Fighting the Unfair Fight - Your Ex-Boyfriend Will Hate This (2015)

Your Ex-Boyfriend Will Hate This (2015)

Chapter Ten

Fighting the Unfair Fight

Among its very helpful pages and links regarding domestic abuse, Helpguide.org offers two sentences that crystallize the problem:

“Domestic abuse, also known as spousal abuse, occurs when one person in an intimate relationship or marriage tries to dominate and control the other person. Domestic abuse that includes physical violence is called domestic violence.”[xxiii]

Many women may not be aware of this important distinction. Actual physical violence isn’t a prerequisite for abuse. One can be a survivor of sustained, repugnant abuse without the abuser ever lifting a hand.

In the introduction of Lundy Bancroft’s superlative book on domestic abuse, Why Does He Do That?, she describes “abusers” in a similar way:

“I have chosen to use the term abusers to refer to men who use a wide range of controlling, devaluing, or intimidating behaviors. In some cases I’m talking about physical batterers and other times men who use or insult their partners, but never frighten or intimidate them.”[xxiv]

Think about that definition in terms of your own past relationships. How well does it describe some, or maybe all, of them? You may never have considered yourself a victim of abuse because none of your exes ever physically hurt you. But did they belittle or harass you constantly with put downs, sarcasm, and cruel asides? Did they attempt to control your life with an iron fist?

To cite a commonly used but apt analogy, it’s like receiving a million little paper cuts. None of these behaviors in isolation could be considered life-threatening, but they all hurt. Moreover, when they occur en masse (as through sustained verbal abuse) they’re more than an annoyance; they’re torture. If this sounds like a frivolous use of the word, consider its primary textbook definition:

“Torture (noun): 1. The act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty.”[xxv]

Think about the times you’ve stayed with a mean-spirited, extremely petty, or insanely jealous man. The reason you might’ve stayed with him too long is that he didn’t reveal himself immediately. This kind of “man” reveals himself by degrees. He may be fine in those first few months. Hell, he may even look like an angel. However, as soon as things start to go in any direction besides the one he chooses, his true self begins to emerge, and the torture begins.

Though they may occasionally use abusive tactics, not every asshole is an abuser. Yet, for our purposes, we can confidently say that the opposite is definitely true. All of these terrible men have in common an innate belief that their feelings, desires, and motivations are of absolutely primary importance. This belief isn’t flexible. It runs to the core of their being, and it requires more than just simple reformation.

It requires complete rebirth.

What separates the abuser from the mere asshole (merely meaning “somewhat less noxious” in this case) is a question of tactics. The asshole is selfish and will pursue self-interest above all. He’s insensitive, but his insensitivity is largely an act of omission. He doesn’t consider your feelings, he rarely even thinks of them—if he ever even bothered to find out what they are. If you think of your relationship with him as a competition, you aren’t the opposing team; you’re a spectator. Cheer or boo as loud as you want, but you’ll never affect the outcome of the game.

The abuser treats you like the opposition. Any attempts you make to assert your own position will be met with hostility. Wanting what he doesn’t want makes you the enemy, and whether the abuser reveals himself quickly or gradually, he’ll treat you like one. Using the game analogy, the abuser isn’t even a competitor who respects you as an opponent. He views you with such contempt that he sees no need to respect even the basic rules of fair play. He wants to win, yes, but he wants more than that. He wants to humiliate you in victory.

Humiliation is a primary tactic of the abuser, given that it accomplishes a couple of different goals for him. First, it establishes a dynamic of willful hypocrisy that is one of his greatest allies. There are clear rules for behavior, but they’re there for your observance alone. Think of the times you’ve dated someone who, when among a group of your friends, became enraged if you didn’t show him the “proper” attention—i.e., anything other than hanging on his every word.

“Disrespect” was almost assuredly at the core of his anger. You brought him around a group of your friends and then “disrespected” him by “ignoring” him all night. The abuser is a big advocate of “respect.” Respect is so sacred to him that your failure to provide it results in a public scene better suited to a disaster movie—shouting, accusations, and the threat of imminent harm.

