, assumptions and interpretations of situations. Our thoughts lead to our feelings and in turn our thoughts and feelings influence our behaviours. When we’re in a “healthy” relationship and one of us causes harm to the other, the one who causes harm will acknowledge and own what they did — take responsibility for it — and take steps to never do that again, to change their behaviours with the aim of developing greater levels of love, care, empathy and respect for the other person. They do what it takes to try to hear, understand and empathise with the other, and in turn express themselves in helpful ways to help the other person understand them. Self-Responsibility requires giving up blaming others.

However, in a relationship where one person is motivated to be right and get their way at all costs, and to maintain power and control over the other, they relinquish personal responsibility for their harmful words and actions — they deny they’ve done wrong, they minimise their abusive and controlling behaviours — they blame the target of their abuse.

Men who use coercive control against their female partner deny their behaviours outright. Or he’ll admit to causing harm but minimise it saying the abuse was not that bad, or he’ll tell her their relationship is the best she can hope for. Men who use coercive control use rationality and reasoning, by for example reminding her of times he was right and she was wrong. When she gives him feedback about his behaviours he’ll divert attention away from himself and pick her personality apart. He’ll blame his abuse on his stress, drugs, alcohol, or anything or anyone outside of himself. He’ll blame her for his behaviours by twisting things around so that it appears she is responsible. And if she wants to escape the clutches of his incessant control tactics, he’ll use intimidation and threats by doing things like warning her that if she leaves, he’ll commit suicide and that she’ll be responsible.

Denying, minimising and blaming all lead to obstructing change. . . . . No matter what the victimised person says or does in an attempt to resolve the controlling person’s behaviours and attitudes, the controlling person prevents the development of a healthy relationship.

Here are some experiences that women have when living with a male partner who denies, minimises, and blames….

Denial

Denial entails acting as if he has not been abusive, not been controlling, not caused any harm. Therefore he believes there is nothing to be responsible and accountable for.

Elsie said her husband Leon “was a real control freak, but he never acknowledged it to himself. He would quite often say to people how nice he was. I don’t think he ever knew what he was ever like. I’d say nothing (laughter). He was so nasty if you crossed him, it just wasn’t worth it.”

It is common for some men to use counselling as an arena to continue denying their controlling behaviours and to try to get the counsellor to take his side.

For example, Elizabeth said her husband David “thought counselling was about telling me that I was wrong, so he came along to agree with the counsellor that I was wrong. Even in later years when I went to counselling over the whole sexual abuse thing and so on it was always about, ‘there was something wrong with me’. There was never any acknowledgement that anything he might be doing could be contributing to what was happening in our relationship.”

Minimising

Minimising entails acknowledging he may have done something harmful, but he refuses to take responsibility for the level of abusive behaviour and the level of harm caused — saying things like, “It wasn’t that bad, get over it.”

Karen said she “would feel guilty and self‑indulgent for arguing because he’d say, ‘What are you making all this fuss about? Settle down, calm down, live your life peacefully.’ So I started making these decisions to close myself down. You do begin to doubt how right you are if you’re just living this life in one continual power struggle and everything’s being constantly bitched over, everything. Everything (sigh of exhaustion). You just get exasperated and exhausted and you don’t know which battles to pick and which one’s important.”

Victoria said her partner Graham would minimise his behaviours mainly by saying, “things aren’t that bad”. She said that it wasn’t an overt, “this is what I think and you’ll damn well think that way, but if you don’t agree with what I’m saying then I’m going to make you doubt yourself, so I will manipulate you to believe the way I believe, but I won’t overtly tell you that you have to believe that way, but I’ll just make sure you feel so unsure about what you believe that you’ll take on what I believe anyway.”

As a response to Graham’s subtle ways of minimising his controlling behaviours and their effects, Victoria “started to believe that he was right and that maybe I really did misinterpret a lot of things, that I really wasn’t made for this marriage thing and that was my fault, that I was too pushy, that I wanted to change him and that was a wrong thing to do, and that I should accept him for who he was, and that I wasn’t a very nice person for doing that, and I must stop that immediately, and that that’s another bad aspect of my personality that must be fixed.”

When Victoria had an emotional response to something, Graham would say things to minimise what he’d done and to shut down the conversation and therefore obstruct change. He would tell her she was, “overreacting…. misinterpreting and … you just don’t understand… everything’s such a bloody big deal to you, just get over it… what are you on about, for God’s sake do we have to go through this again?”

Over time Victoria “learnt not to trust my own judgements. I always thought if I was upset about something, I was overreacting. There wasn’t a degree of upset before I decided that I was overreacting, any minute hint of being upset I was overreacting. Get over it and move on and accept that there is nothing you can do about it. So just put up and shut up. Get on with it.”

Because Susan’s husband Anthony would deny, minimise and blame, and therefore close all doors to the possibility of resolving issues and developing a healthy relationship, Susan said, “I was the only person who ever said sorry. He’d be late home from the pub and I’d say, ‘I’m sorry, but I really missed you, that’s why I’m really angry that you’re not here.’ Whereas he’d say, ‘It’s only the pub, what’s your problem?’ I suppose that’s when it becomes my fault and I fully believed it was my fault for being so impatient, for being so controlling over his space.”

Rationalisation

Similar to minimising, people who use power and control to get their way will use reasoning and rationalisation. They’ll rationalise by saying things like, “I only did it one time” yet in actual fact they use controlling tactics daily, weekly … in an ongoing way over a long period of time. They rationalise by saying that one behaviour they did a moment ago was a one-off – and therefore minimise the incessant ongoing pattern of control across time.

Teresa said “It’s very clever because there’s a logic to what they say. At the time there isn’t an argument against it, it makes sense, it’s not till you go away afterwards and think about it and think ‘no that’s not right’.”

The controlling partner will rationalise by reminding her of all the times she did something wrong and he did something right. He’ll also compare his behaviours with other men’s saying that his were nowhere near as bad and that she has it good with him. Such comparisons especially happen when the man never uses physical violence. There is so little mention of coercive control in the news media — which means the victim has very little back-up from society to support her interpretation of his behaviours.

Justification

When a controlling person justifies their behaviours, they usually turn the attention onto the victim — saying that they would not have behaved that way if she had done what he expected of her, such as keep the children quiet, have the dinner on the table on time, not challenge a decision he made.

As Donna said, “Everything in Frank’s world was…he was justifiably right in everything.”

Blaming

Blaming entails admitting that he has used abusive, controlling behaviours, admitting she may feel harmed, BUT he takes absolutely no ownership or responsibility for his actions and their effects.

It’s common for men who use controlling behaviours to say to their partner “it’s all your fault you’ve done this.”

Elsie said Leon would “blame my dog for things and it obviously wasn’t. I remember his dog one day (laughter) had shat on the floor in the lounge, he’d been shut in or something. I was really cross about it and he blamed me for that. If he blamed me I would just agree and say I was sorry. I suppose I did that quite a bit and accept it was my fault just for peace, but internally I didn’t believe it.”

Being continually blamed for someone else’s behaviour can be crazymaking. However when I question deeply, the women who come to me for counselling, they will have been like Elsie — that is, even though many women start to outwardly behave as if they are “letting the abuse happen” or as if “they are putting up with his controlling behaviours” . . . . In reality, somewhere deep inside them they will have quietly held onto their own voice as they learned it was not beneficial to continue to push for him to take personal-responsibility.

The effect of being constantly blamed for her husband David’s behaviours would lead Elizabeth to “bend over backwards. I would say to him well, ‘How do you want me to be?’ I wanted him to tell me what I needed to do to be okay, to be the wife he wanted, to be the person he wanted.”

Teresa said her partner Patrick “blamed me for lots of things. The drinking was the thing he blamed me for most. He was a secret drinker. When I would confront him about being drunk or about drinking, it would be my fault because I’d upset him by telling somebody something, or I’d spent too much time with my friends, so what was he supposed to do. That sort of thing felt like a consequence of breaking the rules.”

Teresa said Patrick “tried to make me drink and said that the reason he drank was my fault because I had such an odd puritanical attitude about alcohol which is totally untrue. That he had to hide it from me because it would upset me and that if I would sit down and have 12 beers a night with him, then it would be fine.”

As many women do in response to incessantly being blamed, they do as Teresa did: “I apologised, said I wouldn’t do it again.”

Teresa said Patrick “blamed me for his marriage breaking up as well. The blaming me for the drinking is a thing I recall most vividly, because in retrospect it’s so absolutely bizarre (laughter). How could it be my fault that he got pissed every night and hid the cans under the floor and in the ceiling and in the filing cabinet, it’s not my fault. But I really thought it was, that I had some serious problem with alcohol that I couldn’t see that this was normal behaviour (laughter).

Women usually seek to engage their partner in conversation seeking to understand why he abuses and controls them. During such conversations with Patrick, Teresa said he’d respond by saying, “Because I made him. Every behaviour of his I didn’t like, he did because I made him, because of my attitudes and my behaviour. He was doing it in response to me and a lot of the time he was doing it so he didn’t upset me, like hiding his drinking. It was my fault that I was upset about it because if I hadn’t snooped I would never have found out about it so what could I expect?”

Sally said throughout her seven year marriage to Dylan, she would never back down from trying to get him to take responsibility for his behaviours, but, “He never ever would work out any problems that we had. He always blamed me every single time, without fail. He would just never take responsibility for any of his actions. I left him because he just would not meet me half way.” She said he blamed her all the time and like many women who are consistently made to feel responsible for their partner’s behaviours, she ended up believing it was true, so she “always tried hard to fix myself and I think that is why, in the end, I went on Prozac because I was exhausted from trying to fix myself when I actually wasn’t the problem.”

Raewyn said it might only be little things, but that Brian would often “blame me (laugh). If something went missing he would blame me, whereas really it had been him who put the thing somewhere, whatever it is, a book, or some tool, or whatever.”

Donna said her husband “wouldn’t acknowledge that there was anything wrong. To this day Frank will tell you that our whole marriage break up was my fault.”

Victoria said Graham would blame her for “everything! His actions, problems in the marriage. Everything was my fault. Everything, absolutely everything. Our first real fight once we got married, we’d been married about 20 minutes, and we got to the reception and his family threw rice at us sitting in the back of the car and it went down his shirt — That was my fault. So he stormed off and wouldn’t talk to me, and my sister’s husband had to go and get him into the reception. And then we went into the room after we got married that night he wanted to watch a video. We didn’t have the video cord adaptor thing, so I rung down to reception and asked them about it and they’re like, ‘aren’t you the newly weds?’ and I’m like, ‘don’t even go there’. They said, ‘we didn’t think you’d need the adaptor so we lent it to another room’. So that was my fault somehow, I should have been aware of the adaptor problem.”

