Real Housewives highlight real issues around domestic abuse

Dec. 9, 2011 _ The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills television show has been knocked and mocked repeatedly for its unrealistic portrayal of women in California and supposed fake or scripted behavior of its characters and even an alleged victim of domestic abuse hasn’t been spared the jeers.

I would agree that the lifestyles portrayed in this show and most reality programs are laughable most of the time.

However, Housewife Taylor Armstrong’s behavior and subsequent disclosure of abuse hardly seems out of the ordinary and the confusion of her co-stars also seems to fit reality.

In fact, there are many typical issues exposed during the recent shows that fit the patterns of abuse within a family and within a circle of friends.

For starters, Taylor’s behavior is confusing, erratic and hard to understand. Bloggers and critics have made fun of the woman for her emotional break-downs and dramatic behavior captured by the rolling cameras. But, as a victim of domestic abuse, her behavior can be explained in one way: She is afraid.

She is afraid of her husband’s reactions, her daughter’s future, her own financial dependency, what her family, friends and fans will think of her, she is afraid of what the truth will cause and the cameras capture the struggle that victims face as they sit between a rock and hard place.

To victims in the thick of their daily struggle, there is simply no good choice and they often hope that something will happen that will change their situation for the better. You can see that this housewife tries marriage counseling as she desperately tries to preserve her fantasy of a healthy family.

Taylor’s friends also act typically in their attempts to help Taylor and their doubts about the abuse. One of her co-stars even says, “Well I have never seen any abuse, so I don’t know.” A very common sentiment, but no abuser is going to abuser his victims before the eyes of others. In fact, abusers are terrific at acting the part of a caring husband in front of other people so that they can reap the compliments from others about how “good” they are.

Her friends also struggle with loyalty between the married couple and don’t know how to act toward Taylor’s husband. They are friendly toward him and even talk to him about the struggle with respect and reserve, but they don’t approach the abuse with him.

But, it is understandable why her friends, and in this case, millions of viewers, are unsure if the allegations are true.

Another issue surrounding domestic abuse so subtlety  exposed in these episodes is that the victim doesn’t want to leave their abuser. Taylor is surrounded by many friends offering their homes _ no mansions _ as a sanctuary, yet Taylor doesn’t take them up on the offers. Taylor so clings to the hope that her husband can change and she can stay with him, that she is not looking for a place to go.

Her friends also take a common position of believing that they would never stay in such a relationship and they can’t relate to Taylor’s decision to stay despite her claims of abuse. So often people feel this way and can’t understand why someone who not run out of the house the first time they got hit and never look back.

You see it too when you look at politician wives who swear they won’t stand by their man if he ever does her wrong, only to see them on the podium right next to the apologetic official.

What people tend to forget is that when families are formed, they are bonded and vested together and breaking those bonds, hopes and maybe fantasies are difficult. How many people excuse questionable behavior of their loved ones?

I can related to every issue exposed in these shows. I know what it is like to judge another woman’s choice to stay in a marriage full of behaviors that I would not tolerate. I can related to the woman who has hope that their mate will change and get better. I can related to the denial. I can understand the doubt. I can understand the confusion.

In my case, I could have called on many people to put me and my children up for a few days or maybe a few weeks so that I could get out of the house of my abusing and violent ex-husband. But, then what? What would I do after I’d worn out my welcome injected into someone’s life? Besides, while I lived with my abuser, I was giving all of my efforts to trying to “fix” the relationship, end the violence so that we could keep our family in tact. Denial is a powerful perspective.

It took me years and years to accept that my ex wasn’t going to be “fixed” and that I was throwing my efforts into a foolish pursuit and in fact, was wasting my time and the lives of my children. It is sad that it took me 10 years after the first attack, to finally have the courage to face facts, but I was stubborn in my hope that I could have my happily-ever-after.

I believe that there are many, many women spending time in abusive relationships doing the same thing. They aren’t staying because they don’t have a place to go to escape immediate abuse, they are staying because they aren’t ready to give up on the dream of a perfect, peaceful life with their husband.

I know there are many women who don’t leave because they are afraid of their abusers’ reaction to divorce. In my case, I worried about how my ex would treat my children and I knew that in marriage, I would be able to protect them. I knew it would be much harder to protect them after divorce. I was very motivated to find a way to stop the abuse within the marriage rather than outside it.

I always knew that I could stop the abuse if I left. I am a smart person and I didn’t need anyone to tell me that. But, for so many years, I didn’t want to leave. I was too afraid to face what my life would look like, what my children’s lives would look like, if we left.

I am sad that it took me so long to find that path out and to finally say to myself that I would not settle for someone who is willing to hit me when he didn’t get what he wants. But, thankfully, I finally did tell myself that I would not continue living life with so little.

I am not married now, nor am I in a relationship. I have been in love since my divorce 6 years ago, but that relationship didn’t last. My children are teen-agers now and have settled into the routine of divorced parents. It is not perfect. I am tired most days. I juggle work, single motherhood, and financial insecurity. But, I am so much happier than I ever was when I was with my ex.