Nothing says “respect” better than calling you a cold, evil bitch in private, or in front of everyone you know.

Most self-help literature about abusers characterizes their behavior and tactics as having certain key components—criticism, control, humiliation, hypocrisy, intimidation, jealousy, possessiveness, disrespect, and misogyny. An abuser may mask most of these behaviors at first, but the last one often rears its ugly head without his consent. Some abusers may not even be consciously aware of how deeply their contempt, even hatred, of women goes. Their cycle of abusive behavior has been a constant in their lives for so many years that, to the abuser, it’s the norm, and you (along with many poor women before you) are the one who’s “abnormal.” In the context of our earlier competition analogy, the chronic abuser has built a strategy for “winning” his malignant ongoing campaign. The very fact that he’s not in jail or in perpetual isolation is the depressing proof that his warped mindset “works.”

A very close friend of mine, who we will call Lisa, was engaged to be married a few years ago. Her story sounds like a lurid Lifetime melodrama, but I assure you that every bit of it is true. If the initial back story seems like a digression, I’m sharing it to show just how much this girl suffered both prior to and during her year-long encounter with a sociopath, who I’ll call Matt.

Lisa’s story goes like this:

Lisa was earning six figures working for a highly prestigious west coast PR agency. Over the course of several years in well-paid positions, Lisa had managed, through personal investment and her 401K, to amass enough of a nest egg that retirement at forty-five wasn’t just a potential idea; it looked like a genuine inevitability—the reward for two decades of hard work, great money management, and diligent saving.

Then, on a Friday afternoon, a drunk driver on the freeway took it all away. Cutting across five lanes of speeding traffic, the driver (who was never prosecuted or even identified) caused a fourteen-car, high-speed crash that killed three drivers.

Despite odds heavily against her, Lisa survived. However, the crash left her in a wheelchair, where she was told she’d likely remain. After $240,000 worth of surgery (which her insurance company deemed “experimental” and thus didn’t cover), she began a slow process toward an unlikely recovery. Unable to work, without a car and now destitute, Lisa’s future looked dire as she attempted to put her life back together without any resources and cut off from her family three thousand miles away.

Salvation appeared to come from the unlikeliest of sources: an old high school boyfriend, Matt. She’d dated Matt off and on in her junior and senior years. When she left for college out of state, Lisa had parted with Matt. Then, as if guided by the kind hand of divine providence, Matt reappeared and offered his assistance just when Lisa needed it most.

Matt moved Lisa into his cavernous home in the Pacific Northwest. There she could rest, recuperate, continue her physical therapy, and start to rebuild her shattered existence. In the intervening years since high school, Matt had become a millionaire several times over from the spoils of his deceased father’s trust fund.

“Just rest and get better,” he said. “I will take care of you.”

The next few months demonstrated the extraordinary perseverance that had always been Lisa’s calling card. She would walk again, and far sooner than any of her doctors’ most optimistic predictions. During this time, she and Matt rediscovered the feelings they had shared in high school, and more.

Then, to sum it up in a familiar phrase, the wheels started to come off.

This started when Lisa had almost completed her physical therapy after many months of tireless zeal. She no longer needed crutches and could get in and out of chairs and bed without Matt’s assistance. The pain had lessened considerably, and she no longer needed to take the powerful painkillers her doctors had prescribed to prevent her from writhing in agony all day and nightly when she went to bed. Her whip-smart brain wasn’t a cloudy haze of pharmaceuticals for the first time since the accident, and she could see clearly again.

Lisa couldn’t understand why Matt suddenly seemed so moody. From her perspective, it was senseless that her sudden independence made him more irritable. Who on earth wanted to be beholden to a sad invalid who contributed little more than an extra mouth to feed and a mountain of woe?