Karen said her husband Felix “had this new age philosophy that we all construct our own lives, our own existence and he would say, ‘if you have got this problem Karen, then this is entirely your fault and your decision, and you are the only one who can do anything about it, it’s got nothing to do with me. You own your situation, it is yours not mine.’ Which is fine to an extent, I’m ok with this. But I do believe that we need to take responsibility for the way that we behave with each other and how our actions impose on other people. He’s got this philosophy if you’re sitting down watching tele at night on the couch and a piece of fuselage falls off a plane falls through your ceiling and kills you, then you obviously created that, you asked for it, it’s your fault. Everything he did was my creation.”

In response to Felix avoiding taking responsibility for his controlling behaviours, and twisting the concept of personal-responsibility around as a way of blaming Karen for his abusive and controlling behaviours, Karen “argued with it. I hated it. I still hate it. But I resisted it, I argued about it every time, and I’d say, ‘well how come it’s that way that everything in your life is my fault?’”

Denial, minimising and blaming are destructive tactics of power and control

The perpetrator’s belief that he has to be right — at all costs — every time . . . . . leads to a downward spiral over months and years, as the victim of control becomes more and more debilitated.

Ironically, as the victim loses her confidence, self-esteem, and dignity, many men end up not liking the result! That is, not liking the person she has become. And because the perpetrator of coercive control denies, minimises and blames throughout the course of the relationship — he is oblivious to the fact he is the one who — by using one control tactic at a time, over years, chipped away at her — as if chipping away at a slab of marble slowly shaping her into a shadow of her former self.

When a man constantly denies, minimises, rationalises, justifies and blames — over time — and seldom, if ever, takes personal responsibility — and does not show he is holding himself to account by actually changing his behaviours — then these control tactics are the hallmark of a relationship that will never ever become the loving, caring, healthy relationship the woman is hoping for.

Watch out for blogs on the following control tactics:

One-Sided power games
Mind games
Inappropriate restrictions
Isolation
Over-protection & ‘caring’
Emotional unkindness & violation of trust
Degradation & Suppression of Potential
Separation Abuse
Using social institutions & social prejudices
Using the children
Economic abuse
Sexual abuse
Symbolic aggression
Domestic slavery
Physical violence

References:

Anderson, Kristin L., & Umberson, Debra. (2001). Gendering violence: Masculinity and power in men’s accounts of domestic violence. Gender & Society, 15, 358-380.
Cavanagh, Kate, Dobash, R. Emerson, Dobash, Russell P., & Lewis, Ruth. (2001). ‘Remedial work’: Men’s strategic responses to their violence against intimate female partners. Sociology, 35(3), 695-714.
Coleman, Karen H. (1980). Conjugal violence: What 33 men report. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 6, 207-213.
Eisikovits, Zvi C., & Buchbinder, Eli. (1997). Talking violent: A phenomenological study of metaphors battering men use. Violence Against Women, 3, 482-498.
Goodrum, Sarah, Umberson, Debra, & Anderson, Kristin L. (2001). The batterer’s view of the self and others in domestic violence. Sociological Inquiry, 71, 221-240.
Hearn, Jeff. (1998). The Violences of Men: How Men Talk About and How Agencies Respond to Men’s Violence to Women. London: Sage
Mullaney, Jamie L. (2007). Telling it like a man. Men and Masculinities, 10, 222-247.
Stamp, Glen H., & Sabourin, Teresa Chandler. (1995). Accounting for violence: An analysis of male spousal abuse narratives. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 23, 288-302.
Wood, Julia T. (2004). Monsters and victims: Male felons’ accounts of intimate partner violence. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 21, 555-576.

{ 0 comments }

Tactic #9 — Using Social Institutions & Social Prejudices

by Clare Murphy PhD on February 15 2013

This is the ninth of 16 blogs discussing the patterns of tactics from my power and control wheel – Using Social Institutions & Social Prejudices.

Many perpetrators of psychological abuse use social, health, legal and other institutions such as child protection services as arenas to further their coercive control over their intimate partner.

They use the legal system endlessly to stop their partners from leaving, or to stop them from moving town or country, they do dodgy things to implicate their partner so she will get a criminal record, and perpetrators with financial resources engage women in drawn-out, frequent court battles over property, or over day-to-day care and contact with children. They also use loopholes in the government agency system to avoid paying child support and many use religious ideologies as a tool to keep women and children in line.

Perpetrators who use coercive control also use male privilege and entitlement believing that they “own” their partner, that she must obey and serve them. The good news is that some perpetrators seek help to stop abusing their partner by attending stopping violence programmes. The bad news is that many men then use that programme to further control women. I’ll explain what is meant by all of this below.

Of all the women I interviewed for my Masters research, Adriana had experienced the least amount of psychological abuse. However, it was a different matter after she divorced her husband — he threatened to kill her and began to use social institutions as a vehicle to establish power and control over her. Adriana said, “I think what pisses him off is that I was always in control of my life. The only thing he can get at me with is through our daughter, using the system he can control me.”

How is it possible for perpetrators of psychological abuse to use social institutions to further their coercive control when there may actually be good quality legislations and dedicated well-trained professionals who work hard to protect victims of abuse? Well — there are flaws in the systems — which means some policies, legislations and professional practices can lead to colluding with perpetrators by not holding them accountable for their actions, and can lead to blaming the victims. One of the flaws in the system is a lack of staff training in the dynamics of coercive control in the context of intimate partner abuse. Women I interviewed for my Masters research and men I interviewed for my PhD research tell their stories below….

Using the Legal System to stop women from moving town or country

Adriana regretted moving from the UK to New Zealand with her partner Steven. His controlling behaviours increased when they arrived back into his home territory. After their separation Steven became abusive in the extreme — he threatened to kill her. For hers, and her daughter’s safety, Adriana wanted to take her daughter back to the UK. However, she could not leave “because he doesn’t want our daughter to leave the country, therefore I can’t leave with her. I wouldn’t leave without her, so I have to be here. I’m quite happy and settled here and doing what I’m doing, but my freedom is totally cut down. I don’t have the freedom to even move towns because he would prevent me. I would have to go to court. It would probably take a year before I could move. He wouldn’t allow me to. It’s the court who would possibly allow me to.”

Heather became pregnant when she was in the process of applying for university. She knew she wanted to leave Luke and pursue an education, so was going to have an abortion. But Luke had High Court papers served on her and the hospital to prevent the abortion. This institutional response fueled Luke’s fire, which enabled him to become even more controlling. Heather wanted to take out a protection order, so that if he breached it, the police would have rights to intervene and arrest him. However, the lawyer insisted she take out an “undertaking” instead. This is one way that the legal system fails to protect victims of intimate partner abuse. An “undertaking” is only a promise — it does not give the police legal rights to arrest a perpetrator of abuse when he breaches his undertaking. The legal system enabled Luke to breach the undertaking. He did this by approaching Heather in the street and also when she dropped her son off at the agency who provided supervised contact. Each time Luke approached Heather he begged her for more contact with their son, he cried and swore at her. Heather had been wanting to move towns with her son to pursue a new life away from the abuse, but Luke used the legal system to prevent her from doing so.

Using the Legal System to fight for custody of children, with the underlying aim of maintaining power and control over the children’s mother

Elizabeth and David attended a mediation conference where an arrangement was made for Elizabeth to have the children three or four days a week and David would have them for the other three or four days. Such shared care is very disruptive and destabilising for children. Elizabeth said no-one was enjoying it. So Elizabeth “tried to talk to David about ‘What can we do about this? Can we try this, can we try that?’ He wasn’t interested. In the end the kids were really unhappy and she just said, ‘I am just not going to do this any more’ and of course it forced all the legal eagles to get together and deal with it.” David was a wealthy professional so had the financial resources to use the legal system to continue to coercively control his ex-wife.

Elizabeth said, “The judge made the decision which was a much more viable arrangement, which David was really angry about. He still wanted to go to court for custody and of course I am on legal aid. I’ve paid altogether over $25,000 on legal fees, $13,000 I still owe. We worked our guts out to try and get some negotiation before we went to court about custody. He would not respond, he would not negotiate. As far as he was concerned he was going to get what he wanted and he was really pissed off when he didn’t. He said, ‘I paid all this money to get what I wanted and I still haven’t got it.’ He was really angry about that. But I think part of him continuing to push for doing everything legally was because it would cost me a lot of money — money that I don’t have.”

Coercive tactics that lead to the victim getting a criminal record

Elizabeth said David took “up this trespass order when the property settlement came through. A few weeks later I was caught up with my car, and I was going to be late, and he was going to be picking the kids up from my place. I tried to get him at work and tried to get him at home quickly but couldn’t get hold of him. So I rang my neighbour to say, ‘If he turns up can you let him know that I will drop the kids at his place.’ I did what I could to get the message to him. He was absolutely furious. So I dropped my kids there and then rang up a bit later to say, ‘I am really sorry about what happened I tried to get hold of you.’ He hung up on me. At that stage I was really angry, because I thought it was important that he and I have some communication because of the children, so I went around to apologise and say, ‘We need to sort something out here, like there are going to be times when one or either of us is not going to be able to meet a time. What are we going to do in that situation? This isn’t going to work.’ But, he called the cops, had me arrested for trespassing. The kids see the cops take me out of what was our home, off in a police car. Anyway I explained the situation to the cops. They said, ‘Don’t worry about it, we’ll go and get your car, we’ll have a word with the guy, I’m sure he doesn’t really want to press charges.’ They came back — ‘Yes he does want to press charges. Don’t worry about it we’ll get diversion, first offence.’ But for diversion the complainant has to agree. He wouldn’t agree to me having a diversion coz he wanted me to have a criminal record. I had about three court appearances, and my lawyer eventually got it to the point where, I think he knew David years ago, and he rang off the record and said, ‘Hey listen mate I wouldn’t do this if I were you.’ Eventually got him to change his mind and I got diversion. But he was prepared to take it to the absolute limit.”

Anthony engaged in tactics that wrongfully led Susan to be investigated and prosecuted for fraud. After Susan separated from Anthony she did not have a car so he would take her to get the groceries. Her overlocker was not working so Anthony took it into town. Susan said that when he came home he said, “It’s not worth fixing, but they’ll give you so much for a trade-in if you want to buy a new one”. So Susan agreed. Susan told me: “This is how naïve and trusting I was. He brought me home a new overlocker. It was in his name. He put me down as being his spouse. He put my address as being his address. When he got his cell phone he did the same thing. He put me down as being his spouse.”