Unfortunately, my ex can still abuse me, emotionally, and he still tries. We will always be connected by our children. But, I can go to my house, lock my door and rest assured that I have peace and safety within.

His continued abuse does cause me stress and there are times that I feel sorry for myself because no one should have to deal with the abuse of another. But, I can talk myself into the reality that we all have problems to handle, this is just mine.

Counseling, this blog, and good friends help me today to face the abuse my ex inflicts today. I have learned that silence is the worse approach. Abusers tend to be insecure. My silence only give my abuser power.

Today, the best approach seems to be to disengage in every way that I can. The least amount of contact, the best. Even then, I never know when he will strike again.

I hope that Taylor can learn to cope with the scars of abuse and violence and move forward to a better life. I hope now that she knows she has a better change for it.

An abuser will use anyone, including children, to control his own world

Dec. 6, 2011 _ I am not a psychologist or have I ever had any training in the field, beyond my college classes more than 20 years ago. But, I believe in the science and I feel that people can be better understood when they are examined through the educated eyes.

A good friend of mine, a social worker, was the first to indicated that my ex-husband and abuser, MAY have a personality disorder. That information proved to be very helpful in my own recovery from abuse and helps me today handle the repeated emotional abuse that my ex-husband inflicts on myself and our children.

I have been through years of therapy, as has my ex, but that statement has never been brought up in that way. Oh, yes, there has been discussions of bi-polar, emotional immaturity, ADHD, impulsivity, poor judgment, medication, and depression, on the sofa of many a therapist about my ex.

My ex-husband’s father killed himself by jumping off a building to end a long, progressive life with bi-polar illness, so often the therapists would assume that my ex inherited that illness.

However, when I took to reading about personality disorder, nothing fit my ex’s behavior more than that. It was shocking. It was also shocking to read that those who suffer on this spectrum that range from narcissists, to sociopaths, and so on, will use anyone, including their own children, to advance their own personal agendas.

And again, the evidence in my case proved this to be true. My ex’s custody suit against me to gain control of our children was way more about him and his current marriage than about our children and what was best for them. I came to realize, as the case progressed and evidence was released, that my ex had painted a much different picture of our life as co-parents to his wife than was true, and the deception had finally caught up to him.

Instead of coming clean about his tales of woe about his unresponsive and sabotaging ex-wife to his new wife, he threw our teen-age children under the bus and filed suit against me to show his new wife that he would finally put to an end the alleged misdeeds of the mother of his children.

His petition read like a paperback work of fiction. He accused me of preventing him from seeing our children, despite his weekly visits, invitations to birthday parties, sporting events, school conferences, Open Houses, and so on. He said that I refused to consult with him about the big decisions regarding our children, even through our phone records showed dozens of monthly text and phone calls between each other and our email accounts were filled with notes back and forth. He said I cancelled visitations with the children, when he cancelled often for work and play, including 4 cancelled scheduled visits with the kids so that he could take a 12-day vacation to Europe … less than a month after he filed suit.

When we got to depositions, and our testimony was on the record, now frozen in time, he painted a much different story, one that was much more truthful and accurate, including telling the lawyers that without me, he could not be the good father he is today and that I was a “wonderful person.” I was so confused to the point of tears and in the arms of my attorney said, “If that is how he feels, then why are we here?”

However, when his wife stepped into the room to answer questions, the picture became clear. She told stories that fit the original petition. She said I refused his attempts to speak to the children on the phone, that I was a “horrible” ex-wife, and I stood in the way of my ex’s ability to bond with our kids. She also said that her husband, my ex, who traveled about 200 nights out of the year as an NFL sports writer, “only occasionally” spent a night away from her home, a town without an NFL team. Not only I, but my attorney was taken aback with that statement, leading my attorney to say “Do you …. understand … your husband’s job?”

But, with that misrepresented statement, and several more like that one by my ex-husband’s new wife, I realized just what had been going on for the last seven months and just why we were going through this very expensive and disruptive experience … my ex was covering for his lies to his wife about our relationship as co-parents and was likely trying to weasel out of pressure she was increasingly applying as their newlywed marriage aged.

As a result, he was willing to use our children, potentially disrupt their lives in such that if he won, our teenage children who had been living with divorced parents for six years and were in their own groove of friends, activities, etc., would have to change houses ever two days. The though of the logistics alone still cause me pain for my children. But, they now have to live with the fact that their father sued their mother for custody. I tried hard to prevent them from finding out, but I don’t know if they did, and I won’t be able to prevent him or anyone else from telling them once they are 18.

I am simply saddened that my ex was willing to use our children in this way. I have seen him use our children as extensions of himself before, but this was pretty low. He never once considered what was best for them and instead was in a jam and decided to use what he could to pull himself out.

Just like physical abuse, the lawsuit was extreme and caused a lot of collateral damage, but he did it anyway. He is willing to do just about anything to handle his own life and get to another day.