But Matt was more irritable since her recovery, unmistakably so. When she asked if she might begin using one of his several cars to get around, he rebuffed her, saying she’d not healed well enough to drive. When Lisa protested, Matt shouted her down, declaring the matter closed. It was the first time since high school that Lisa was reminded of Matt’s occasional flares of temper, and, in that moment, she was afraid of him.

It was only the first of many such moments over the next four months, moments that came with alarming frequency. Lisa was a spitfire with a terrific mind who demanded an equal partnership in their life together, a fair position that nonetheless was met with, in order: surliness, sullenness, self-righteous anger and, finally, seething rage. The last stage didn’t turn violent at first, but it wasn’t long before Matt was consistently breaking objects that had great sentimental meaning to Lisa.

Things came to a head during a visit by one of Lisa’s oldest friends, a girl she knew from high school. One night, while out drinking at a favorite local pub, Lisa and Matt launched into a drunken shouting match over Lisa’s “disrespect,” manifested in her not “paying attention” (there it is again) to him. When Lisa refused to coddle his selfishness and walked away, Matt did something that shocked everyone; he grabbed her by the back of the neck and slammed her head into the bar with such fury that Lisa was knocked out instantly. She awoke to find her girlfriend crying over her as four bouncers and patrons held down a bellowing and crazed Matt.

After spending several nights away, Matt came home a seemingly different man—humble, remorseful, begging forgiveness, and promising his behavior was an ugly aberration that would never happen again. Matt agreed to start couples counseling and to stop drinking. Lisa agreed not to press charges for the incident at the bar.

It was a decision she’d soon regret.

It took about a month for Matt’s earlier regret to dissipate and reveal itself for what it had been all along: the desire to avoid accountability for his monstrous actions. At his core, Matt didn’t think what he’d done was wrong. His sour sense of privilege assured him it wasn’t his fault. He held on to the abuser’s perverse-but-common defense: she made him do it.

Matt started drinking again, heavily. Out together with friends one evening, Lisa and Matt got into another argument that ended with Lisa tossing a drink in his face and storming out. As she walked in the front door of their home alone, Lisa foresaw what awaited her and locked herself in their bedroom. Matt returned within the hour, drunk and in a frenzy. He made quick work of the locked door, kicking it in with such force that the wood tore like tissue paper. When Lisa tried to run, he grabbed her by the hair and, picking up a metal vase on the bed stand, swung it into the back of her head with all the force his 225-pound frame could provide.

Lisa awoke in a hospital bed. In addition to cracking her skull, Matt had stomped on her fingers as she lay helpless, breaking two on each hand. Once again, Lisa had sustained injuries that should’ve proven fatal; and once again, Lisa survived. As soon as she was able to stand, Lisa boarded a plane to her parents’ home in rural Georgia and never saw Matt again.

Leaning on his wealth and family connections, Matt evaded any legal trouble. Occasionally, he calls and leaves messages on Lisa phone. No matter how often she changes her number, Matt always finds it somehow. Sometimes he tries to coax her back, promising he’s not the same man. When the messages go unanswered, Matt promises he’ll finish the job he started and kill her.

The law has advanced somewhat by making physical abusers answer for their crimes against women. The law is less successful at prosecuting the emotional abuser, the one who leaves scars that are internal but nevertheless real. This is an unfortunate but understandable problem. You cannot tangibly demonstrate what the emotional abuser takes from you: your will, your self-respect, your connections to your friends and family, your ability to trust and experience intimacy, and your freedom of self-expression. As horrifying as they are—and I’m by no means suggesting that experiences like Lisa’s are preferable—bruises and broken bones stand as expert testimony to the terror and grotesquery that a battered woman suffers. At least there is a chance for bringing these miserable cowards to account, for some modicum of justice.

So where is the justice for the woman who suffers for years under the unending torrent of psychological and emotional cruelty? Unfortunately, the most we can usually hope for is prevention. We cannot get back all that the emotional abuser takes from us, but we can try to shut his kind out of our lives forever. In the next chapter, we will discuss how to identify him—and to keep him the hell away.