Unfortunately for Susan the government department that provides financial support to single parents contacted her saying, “’You know you’ve been living with Anthony while you’ve been on the single parent benefit.’ She said they had all this evidence that said I was with him because he’d put me down as being his spouse. I said ‘I wasn’t with him’, but they said, ‘He used to take you to town. You used to drive his car’. I said ‘Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that we’re together.’ Anyway, I didn’t know the overlocker was in his name until the last time we split up and I got done for fraud. I said we weren’t a couple. Anthony was telling everybody that we were a couple. That really hurts. I thought I’d got out from him, but he’s still doing these things to make it look good. I hated him. I hated the things he’d done to us, to the low level that he’d brought us down to.”

Using the Government Agency that provides financial benefits to single parents

After she was divorced, Elizabeth spent some time on the single parent benefit whilst caring for her children. During that time she was having a casual relationship with a man. When parenting of children is shared, it is inevitable that children chat to the other parent about what happens at the other house. However, many perpetrators of coercive control use children to find out information that they then use as ammunition to continue controlling their ex-partner. Elizabeth said one time when her son came to her place to stay he asked her, “How many nights a week does Stewart stay mum?” Elizabeth said, “Next thing there’s an investigation by the fraud squad of [the government agency that provides the benefit].” The fraud squad asked, “We believe you have a partner now, what’s his name, when does he stay here, is it a relationship?” Elizabeth was angry, saying this government agency “would rather that you were f***ing a different guy every night than seeing one person who was giving you a bit of moral support or having sex once every three months.”

Elizabeth said David’s accusations to the department that provided the benefit meant that “To stay on the single parent benefit was a challenge, it’s happened twice. In fact the first time was when I was doing some odd jobs from time to time, helping a friend with her business. Anyway the next thing I’ve got the fraud investigation people. Pretty much all of the work that I was doing I was declaring, and the next thing I’ve got them on my case, ‘Did you do work at this place, did you sell this, do that, dah, dah dah dah dah?’ If I did cleaning jobs the kids used to come with me. They told David and David collated all the information that the kids got and gave to him and sent it to the government agency.”

Using the Government Agency that manages child support payments by separated parents

After couples separate, perpetrators of coercive control often find loopholes in the system and use that gap to pay minimal money towards supporting their children, or they may pay nothing at all. Men I interviewed for my PhD said not all men have a problem with paying child support, but some men do. Some controlling intimate partners do not have the best interests of the children at heart. As James said, many men believe “they’re controlled by a government agency over the kids that maybe they feel they own themselves… It’s a loss of control thing, their own personal property.” Lazarus knew the loopholes in the system. He said, “as soon as they start taking money out of my wages, I quit and change jobs … probably every eight months.” This, meant the system’s policy did not oblige him to pay for a period of time. Children involved in such a climate of control are negatively impacted in various ways, for example, not being able to afford to attend school camps and so miss out on healthy social bonding, physical challenges and may develop anxiety, depression or delinquent behaviour problems.

Some perpetrators of coercive control threaten their ex-partners by telling her that if she pursues child support payments from him, he will use the legal system to push for shared custody of the children which would then mean he would not be obliged to pay child support. This is frightening for women victims of coercive control because most women will do what ever it takes to keep their children safe. In their book, The Batterer as Parent: Addressing the Impact of Domestic Violence on Family Dynamics (SAGE Series on Violence against Women) Lundy Bancroft and Jay Silverman draw from their clinical work with men that shows many perpetrators of intimate partner abuse do not engage in healthy fathering practices and many push for custody or contact with children partly as a tactic of maintaining control over the woman, not because they want to develop a warm relationship with their children.

Using Child Protection Services to coercively threaten the children’s mother

Susan said that, “One time Anthony rang and said that a child protection social worker rang and wanted him to go in. When he came back he said someone’s reported that our daughter’s been sexually molested. He said, ‘It’s your father.’ I found that really odd that they didn’t contact me, that he had to just go in without having a set appointment time and that he could take our son with him. Anyway I said, ‘So you don’t want dad looking after our daughter?’ He said, ‘No that’s alright, but they’re going to contact the kindy’. I was absolutely distraught because my dad has a lot to do with my kids. I fully believed Anthony knew what he was bloody saying. I went to the kindy and asked if they’d been contacted by the child protection service social workers. They said, ‘No’ and would let me know if they were. When I did talk to the social worker she said, ‘We had an anonymous person whose given the names and ages of the children.’ The ages weren’t right. She said it was a man. She said, ‘We don’t follow up on these ones they’re very low priority’. It pretty much was Anthony that was doing this, because if there’s an investigation saying that my father’s molesting our daughter, then what happens, the kids get taken away. Of course he fully denies that he’d done it.”

Luckily, in Susan’s case, the child protection services did not remove Susan’s daughter. However, many perpetrators of coercive control threaten their partners saying they will inform child protection services that they are an unfit parent. Unfortunately sometimes the child protection system colludes with perpetrators and engages in mother blaming, partly because of a lack of staff training and understanding of the dynamics of coercive control.

Using Religion to establish and maintain power and control

Some men use religious ideologies to justify controlling their partners, by for example telling her she has to obey him because the Bible says so. They may use religion to stop their partner from leaving by saying that God does not allow divorce. Eva Lundgren (1995) interviewed fundamentalist Christian couples in Scandinavia. One man believed that keeping his wife in line was very important because it meant keeping the “pattern of nature” and meant he was following God’s plan. Part of the men’s aim for using the Bible as a guide was to enforce rigid gender roles for women, so that the more feminine they perceived their partners to be the more masculine this made them feel — a feeling which makes some men feel more strong, secure and superior.

Using Social Prejudices as weapons to degrade and control women

Some perpetrators of psychological abuse use social prejudices to reinforce their power. They may do this by drawing on a range of social hierarchies. Social hierarchies only exist because people decide who is superior and who is inferior. Here’s what I mean….

He may draw on the gender hierarchy that men are more superior than women and tell their partner she deserves abuse because she’s ‘just’ a woman.

He may draw on the race hierarchy that ranks white people as ‘better than’ and tell her she’s ‘just’ a Mäori, or ‘just’ a Black woman, or ‘just’ an Indian/Aborigine/Hispanic, and so forth.

He may draw on the hierarchy that classifies some age groups as having more rights and privileges, saying she’s ‘just’ a kid.

He can find many social messages that place him at the top of any hierarchy related to work and finances. He may be a breadwinner, earn more money than his partner, have wealth in his extended family, work as a lawyer, etc. — such positions are accompanied with kudos, status, respect and a sense of entitlement. She may engage in activities classified low on the hierarchy such as be a ‘stay at home mum’, do volunteer work, or work in paid employment as a cleaner — such positions tend to afford less respect and can be viewed as inferior…. In these circumstances, some men use their socially superior position to degrade, use and control their partners. They may do this by saying to their partners: “you don’t have any right to make decisions because you don’t have a ‘real’ job”, “you’re ‘only’ a mother”, “you have no money so you’ll get nowhere without me”. Then if a woman is dependent on her partner financially and she leaves him, he may further abuse her by engaging her in repeated and lengthy child custody and property battles, or may refuse to assist her and the children financially. Such unjust degradation can make women vulnerable to ongoing coercive control partly because what their partner tells them makes commonsense, because so many people have not learned to critique socially constructed concepts such as social hierarchies. The idea of equality between spouses flies out the window.

Other social prejudices perpetrators draw from include hierarchies relating to physical and psychological abilities — they may say to a disabled wife: “you will never amount to anything, you can’t even walk out the door”. Or they may use body image as a source of degradation by calling their partner “a fat slob”, and they may call a partner who does not have high level of education “a dumb bitch”. As Victoria points out below, all of these comments reinforce messages that surround all of us all the time.

Whenever Graham made snide remarks about Victoria’s size, he’d trivialise the negative impact on Victoria by saying, “Oh but it’s only a term of endearment”. Victoria said “I knew I was big, so it destroyed me a little bit more”. To cope with the abuse Victoria said, “I didn’t try to change my size because my weight is about safety. If I am overweight, I am fat, if I’m fat I’m ugly, if I’m ugly I’m safe, so I eat to keep safe. If you stop eating, you lose weight, people say ‘oh you’re looking good’, then you get abused. I ate because I was hurting. To get over the pain I eat.”

Some women learn that if they challenged their husband’s controlling behaviours, this would cause him to find more and more ways to maintain control by degrading them.

Using Social Prejudices that stigmatise mental illness

In our society, being healthy and well is considered worthy of praise, while having a mental illness and taking medication such as antidepressants is often stigmatised. Some people use these unjust social ideas as weapons to abuse and control others — by attempting to sway how the victim perceives themselves. Perpetrators who are hell-bent on diminishing their partner’s wellbeing may attempt to convince her that she needs a psychiatrist, or threaten to have her hospitalised for a mental illness. During the course of her seven year relationship with Dylan, Sally became depressed as a consequence of his incessant controlling behaviours. When she started taking antidepressants he said to her that her depression was the crux of their relationship problems. An effect of intimate partner coercive control can lead to the victim feeling as if they are going crazy — feeling as if they’re going insane or have indeed gone mad.

Using Women’s Immigrant Status as a weapon of power and control

Immigrants are vulnerable to abuse by their partner because they may not yet have a work permit, they may lack language skills in a foreign country, they may not know what services are available to them or how the systems work. Many women are sponsored into the country by their partner, which increases her dependence on him. There are various loopholes in the immigration systems that leave women who are victims of domestic violence very vulnerable and powerless.

Perpetrators use women’s immigration status as a weapon of control. They may constantly threaten to cancel their sponsorship of her, they may refuse to help her fill in the forms to get an extension to her work permit, some men threaten to have her deported and they use the legal system to get a court order preventing the removal of the children from the country. Thus children are left in the care of the abusing parent and grieve the loss of bond with the non-abusing parent who has been deported. Some perpetrators cancel their sponsorship, so that the woman’s application to reside in the country cannot go ahead. One Chinese woman, in a New Zealand study of women’s experience of Protection Orders, said her husband repeatedly told her, “I’ve been in this country for so long I know how things work. ‘I am telling you …’” Whenever she contradicted him he would yell: “You stupid Chinese. I’m going to call the immigration service right now and you’ll be out of here!” (Robertson and colleagues 2007:191) Some men will say to their partner ‘what do you know, you weren’t born here’, or ‘you can’t even speak English properly’. Such statements may not sound degrading to an outsider, but in the context of ongoing power and control they are statements that punch hard at immigrant women’s emotional wellbeing.

Using Male Privilege and Entitlement

Men I interviewed for my PhD talked about the kinds of privilege, entitlement and accompanying beliefs that drove their controlling behaviour towards their partners. These beliefs included the idea that men ‘own’ women, and that women are possessions who should serve and obey men. For example, Bill said:

“I can do what I want but you gotta do what I tell you to. That’s the way I’d see 90 percent of marriages, from a man’s point of view.”

Many couples have their money, house and car in both spouses’ names. Regardless of this, as Elizabeth and Sally said, their husbands used to repeatedly say the money, house and car belonged to them and not the woman.

Elsie said, “I was just something that he owned in every facet, whether it be sex or when friends are there, or if I was cooking, or doing some work, or whatever, it was nothing. Nothing I did was ever valued.”

When Pauline and Chris married, he chose the marriage vows — that led to Pauline promising to obey Chris. In line with the belief that women should obey men, Chris had sexist attitudes towards all women. Pauline said that when Miss World was on TV Chris would sit under the TV and look up. She said he had the attitude that all women are “tits and bums”.

Max said women should:

“Do as the man says. We can be very domineering. We want it our way. Our way or the highway, girl.… A lot of men do want to rule the roost, like, ‘I went to work, I paid for f***ing this, I’ve been working all week, get home to this shit’!”

Research with men who abuse women finds that those men justify their abuse by blaming women for failing to serve them as men. Geni, a man I interviewed said, “I would think the majority of men would think the wife is like the doting little servant, slave, there to do everything. But a lot of men come home from work in his suit and drops the briefcase and he expects the beer there and the meal on the table.”

Using Stopping Violence Programmes and Anger Management Programmes to further control women

Thankfully there are perpetrators of intimate partner abuse who seek help to change. Unfortunately though, research shows that many men use stopping abuse programmes and anger management programmes as yet another avenue to control their current or ex-partner. The ways men do this include telling her how lucky she is because his behaviours are “nothing” compared with other men’s, or by misinterpreting the training and twisting the definition of what constitutes coercive control by telling her that her behaviours are controlling, or by learning how to use a wider range of control tactics. Men who learn to take “time out” as an anger management strategy, can misuse this by not returning to resolve issues, or they may put the woman in charge of ensuring he takes time out. Many women get confused when their coercively controlling partner accuses them of being controlling. Yes everyone uses controlling behaviours in some form at some time — BUT…. There’s a big difference between destructive and constructive use of controlling behaviours. I write about this in the blog on Denial, Minimising, Blaming, and in my blog on the difference between “healthy” relationships and relationships where there’s “one-sided” power and control.

References:

Bancroft, Lundy, & Silverman, Jay G. (2002). The Batterer as Parent: Addressing the Impact of Domestic Violence on Family Dynamics (SAGE Series on Violence against Women). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Jaffe, Peter G. (2002). Access denied: The barriers of violence and poverty for abused women and their children’s search for justice and community services after separation. London, ON: A summary report prepared for the Atkinson Foundation, The Centre for Children & Families in the Justice System. http://www.lfcc.on.ca/access_denied_full.pdf
Lundgren, Eva. (1995). Feminist Theory and Violent Empiricism. Aldershot, UK: Avebury.
Robertson, Neville, Busch, Ruth, D’Souza, Radha, Lam Sheung, Fiona, Anand, Reynu, Balzer, Roma, . . . Paina, Dulcie. (2007). Living at the cutting edge: Women’s experience of Protection Orders: Volume 1: The women’s stories. http://research.waikato.ac.nz/CuttingEdge/VolOne.pdf

Watch out for blogs on the following control tactics:

One-Sided power games
Mind games
Inappropriate restrictions
Isolation
Over-protection & ‘caring’
Emotional unkindness & violation of trust
Degradation & Suppression of Potential
Separation Abuse
Denial, Minimising, Blaming
Using the children
Economic abuse
Sexual abuse
Symbolic aggression
Domestic slavery
Physical violence

{ 0 comments }

Cognitive dissonance – how women justify staying with a controlling partner

by Clare Murphy PhD on June 15 2012

Cognitive dissonance is a theory developed by social psychologist, Leon Festinger, in the 1950s. The theory explains how people respond when their attitudes and beliefs do not match their behaviours. We humans are driven to have harmony between our attitudes and our behaviours and to avoid dissonance, that is, to avoid contradiction. Cognitive dissonance theory explains why women who stay with abusive male partners adapt their beliefs and behaviours. They do this so there is no contradiction between staying with him and their thoughts, attitudes and beliefs.

If a woman believes she has married a charming, caring man, but then he goes on to control, manipulate and abuse her, this can be extremely confusing. There are many many reasons why women continue to live with a psychologically controlling partner. However, when women go down this path they experience cognitive dissonance. In other words staying with an abusive partner causes her to have feelings of discomfort and disharmony because her thoughts and beliefs about his abusive behaviours don’t match her action of sticking with him.

So, the theory of cognitive dissonance explains that people find ways to reconcile the discrepancy between their thoughts and their actions. Cognitive dissonance theory explains the ways we all go about achieving such reconciliation. In this instance, women do the following:

Adopt beliefs and attitudes that are in harmony with the situation.
Change perceptions about his abusive behaviours.
Change her behaviours to match her beliefs and attitudes.

Here are some examples of ways the women I interviewed for my Masters research attempted to eliminate the discord they felt by continuing to live with their controlling partners.

1. Women changed their beliefs and attitudes so these were in harmony. They did this by altering or trivialising the importance or value of their belief that their partner was the wonderful man they used to know e.g.

No marriage is perfect

Adriana said, “There are always trade offs. I wouldn’t have stayed if there weren’t the good bits”, Pauline said, “No marriage is smooth all the way”, and Susan said, “I always gave him the benefit of the doubt”.

Disbelief he would abuse her intentionally

Victoria said, “I was never sure if he was doing it intentionally because I think that would be a really horrible thing to have to admit that he was doing that intentionally. So we excused him a lot in my family saying he’d had a really rough upbringing and he didn’t really know any better”. Likewise, Teresa said, “I trusted him not to hurt me and he kept hurting me. But because I loved him and trusted him not to, I couldn’t believe that he was doing it, so I must be misinterpreting it. Teresa said, “I didn’t know I was abused, I would have said no, no, no he really loves me”.

Belief there was still potential for the relationship to work

Karen’s partner worked as a caregiver. She said, “There really was potential. I could see the love and support and patience that he offered his clients. He’d bring them around home and I saw the love and the patience he had”.

Waiting for the old him to come back

Heather said, “I always thought back to the person I first met, I thought where’s that person gone, he’s got to be there somewhere, he can’t just disappear altogether. I just wanted him to come back. I thought he might look and say, ‘Gosh this is a lovely little boy, I love his mother and how can I go about this to get it to work out for a family situation?’ which is what he claimed he wanted the most.”

Pauline thought, “That it would get better. It would actually go back, right back, rewind to the time …. I was waiting for my old husband to come back, that whatever was bugging him or was going wrong, that would go away and we would go back to how it used to be”.

2. The women changed their perceptions about his behaviours. They achieved this by: emphasising beliefs that supported their decision to stay; by finding justifications for his behaviours; by focusing on his positive qualities and ignoring his abusive ones; and, by blaming themselves; e.g.

Finding justifications for his behaviours

Raewyn thought perhaps he behaved as he did because he had “troubles at work, a bit of conflict at work. And therefore he’d bring it out on me…. Or that he’s sick I think actually something physiologically and mentally wrong with him”. Teresa said, “At the time I thought he behaved the way he did because he loved me so much and maybe that that’s what people did when they loved each other that much. Then later in the relationship I thought he behaved the way he did because he was an alcoholic. Now I think he behaved the way he did partly because he was an alcoholic but I think the reason he was an alcoholic also is some of the reason he behaves the way he did, and I think he’s sick, almost psychopathic really, in terms of not having a conscience, of being charming and manipulative, being able to turn on the tears and appear remorseful, and he’s not”.

Holding onto the positives

Susan said, “I put up with it for so long coz he’d be really nice for a week after he’d done that and it’s like ‘far out this is cool’. He’d do things for me. He’d cook the tea, he’d help out and then he’d go out and do that sort of thing again….. Every time he upset me, he’d then be nice to me. And I always thought something good always comes when something bad has happened”.

Believing it’s her problem and she’s to blame

Elizabeth said, “I just thought that was the way it was. There must be something wrong with me. Other women didn’t seem to be having the problems I was having. He kept telling me it was my problem and I just believed him”.

Heather said, “I found it quite hard especially when he blamed me for the relationship not working. I’d say the relationship’s only not working because of the way you are treating me and I don’t want to be with you. He’d say, ‘That’s your fault, if you were living here it wouldn’t be like that, if you were living with me I’d be the same person I was when we first went out, you’re making me be like this.’ I’d start to believe him and thought maybe I should move there and things would be different if I was living with him, maybe I’m being too hard on him.”

3. The women adopted behaviours to match their beliefs and attitudes that the marriage had to work at all costs, e.g.

Belief she has to make the relationship work

Teresa thought, “That I would be able to make a success of it. That I would be able to change him into being a normal person (laugh) and that we would be able to have this stable, happy relationship…. I perceived it as a failure on my part to have a good relationship with a good person, so I didn’t really want to talk about it to friends or family because I felt that they would see me as a failure and that I’d buggered it up. And I guess also that they would want me to do something that I wasn’t ready to do, like you have to leave. Whereas my feeling was that if you’re in a relationship, then you have to do everything you can to make it work and you can’t just get up and walk out because you’ve made a commitment”.

Belief it’s the woman’s job to make the relationship work

Victoria said, “I didn’t want to lose face. I wanted to be married, because without my marriage, who was I? I was nothing again and I was worse than nothing because I was a failed wife and that was worse than being a spinster, to have been a failed wife. It was just dreadful to admit to my family that my husband was treating me like he was because by the end of it I truly believed that I was worthless, there was just no point and to leave the marriage would have been to confirm that I was of no worth, I wasn’t even worth keeping as an abused wife. God I’m pleased I’m older, got over that!”

Marriage is a commitment that must be worked at in order to overcome any problems

Elizabeth said, “I think I stayed because I thought it was wrong to leave”. Likewise, because Elsie had “a very religious upbringing. I had the belief that marriage is forever and if you make the commitment you have to stick it out”. Teresa also, “saw it as a long term commitment, not as a convenience thing…. I certainly believe that the couple unit was the most important unit and that all steps should be taken to preserve it and protect it and nurture it”. And Victoria, “believed we were going to be together forever, that’s what marriage for me was. I never believed divorce was the right answer. I thought it was an easy way out and that if you worked hard enough at it, if both of you decided to marry in the first place, then there must be something that you had together, so what you should be doing is try to find out what had changed, what had you lost that you needed to work on getting back together. Divorce was a big sign of failure. I didn’t want to confirm the suspicions that my family held, so I was determined to make it work”.

Belief he needs her help

Teresa said that, “for a long time I thought it was my fault and then once I discovered the drinking pattern, I thought that was my fault as well and that I was responsible for it because that was the way he would fling it back at me, and that because I was in a relationship with him it was my duty to help him. It would be wrong to walk away and leave him, that he needed help and that I should be able to help him”.

Children need a family that stays together

Pauline said, “The whole religion expectation, I felt really guilty for my children. I thought, ‘what am I going to do to them?’ I was the big bad person because I was going to initiate a separation I was going to initiate a split of this family. I felt guilty because of what I was going to do to my children, never mind the fact what their father was doing to us all, all those years. But all of a sudden that wasn’t a part of it, it was I’m doing this I’m the one to be guilty”.

Similarly, Teresa wanted to ensure her stepson had stability. She said, “that it was really important to create a nice family home for him”.

Belief that children need a father

Susan said she stayed, “Because I’ve got this thing that children have the right to be with their father”.

Belief that being married has higher status than being single

Susan said, “You’re taught back then marriages stay together and you try and hold it together. I can remember thinking I didn’t want to be a solo mother”.

Believing she has to make it look like she tried hard

No matter what abuse the women experienced, many such as Elsie believed that, “After a while I’d always hoped that I would leave one day. I started thinking if I put up with it for a year or two maybe I can leave, it won’t look so bad, I would have tried hard”.

Women draw from social messages about how to be a woman

The attitudes women adopt, in order to reconcile staying in relationship with their dysfunctional partner, do not come out of thin air, women draw from dominant social messages about how to behave – as a woman – in an intimate relationship. Unfortunately, these dominant social messages do not take into account how to recognise and protect themselves from mind-games, manipulative brainwashing, and crazymaking tactics of psychological power and control.

Therefore, women do what comes naturally – that is, do what it takes to find ways to explain the contradiction between committing to a relationship then staying in it after discovering their partner was not the man they expected him to be.

When women make these adaptions to their thoughts and behaviours they silence or bury beliefs they once held dear. However, most women continue to hold onto an inner spirit and conviction, so that no matter how many months or years later, if or when they reach the limit of their tolerance, they will be able to excavate remnants of themselves again – despite this often being a long painstaking process.

{ 2 comments }

Tactic #1 — One-Sided Power Games

by Clare Murphy PhD on May 17 2011

This is the first of 16 blogs discussing the patterns of tactics mentioned in my power and control wheel – One-Sided Power Games.

Research with men and women reveals that men who engage in one-sided power games show more concern about gaining something for themselves than showing concern for what they are actually doing to their partners. In other words – what matters to him is not what he does, but the benefits he gains. There are multiple one-sided power games played by a person determined to maintain power and control. If one tactic does not work, he will merely change to a new tactic.

When I interviewed the men for my PhD research I asked why they’d bother committing to a monogamous relationship if they were so keen on playing the field and seeking sex from multiple partners. I was so surprised when most of the men said they wanted to build a life-long caring relationship. Several of the men said their partners were their best friends. And it was her they wanted to turn to for support when they were jailed, or punished in some way for abusing her.

I also posed the question, “If men took an unwritten contract into marriage what would it say?” All the men said things like:

The unwritten contract would say: “I can do what I want but you gotta do what I tell you to. That’s the way I’d see 90 percent of marriages, from a man’s point of view.” (Bill)

“Most guys would like their wife or partner to be subservient to them. And be agreeable with the ideals of the husband.” (James)

The man should “have the final financial decision and the final direction for the family.” (Brendan)

And Sam said that in the past he used to believe that women “had to be a slave.”

These are examples of one-sided power games where: He makes the rules, he makes all the big decisions and he has the last word.

Ruler of the castle

Indeed these men’s views of how a marriage should operate fitted with women’s experience of being dismissed and disregarded as an equal partner. Several women I interviewed said their partner had to have the final decision about everything, and regularly ignored them if she had something to say. Susan said her partner “made the major decisions and if any were decided jointly, he did things his way in the end”. Pauline’s husband treated her in such a way that meant she had no right to have judgements or make decisions. On the other hand, Karen made the major decisions such as where to live – however, ultimately if Felix felt a decision needed to be blocked he’d block it.

His wants are most important – He does most of the receiving

Lazarus, a man I interviewed, was of the opinion that the unwritten contract that most men take into a relationship states: “Trust, honour and obey.” Then he added, “Although if I said the ‘obey’ bit, the missus would get upset [and say] ‘You’re not my boss’.”

Other men said the unwritten contract would say, “Do as the man says” and that men can be very domineering. Max said, “We want it our way. Our way or the highway girl.”

Geni said he’d “Think the majority of men would think the wife is like the doting little servant, slave, there to do everything” and that when the man comes home from work in his suit and drops the briefcase “he expects the beer there and the meal on the table.” When this expectation is not met, men say they feel disrespected as a man, that the failure of the woman to carry out her feminine role hurts a man’s pride.

From the women’s experience, Elsie said that everything she and her husband drank, ate and did, including sex, was mostly what he wanted and the way he wanted it. He made all the decisions for his own benefit and nothing else mattered. Whatever these men want takes precedence, therefore the men get most of the receiving.

Victoria said it was vital she ensure her partner’s needs always came first. It had to be his way first and then, maybe, he might think about doing something for Victoria. When the couple went to marriage guidance, Graham agreed with things the counsellor said, but when they got home he said that what the counsellor said was, “All rubbish and that he was not going to f…ing do that, she doesn’t know what she’s on about that woman”. This is a common experience women tell me in counselling. Their partners may say they love her, want the relationship to improve, so agree to go to counselling, but the role they are playing is a major way in which such men gain any sense of self-esteem. Counselling inevitably means having to face feelings these men spend a lifetime denying.

So, these men continue to ensure that all the attention centres on themselves

Elsie’s husband Leon was jealous and aggressive toward his new-born son. From then on there was a huge increase in abuse. All the attention had to be centred on him. He yelled at the baby when it was one week old telling the baby that it had to shut up and not start running the house. To gain further understanding why men engage in these one-sided power games you can read here and here.

Wearing the mask of the Master, he monopolises the woman’s time and energy

An extremely common tactic of the one-sided power game entails the man monopolising the woman’s time and energy. Most women experiencing control by their loved-one say their partners make many promises but never deliver. Susan said that her husband took no responsibility for fathering or household duties and he told people that he had a lazy wife. Yet Susan was overburdened with responsibility, which included being in charge of the finances – which he continually sabotaged.

Most women I talked to expected equal role sharing when they began living with their partners. But, as Karen said:

“Eventually it worked out that I was doing all the girly jobs and he was doing the boy jobs, but then I was doing the girly jobs and the boy jobs. I can remember that being very frustrating and having that argument a lot”.

The burden of these kinds of responsibility increases over time for most women in partnership with men who hold beliefs about male entitlement. Donna said that “When we got married my workload just got heavier and heavier and heavier and heavier and heavier. As the years went by I worked my guts out and I got less and less and less and less for it.”

He has his own selfish way at her expense

Donna said that everything was about what her partner Frank wanted. And what Frank wanted, Frank got. His pattern was to get his own way at her expense, for example, he ate steak three meals a day, gave steak to his friends, yet Donna’s sons were made to eat mince and sausages. Teresa said that if she disagreed with Patrick or said “no” to sex, he would get really angry, nasty and sulk for days. Likewise, if Susan’s partner did not get his own way he would ignore her or disappear for days or weeks at a time.

When a man believes he’s superior she is not allowed to contradict him

Raewyn said there was a great deal of pressure to act, think and be like her husband because he said his way was the only and right way, even though his behaviours were not always congruent with his philosophies. Sally said the exact same things about her husband.

He determines how, when and what things get communicated

Karen’s partner Felix would pull a blanket over his head and hum when Karen wanted to communicate. He would always say that Karen was wrong and that the opposite of what she said was true. Pauline’s husband always avoided talking about issues, he never raised his voice or got angry. Sally said that because her husband would not take responsibility for his behaviours she would get angry in an attempt to be heard and to resolve issues. But . . . then he would say the problem in the relationship was her anger. He always refused to answer the phone, which meant Sally could never get hold of him if she was away from the house. Victoria said that nothing was open to discussion unless it suited Graham’s needs. He walked away when Victoria wanted to talk or he would respond with, “I don’t know” over and over.

His previous marriage makes him right and her wrong

Teresa had a high public profile job working under her intimate partner’s management and they both earned good money. When they first met, Patrick was seemingly happily married with a baby but he pursued Teresa relentlessly, yet blamed Teresa for his marriage break up. When Teresa and Patrick separated he pursued her relentlessly again. Because Teresa had not been in a relationship before, he controlled her by insisting that she knew nothing about relationships, and that he did. Likewise, Sally’s husband claimed to be always right. He, too, had previously been married for ten years and insisted that he knew how to have a relationship, that Sally did not, and he therefore knew best.

And the result of one-sided power games?

As you can see from men’s and women’s stories, one-sided power games don’t always entail physical violence for the man to ascend to the superior gender status and get the rewards society tells him he deserves. It doesn’t take physical violence for him to ensure she descends into a downward despairing spiral and a position of servitude.

The irony is that men are not truly getting what they really want – which is safety, trust and a caring connection.

As I wrote in 2009:

“Not everyone is safe and free. Huge numbers of people live in fear. Trapped, damaged and in pain. Isolated by perpetrators who are not free either. Masked, driven control freaks lashing out; unhappy like their victims. They emotionally abuse as a way to feel safe. But when they get real – and slip their quest for power and control – they have to admit they are not truly free or safe themselves.”

Watch out for blogs on the following control tactics:

Mind games
Inappropriate restrictions
Isolation
Over-protection and ‘caring’
Emotional unkindness & violation of trust
Degradation & suppression of potential
Separation abuse
Using social institutions & social prejudices
Denial, minimising, blaming
Using the children
Economic abuse
Sexual abuse
Symbolic aggression
Domestic slavery
Physical violence

{ 5 comments }

A new power and control wheel

by Clare Murphy PhD on May 17 2011

I’d like to introduce you to the ‘power and control’ wheel I created after researching and interviewing women who had been psychologically abused and controlled by their male partners.

You may recognise the Duluth ‘power and control’ wheel (on the left below) … it has been hanging around noticeboards at women’s centres, doctor’s rooms, and various other crisis places where women seek answers and shelter from violence perpetrated by their partners and spouses. The wheel is a summation of violence based on women’s experiences and is a visual tool to help practitioners understand family violence, and to help effect constructive change for both men and women.

Because not all women who experience psychological abuse and control by their male partner are physically hit by him I wanted to create an additional wheel (on the right below) that captured some more of the non-physical tactics of control and highlighted the reinforcing role society plays in this problem.

Many women experience both physical violence and psychological control. But these women report that ongoing psychological abuse is experienced as more mind-twisting, more painful and damaging than physical violence. I have never met a woman, yet, who says otherwise.

A determined long-term campaign of psychological abuse is about dominance, not about conflict of interest. It is not the same as occasional outbursts of anger. It may include threats of violence, but not always.

The creation of the Duluth Power and Control wheel has positively transformed our understanding of the dynamics of domestic violence.

The centre of the wheel is labelled ‘power and control’ which is the goal, or effect, of all the abusive tactics. Patterns of tactics are depicted in each spoke of the wheel and the rim, representing physical and sexual abuse, is what gives it strength and holds it together.

The idea that physical violence and sex abuse reinforces psychological abuse suggests that physical, sexual and psychological abuse operate together to establish domination and control. It also suggests that psychological abuse is effective because of prior physical violence, or the threat of it; that psychological abuse is only a transitory, temporary stage leading to physical violence as the end result.

BUT … psychological abuse and control underpin the fabric of many men’s abuse against female partners – physically violent or not. It’s the missing equation.

One day I was chatting to an older woman in the changing room at the local swimming pool and, as she was drying her wrinkled skin, she asked what I do for a living. When I told her that family violence counselling was my specialty, she beamed joyfully, telling me how free and happy she feels because her husband had just died, freeing her from 40 years of being held hostage by his tactics of power and control. It was a lifetime of hell. Though he never physically harmed her she lived submerged in a toxic soup of his incessant, haranguing abuse and psychological imprisonment.

It’s a secret world of mind games – where physical violence is not necessary to gain control – but people are coerced, wretched and wrecked nevertheless.

After conducting my own research and reading other research papers and books about thousands of women’s crazy-making experiences of being psychologically controlled, I saw a need to expand upon the Duluth wheel.

The wheel I created captures the notion that our wider culture breeds, reinforces and supports the male imperative; the notion that men have rights over women. The testosterone effect is distorted and groomed within peer groups, on sports fields, school playgrounds, corporate boardrooms, and political institutions. The clamouring media, Hollywood and television reinforce so many of the negatives in mythical playouts that distort how it is to be a man and how to be a woman. The expectations and pressures on relationships and families are so enormous that simple love and caring run the risk of being compromised from the start.

In life, many men and women simply crave to set up a life-long caring partnership, to build a home together and to live securely, happily ever after.

Our gender myths influence men to be “real men”; to not be a wuss, but to stand up and “be a man”, to never cry, but to fight for independence; to never be shy, but to conquer women sexually and then to show off to their mates. Not all men care about, or pursue, such expectations of masculinity. But some do.

Those men who are heavily invested in climbing to the top of the ladder of masculinity have to prove they’re tough and in control. They have to avoid weakness and vulnerability at all costs. Psychological theories have argued for years that covering up, and denying painful, dark feelings leads to horrible behaviours such as addictions, violence and abuse. Social myths about how to be a man are full of messages that men must suppress most of their feelings, never talk about them, never show them – even if they want to.

It’s a cloak of bravado that leads many men to wear a mask behind which is a real human full of fears, desires to love, care and be tender. Men who control the women they love are wearing such a mask – they’re playing a role. One of the titles for this role is that of a family violence perpetrator.

For centuries the male thrust of society has been peopled from all walks of life directing men, showing them how to act out the “man” role. The main directive states that to stand up and “be a man” they must control “their” woman. Ownership!

The requirements of the role include acting like the king of the castle; being the boss, a man of superiority, who is invincible and who will not back down – no matter how much he truly wants a close caring relationship underneath. He must ‘wear the pants’. If she says or does anything that threatens his role, he must discipline her.

I’ll guide you through a series of blogs where I’ll discuss the way men carry out this role – that is by using some or many of the 16 patterns of tactics labelled in the wheel I created. These discussions will stem from international research and interviews I have conducted over the last ten years with women (as victims) and men (as perpetrators).

Watch out for blogs on the following control tactics:

One-sided power games
Mind games
Inappropriate restrictions
Isolation
Over-protection and ‘caring’
Emotional unkindness & violation of trust
Degradation & suppression of potential
Separation abuse
Using social institutions & social prejudices
Denial, minimising, blaming
Using the children
Economic abuse
Sexual abuse
Symbolic aggression
Domestic slavery
Physical violence

{ 4 comments }

No bruise no victim?

by Clare Murphy PhD on April 28 2011

Why women and society miss the cues of psychological abuse

What have I done wrong? Am I going crazy? Is this normal?

One of the most common problems for women experiencing psychological abuse, is that they do not realise what is occurring in the early stages and are often not able to put it in context of their normal lives. When psychological abuse begins it will often creep in over time; a subtle edge of voice tone, the odd ‘put down’, a criticism here and there, seemingly uncharacteristic selfish acts.

Little behaviours at odds with the norm. And so it grows. Conquest by stealth – psychological abuse knows no bounds. It can be a soft pattern of almost unwitting abuse or a planned campaign of immense cruelty.

Instead of being able to name their partner’s behaviours as ‘power and control’ or ‘abuse’, lots of women can only think of their partner’s actions as ‘puzzling’ in its early stages. Then ‘odd’, ‘weird’, and ‘bizarre’ as it escalates. As power and control is exerted, women become more and more confused, and self doubt causes women to blame themselves and desperately rummage through their own behaviours for clues how to please their partners and make the problem go away.

They may simply feel that what they are experiencing isn’t right, just or fair but will search for answers within themselves and their own psyches. What am I doing wrong that he is angry with me? What’s changed in our relationship that he belittles me? Why can’t I see my friends? Why can’t I use the car?

Karen, a woman I interviewed for my Masters research said, “I knew that I was angry, but I didn’t really understand what was happening”. Several women said as Teresa did: “I didn’t notice this until I looked back and realised. It was gradual and insidious and you just slid slowly down the slope”.

Psychological abuse is either hidden or is considered less important than physical violence. This could be because of the imminent life-threatening nature of physical violence and the visible bruises and broken bones that some women experience. The media sensationalises physical violence and it’s extremely rare to read of a critical analysis of the perpetrator’s use of non-physical control tactics.

When the man is not using physical violence the woman usually thinks like Teresa, that psychological abuse “was something I knew absolutely nothing about. I thought abuse was hitting”. Most men and women think that physical violence is the only legitimate reason to leave a relationship. Most women respond as Elsie did:

“If he’d hit me I would have left, it would have been a really justifiable reason to leave. I did not think psychological abuse was a legitimate reason to leave because you explain it away, you rationalise it and it’s not as accepted the way physical abuse is by society. You’re just supposed to lump that, you’re supposed to put up with it.”

All the women I interviewed believed that psychological abuse is trivialised, misunderstood, or dismissed by friends, family and society in general. The psychological abuser relies on this, so feeds off the confusion, doubt, disbelief and the trust of his partner. To deal with a lack of support from others, Victoria said she just told people that her experience with her partner “wasn’t particularly pleasant. I could justify it if he beat me. It would give me more credibility”.

Raewyn never sought help for 12 years of psychological abuse, but sought help immediately when her partner hit her – because physical violence is seen as a credible form of abuse.

Elizabeth said, “If I had been hit, we all know that being hit is not okay, so if I had been hit it would have called my attention to something being wrong sooner. There is more press about it”.

Violence not only means physical abuse and sexual abuse, it also means psychological abuse.

The New Zealand Domestic Violence Act states that psychological abuse includes, but is not limited to, intimidation, harassment, damage to property and threats of physical abuse, sexual abuse, or psychological abuse.

The Act also states that when a tactic appears “minor or trivial when viewed in isolation or appears unlikely to recur, the court must nevertheless consider whether the behaviour forms part of a pattern of behaviour”.

Psychological abuse may, or may not, be written into civil and criminal laws in the country where you live. Either way psychological abuse is a form of intimidation that is not readily understood and continues to avoid the spotlight. Victoria said, “We see ads all the time about women’s refuge and the women on the ads have black eyes, but what about the women who’ve just been worn down day in and day out, do they get to go to women’s refuge? What happens to them?”

Women are able to see that there’s “something wrong” because of the impact they’re experiencing. Heather said, “You think that every relationship has to have some problems, it can’t all be smooth”.

Some women find it difficult to distinguish between the constraints of motherhood and the constraints put upon them by their partner’s power and control tactics. For instance, Karen said: “It’s difficult to know whether the responsibilities of motherhood isolated me more than he did. I could fight against it while I was still me, but when I was me plus one and me plus two you are a lot more vulnerable and the opportunities are lessened.”

The lack of awareness about psychological abuse causes women to assume they are experiencing “normal” relationship problems. This makes women extremely vulnerable to developing mental or physical illnesses and to experiencing more and more abuse. This is because women often have no knowledge of how the pattern of power and control forms over time.

To address this knowledge gap, I’m going to post several blogs to elaborate on the following patterns of psychological abuse which are outlined in my power and control wheel discussed here. I’ll link to each one here as and when I post each blog:

One-sided power games
Mind games
Inappropriate restrictions
Isolation
Over-protection and ‘caring’
Emotional unkindness & violation of trust
Degradation
Separation abuse
Using social institutions & social prejudices
Denial, minimising, blaming
Using the children
Economic abuse
Sexual abuse
Symbolic aggression
Domestic slavery
Physical violence

NOTE: Perpetrators of abusive power and control can be of either gender. This article is based on my research on women victims and male perpetrators.

{ 6 comments }

Warning signs that your male partner is emotionally controlling you

by Clare Murphy PhD on August 20 2010

You’re dating or living with this good looking guy, maybe he’s charming and you feel wanted . . . but things he says or does make you feel bad about yourself – and you can’t really figure out why. You likely question yourself asking whether it’s something about you – because he doesn’t seem to think it’s about him . . . Somehow whatever negative things happen between you, you’re left feeling that it’s you with the problem.

Perhaps you got into the relationship quickly, maybe had sex much sooner than you wanted. Maybe you didn’t develop a friendship before suddenly spending most of your time with him and hardly, if ever, seeing your friends or family any more. Your life may have narrowed so that you’re no longer pursuing your own interests – life may seem to be all about being with him . . . waiting on him . . . thinking about him. If he seems jealous or possessive maybe you find that enticing because it makes you feel wanted and special.

Have you started changing?

Have you started changing for him, to keep him, to make him happy, to prove you’re lovable? If your old friends were flies on the wall, what might they notice that is different about you? Will they notice you’ve changed your appearance? That you’ve become secretive, dull, lost your sense of aliveness?

Has your mind started to go crazy after arguments – as if anything you thought was logical before meeting this man now seems confusing?

Have you started to feel guilty about all sorts of things? Yet deep down you know you have not done anything wrong. But then instead of admitting to yourself that you feel uncertain or unsafe, you start hiding things you do so you can feel the freedom you had before the relationship.

Or do you find yourself lying to him – yet that’s not something you usually do? But if you slow your thought processes down and explore your intuition, you may discover that you started lying because he has a way about him that makes you feel uneasy. Perhaps you started lying to yourself because he’s so sensitive you don’t want to hurt him – yet if you were honest with yourself, is something going on whereby it is you who is feeling hurt?

Do you think you’re not good enough?

If you ever had beliefs before that you weren’t good enough, something wrong with you, or you were stupid or ugly – have those thoughts become worse since being with this new man? If they got worse it’s highly likely you started changing yourself to seek his approval and to prove to him that you were good enough, that you are capable and good looking enough. But all your efforts are not working . . . is that true?

Can you answer ‘yes’ to these questions?

I trust this man 100%
He respects me totally without a doubt
He’s always honest and I feel completely safe to be honest with him
He definitely respects my privacy
I feel totally free to be myself round him anywhere anytime
I adamantly feel safe with him – always

Be honest with yourself

If you answered ‘no’ to these questions – it is very probable you are with a man that is engaged in a slow process of gaining more and more emotional control over you and your life. To check how real this may be I urge you to download this list of tactics that some men use to control their female partner. Go through and check if he is using any of these behaviours.

Just in case he is controlling you . . . it may not be safe to show him the list. If he is using ongoing emotional abuse, then it may be supportive for you to take the list – and discuss what’s happening to you – to a trusted friend or family member (possibly someone he has said he does not like or does not want you to see), or a counsellor. Or contact a local domestic violence agency as they are trained in helping women make sense of subtle emotional abuse and control.

Trust your gut instincts

Some aims of checking this list and seeking support outside the relationship are to empower yourself so that you have greater choice over your life and all your current and future relationships. Another aim is to do what it takes to care for yourself, and to trust your gut instincts about what’s really going on with you and your partner.

Ultimately relationships have to feel safe

Markers of a healthy relationship – whether that’s a dating partner, someone you live with, a workmate, a school friend – are when you can say to yourself, “Yes this person is honest, trustworthy, respectful, honours my privacy, is safe to be around and I feel totally free to be myself”.

{ 46 comments }

Psychological abuse can lead to murder

by Clare Murphy PhD on November 20 2009

Men who murder their female partners are often motivated by a need to save face by regaining a sense of power and control if the woman threatens to leave, or does leave.

Many mental health and legal professionals do not take women’s experience of psychological abuse and control seriously. But men’s perpetration of psychological abuse against female partners is serious. Very controlling men pose a very serious danger to women who threaten to leave or do leave.

Jacquelyn Campbell PhD devised the Danger Assessment Instrument to aid in assessing the level of risk to women for being murdered by their controlling partner. One of the risk factors noted in this instrument includes whether the woman had left her partner after living together during the previous year.

Controlling behaviours as risk factors

There are several signs of psychologically abusive and controlling behaviours listed in Campbell’s Danger Assessment Instrument. These include: whether the man has threatened to kill the woman or harm her children; whether he has ever forced the woman to have sex against her will; whether he has a history of controlling her activities, who she sees, how much money she can use and when she can use the car; whether he has spied on her, left her threatening notes, made unwanted phone calls or left threatening phone messages; whether he has destroyed her property; and, whether he has displayed constant jealousy saying things like, “If I can’t have you, no one can.”

Other factors that can place a woman at risk of murder

Other risk factors listed on Campbell’s Danger Assessment Instrument include whether physical violence increased in severity or frequency over the previous year; whether the man owns a gun; if he has previously used a weapon against the woman or threatened her with a lethal weapon; whether he has previously tried to choke her or has beaten her while pregnant; whether he has avoided being arrested for domestic violence; whether he is unemployed; whether the woman has a child that is not his; whether he uses illegal drugs or is an alcoholic or problem drinker. Another two factors include whether the man has threatened or tried to commit suicide and whether the woman has previously threatened or tried to commit suicide.

Women’s perceptions of risk must be taken seriously

Several research studies have found that an important source of assessing whether the woman is in danger of being murdered by her partner is whether the woman believes he is capable of killing her. Jacquelyn Campbell PhD importantly includes this question in her Danger Assessment Instrument.

If you know a woman is afraid for her life you must take her fear seriously and help her devise a safety plan. Research shows that women can accurately assess whether their partner will use physical violence, whether he will psychologically abuse her in the future, and whether he will kill her.

However, women are not always accurate. Some women minimise the psychological abuse and physical violence that their partner uses, therefore may minimise future risk. If you, as a professional, friend, or family member believe the woman might be in danger, it is important that you use a risk assessment instrument with her to check for any signs of possible danger.

Jacquelyn Campbell’s Danger Assessment Instrument can be downloaded for free from her website, along with her permission statement and guidelines for the use of the Instrument. You will see on her website that she recommends that people seek training from her to enhance safe and adequate use of the Instrument. The correct use of the instrument is vital.

Disclaimer:

This blog post must not be used to gauge risk to women. The purpose of this post is to name some of the issues and guide you to Jacquelyn Campbell PhD’s website at www.dangerassessment.com . . . The use of any risk instrument should always be used in conjunction with women’s perceptions. Campbell’s Instrument does this.

References:

Bell, Margaret E., Cattaneo, Lauren Bennett, Goodman, Lisa A. & Dutton, Mary Ann. (2008). Assessing the risk of future psychological abuse: Predicting the accuracy of battered women’s predictions. Journal of Family Violence, 23, 69-80.

Braaf, Rochelle & Sneddon, Clare. (2007). Family law act reform: The potential for screening and risk assessment for family violence: Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse Issues Paper 12.

Brewster, Mary P. (2003). Power and control dynamics in prestalking and stalking situations. Journal of Family Violence, 18, 207-217.

Campbell, Jacquelyn C. (2003). Danger Assessment Instrument. Available from http://www.dangerassessment.org/WebApplication1/pages/product.aspx

Campbell, Jacquelyn C. (2004). Helping women understand their risk in situations of intimate partner violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 19, 1464-1477.

Campbell, Jacquelyn C., Webster, Daniel W., Koziol-McLain, Jane, Block, Carolyn, Campbell, Doris, Curry, Mary Ann; et al. (2003). Risk factors for femicide in abusive relationships: Results from a multisite case control study. American Journal of Public Health, 93, 1089-1097.

Campbell, Jacquelyn C., Webster, Daniel W. & Glass, Nancy. (2009). The danger assessment: Validation of a lethality risk assessment instrument for intimate partner femicide. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 24, 653-674.

Heckert, D. Alex & Gondolf, Edward W. (2004). Battered women’s perceptions of risk versus risk factors and instruments in predicting repeat reassault. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 19, 778-800.

Weisz, Arlene, Tolman, Richard M. & Saunders, Daniel G. (2000). Assessing the risk of severe domestic violence: The importance of survivors’ predictions. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 15, 75-90.

{ 0 comments }

Shame experienced by abuse victims

by Clare Murphy PhD on August 19 2009

Dr Angela Jury conducted interviews with 25 survivors of intimate partner abuse for her PhD research. The following are extracts from a Massey University news release about her study:

Abused women – especially victims of psychological and emotional torment – are often so paralysed by what they see as the stigma and shame associated with their situation that they are unable to seek help.

Agencies working with them need to better understand how the profound shame the victims feel not only deters them from seeking help, but can be reinforced by educational and promotional messages aimed at trying to help them.

“My research was focused in one direction – finding the explanation of how it was that some women were able to remove themselves from the experience of abuse and maintain lives free from violence, whereas others appeared unable to do so, remaining with abusive partners for extended periods of time or eventually leaving, only to find themselves once more involved in violent relationships,” she says.

“It is most clearly illustrated in the use of language around choice and freedom in advice to abused women – ‘you don’t have to live like this’, ‘you can leave’, ‘there is help available’. All of these – while probably selected as terms offering empowerment to victims – can also operate to engender a sense of weakness on the part of victims…thus creating a sense of shame and self-blame.

“We need to shift the focus for dealing with abuse and violence off the victim. It should not be seen as her responsibility to decide she wants it to stop – nor should not doing so be seen as the victim’s shameful failure.”

{ 1 comment }

Interview with a woman who was bullied and scapegoated in churches

by Clare Murphy PhD on August 9 2009

The following is an interview I conducted today with Margaret Jones PhD, who has written a book about her experiences titled: Not of my making: Bullying, scapegoating and misconduct in Churches.

The nub of one-sided psychological abuse and power and control is that it occurs across all social institutions. In fact the trigger that helped Margaret realise what was happening to her was a television show explaining school bullying.

Whilst the abuse Margaret experienced occurred within the context of churches, her story resembles those told by survivors of workplace bullying. Her coping strategies also resemble those of women who experience psychological abuse by their male partners.

Clare: What were the tactics of bullying, scapegoating, misconduct and psychological abuse that you experienced as the target of those tactics?

Margaret: My adversaries refused to talk directly to me about their complaints. Instead they gossiped with each other about me. They shunned me during social events such as coffee hour but made a big show of coming over to me during church services to hug me even when I told them I didn’t want them touching me. They also carried stories to the minister who then chastised me. Eventually they initiated church discipline procedures against me and ousted me from church.

Clare: At what point did you actually define what was happening as psychological abuse?

Margaret: The abuse began in 1993 and went on for 10 years. I was slow to figure it out. Somewhere near the end of that time, Stossel (a TV magazine reporter) had a television shot on school bullying. That was when I realised not only that I was being bullied, but that it wasn’t my fault.

Clare: I was interested to read in your book at the point where you were really starting to understand what had been happening to you over those years, that in order to forgive, survivors of abuse first need to blame their perpetrators and not themselves. But, like survivors of domestic violence, it can take years to understand the dynamics of the behaviours from people you love and trust. How did you respond in the immediate moment back before you really understood you were being abused?

Margaret: I kept trying to find out what was wrong so I could fix it. I tried to get the people involved to talk to me about it.

Clare: How did you cope in the days/weeks after the abuse?

Margaret: Not well at first. I was anxious, suicidal and fought strong urges to self-harm. I sought counselling and began journaling. I also began reading everything I could find on church conflict and bullying. I corresponded with some of the authors of those books. I also joined some online support groups for survivors. Once I realised I was being bullied and it wasn’t my fault I fought back more effectively. Since my adversaries wouldn’t leave me alone I filed a professional liability claim against them. Fighting back really helped. Writing “Not of My Making” also helped me to figure things out and heal.

Online support groups Margaret recommends as helpful include http://christiansurvivors.com/ and http://www.advocateweb.org/index.php.

Clare: What type of people in the churches psychologically abused you?

Margaret: People bully in churches for the same reasons they bully everywhere. I think if you are more concerned with maintaining appearances and don’t believe in expressing anger directly you are more likely to use back room type of tactics. Also, if you are prone to jealousy and aren’t willing to admit you have “negative emotions” or that you sin like everyone else you are more likely to bully. Often people who bully are trying to protect or gain status and power. One way to achieve power is to defeat someone who is perceived as competent or having status. I think my adversaries were trying to promote their own agendas. By attacking me at Murray church they avoided discussing my concerns. At FXUU church my interest in Christianity was a direct threat to those who wanted to promote neo-paganism. At Immanuel I think there was a lot of jealousy. Pastor Karen whose own marriage was failing resented my successful marriage to Lyndon. Others resented my affluence and professional status. There was also a lot of prejudice about women and race (Margaret is married to a Black Trinidadian man). I think they succeeded in consolidating their power and status while strengthening the cohesiveness of their clique. That is why they had no need to talk to me and negotiate.

Clare: In what ways do you think (a) being a woman, (b) a woman with a PhD, and (c) a white woman married to a black man related to being abused?

Margaret: Because they made me different. And there’s a lot of social psychology research into how people treat minorities and women. If a minority or a woman matches their stereotype, and their behaviour matches that stereotype, they will be liked. But if their behaviour doesn’t match the stereotype they will be disliked.

Clare: What kind of support mechanisms existed that made it easy for the bullies to bully in the first place, and made it easy for them to continue their campaign of psychologically abusing you?

Margaret: The church leadership both within the congregation and in the denomination supported the bullies. The leadership was assumed to be right and good by virtue of their position. They were able to hide what was going on and/or distort information. There was no policy and procedure to bring a complaint or to ask for mediation by a disinterested party.

Clare: What kind of help from family, friends or professionals did you find most helpful?

Margaret: Therapy was essential – it was different from other experiences – because Steve (my therapist) lived through it while I was living it. Being believed was essential. My husband, during the FXUU church thing, was very supportive. He read me a poem about a wife who’s been abused and what it’s like at midnight. He was vigilant at night about where I was at emotionally and what I was doing – also during the day when he was concerned I was suicidal.

Clare: What kind of help from family, friends or professionals did you find detrimental?

Margaret: Comments such as, “You should just get over it and move on”. Refusal to talk about it. Psychologists are not well trained about this issue, or they approach it totally wrong. They don’t know their social psychology enough to understand the interactions. Psychologists think the client is misperceiving it. But I was right about my intuitions.

People still say, “What part of this was your fault?’ and I answer, “That I trusted the wrong people”. Psychologists say both parties are at fault. Mutuality is the belief in a “Just World” – that belief blinds people to evil. It may be person “a’s” fault, or person “b’s” fault or it may be both. In each case you have to investigate the reality – but that requires work – so people just walk away. They think, “If I can say it’s both their faults I can just walk away from both of them.”

Clare: Why do you think the bullies chose you as a target, and not others?

Margaret: Same reason they did in the schoolyard. I was short, introverted, competent and intelligent. I also didn’t know how to fight back. I was too nice and not aggressive enough. I think bullies test the waters and see how far they can go. For instance in the early grades school bullies choose targets randomly. By middle school they have figured out who won’t defend themselves well and who lacks allies. Bullying is a way to knock out the competition. My professional status and willingness to share my beliefs and opinions also made me visible. They perceived me as a threat to their own agendas.

By fighting back and aggressiveness I mean that, if criticised, I would think, “They must be right”, “What can I do to fix it?”– rather than a more appropriate response, “You’re wrong.” So I mean assertiveness.

Clare: Looking back, what would you now say are the warning signs that someone should look out for so they could define what is happening to them as psychological abuse – and not blame themselves?

Margaret: I am finding this one hard to answer. I think you need to pay attention to how people talk or don’t talk to you. Do they make comments that leave you feeling inadequate? Do they criticise or put you down especially in front of others? Do they give unsolicited advice? Do they continue to do things that make you uncomfortable even when you have asked them to stop?

Clare: Given everything you’ve learned from your experience of psychological abuse, how do you deal with it differently now?

Margaret: First there is a change in mindset. I no longer worry about whether someone likes me or not. I ask myself if I like them and pay more attention to whether they reciprocate offers of friendship. I stay away from people who don’t think it is okay to express anger or who confused feeling anger with behaviour. I am also more willing to be aggressive if I think it necessary. I will push back in some way. I won’t let put downs go by without responding to them. I talk to others about it and seek allies. It is important to have allies. You can see this in the way I have handled some negative reviews of my book. I have written blog posts about it. I also am more observant of other people’s behaviour in group settings.

For instance, in my current church, power is handled very differently. Initiative from church members is encouraged. Things are not so top down. I also read the church constitution before I joined and noted that the constitution included a structure for dealing with complaints. The minister at the church where I am now has the view that any complaints should be made openly to that person, that you should have the nerve to say it to them, or not say it at all. Whereas in one of the churches where I experienced abuse, Pastor Karen had all sorts of reasons why it was okay for people to go behind my back to her.

Clare: What advice do you have for others about the most effective strategies they could use to cope if they find themselves embroiled in a pattern of being psychologically abused?

Margaret: Assert yourself when unfairly criticised. Learn verbal self-defence tactics. Find allies and don’t be silenced. Talk to as many people that will listen about what is happening. There is a risk if you stay. If your adversary is very powerful they will find a way to silence or run you out. If the leadership condones gossip and bullying – for your own sake, you need to leave. I should have left earlier and found a healthier church. Nothing I did was going to change things. I didn’t have enough power.

. . . . .

Although this is the end of my interview with Margaret, I am half way through reading her book Not My Making and intend posting a review of it in October. It is a very personal story of what happened to her and how she made sense of the insidious, often subtle, sometimes obvious psychological abuse across time. Meantime it is available from the publisher or at Amazon.

{ 14 comments }

← Previous Entries

Psychological abuse

Denial

Minimising

Rationalisation

Justification

Blaming

Denial, minimising and blaming are destructive tactics of power and control

Using the Legal System to stop women from moving town or country

Using the Legal System to fight for custody of children, with the underlying aim of maintaining power and control over the children’s mother

Coercive tactics that lead to the victim getting a criminal record

Using the Government Agency that provides financial benefits to single parents

Using the Government Agency that manages child support payments by separated parents

Using Child Protection Services to coercively threaten the children’s mother

Using Religion to establish and maintain power and control

Using Social Prejudices as weapons to degrade and control women

Using Social Prejudices that stigmatise mental illness

Using Women’s Immigrant Status as a weapon of power and control

Using Male Privilege and Entitlement

Using Stopping Violence Programmes and Anger Management Programmes to further control women

Here are some examples of ways the women I interviewed for my Masters research attempted to eliminate the discord they felt by continuing to live with their controlling partners.

1. Women changed their beliefs and attitudes so these were in harmony. They did this by altering or trivialising the importance or value of their belief that their partner was the wonderful man they used to know e.g.

No marriage is perfect

Disbelief he would abuse her intentionally

Belief there was still potential for the relationship to work

Waiting for the old him to come back

2. The women changed their perceptions about his behaviours. They achieved this by: emphasising beliefs that supported their decision to stay; by finding justifications for his behaviours; by focusing on his positive qualities and ignoring his abusive ones; and, by blaming themselves; e.g.

Finding justifications for his behaviours

Holding onto the positives

Believing it’s her problem and she’s to blame

3. The women adopted behaviours to match their beliefs and attitudes that the marriage had to work at all costs, e.g.

Belief she has to make the relationship work

Belief it’s the woman’s job to make the relationship work

Marriage is a commitment that must be worked at in order to overcome any problems

Belief he needs her help

Children need a family that stays together

Belief that children need a father

Belief that being married has higher status than being single

Believing she has to make it look like she tried hard

Women draw from social messages about how to be a woman

And the result of one-sided power games?

I’d like to introduce you to the ‘power and control’ wheel I created after researching and interviewing women who had been psychologically abused and controlled by their male partners.

BUT … psychological abuse and control underpin the fabric of many men’s abuse against female partners – physically violent or not. It’s the missing equation.

It’s a secret world of mind games – where physical violence is not necessary to gain control – but people are coerced, wretched and wrecked nevertheless.

Why women and society miss the cues of psychological abuse

What have I done wrong? Am I going crazy? Is this normal?

Violence not only means physical abuse and sexual abuse, it also means psychological abuse.

Have you started changing?

Do you think you’re not good enough?

Can you answer ‘yes’ to these questions?

Be honest with yourself

Trust your gut instincts

Ultimately relationships have to feel safe

Controlling behaviours as risk factors

Other factors that can place a woman at risk of murder

Women’s perceptions of risk must be taken seriously

Disclaimer:

References:

The nub of one-sided psychological abuse and power and control is that it occurs across all social institutions. In fact the trigger that helped Margaret realise what was happening to her was a television show explaining school bullying.

Whilst the abuse Margaret experienced occurred within the context of churches, her story resembles those told by survivors of workplace bullying. Her coping strategies also resemble those of women who experience psychological abuse by their male partners.

Search this site

Categories

Get New BlogPosts Delivered

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Topical Posts

Psychological abuse

Tags

My Comment Policy