I sometimes blame my ex-husband’s wife, but it is hard for that to stick. I’ve been in her shoes and I understand that the stories that my ex tells don’t add up. He is clever enough to cover most of his tracks, but not all and those inconsistencies create confusion and doubt, but in such a way that you feel like you are trying to pin a shadow to the wall.

My ex only shares information about his life with people when and only when he thinks it will advance his daily cause of maintaining his image and creating a false sense of self. He works at it every day, spinning facts, withholding information and out right lying to anyone he needs to to keep his fragile self-esteem from imploding.

He is living the definition of someone with a personality disorder and the reality is that those who suffer from this particular mental illness have very little hope of change. They are too consumed in their skewed and constance sense of self that they don’t believe they have a problem.

Even today, after all the crap my ex has done to me, he will email me to say that has been nothing but supportive of me and responsible toward our children. And I think that he truly believes that.

In the meantime, my children will have to learn to navigate their own lives in the wake of a mentally ill father, who doesn’t see them as individuals, but as objects that he owns. He will likely continue to use them and the best I can do is love them and let them know that they are terrific people who deserve the best.

When they struggle with their Dad, I will let them know that their father loves them in the best way that he can and if it doesn’t rise to the level that they wish for, that I understand. But, life is full of challenges and we can grow stronger in the face of them or we can wither away in self-pity.

I hope that my children rise to the levels of grace, love and forgiveness and I pray that I can be an example of that for them. I hope that I can.

Abuse: It’s All About Power and Control

Abuse: It’s All About Power and Control.

Thank you to all who have helped me

Dec. 4, 2011 _ Today, I am thankful in more than words can express for the love, support, understanding, and time that so many of my family and friends have given me in my efforts to handle an abusive ex-husband and co-parent. There is no way that I could have moved forward and not ended up in a ball on the floor without these people’s kinds words, prayers, and willingness to listen.

It is not easy to talk about abuse. In fact, it is very hard, embarrassing, humiliating, shameful, guilt-inducing, and so on. I struggle with it every time I begin the dialog. But, after I have started talking, it flows out of me like a river. I held it in for so long, that when the flood gate opens, it spills out.

There are so many people who have been there to listen. This is my friend, the social worker, who knew both my ex and me and spent many a night hanging out with us. In fact, for a very short time, she even lived with us. She never saw a second of the abuse, but her instant support when I finally told her what had been going on was unprecedented and so valuable to me.

My sister has been there to listen to so many stories, heart-breaking tales about what had been happening in my life when I was married, and how the abuse continues after divorce. She takes care of my heart like a mother and understands my ex like no one else I know. She keeps the anger for me that I know I have toward him, but attempt to put away so that I can co-parent with him. She doesn’t have the same duty, so she will defend me with zeal whenever I need it.

My step-mother has listened to me over and over vent about the latest infraction or abusive situation. She gives me the perspective that only a 70-something woman who has had children, marriage, and divorce, can have. She gives me the advice of forgiveness and shows me how to move on. But more than anything, she gives me time.

I have another friend, who has had a lousy year of personal struggles that are so taxing and painful, and yet, she will offer sound advice to me and has never once told me that “life could be worse.” She hangs in there and helps me face the trials and tribulations of my forced involvement with my ex.

Then there is my lawyer friends, two women in fact, who have given me so much advice about how to face a custody suit, an abuser, and someone who is willing to see me fall. Those women have given me more free advice than could be understood. No business manager would ever allow that. And yet, they did so with love, and patiences, even when I really haven’t felt rational.

My sister-in-law spent many hours on the phone talking through the issues at hand and helping me sort through the logic or lack there of, of my ex’s actions. Her husband, my brother, who often didn’t know what to do gave me his love straight up instead.

My dad, who was so confused by ex’s actions and abuse, struggled almost as much as I did in trying to understand, has stayed by my side and I will love him for that.

My cousins and aunt have circled the wagons at a level that didn’t fit with my own self-worth. These are people who knew nothing of the abuse my ex was doling out, accepted him with open arms into our family because I asked them to, and then, did not look at me with any judgment when I told them why I was leaving this man. They accepted the situation and new reality quickly, with support and love toward me and my children and offered themselves in anyway that they could.

My dear friend who was so shocked to learn of my divorce that it rocked her world. She liked my ex and she knew my kids well. But, when she found out why I left, she rallied around me with such support. She will leave me 3 minute voicemails that are so natural and supportive that I find myself talking back to the recording of her voice.

There is my best friend from high school, who after all these years have come to my emotional support.

And so, so many more people that can’t fit into this blog today. I truly really wish there was a way that I could thank people who have been there.

The only way that I can is to help others in their name and by following their example of support.

 

 

Speak up, speak out, do something

Dec. 2, 2011 _ If you suspect someone is being abused, please help.

As a survivor of domestic abuse, I can tell you that silence is the number one reason why abuse continues. If you find out or even suspect that someone is being abuse, please take action.

Let the victim know of your suspicions in a non-judgment and supportive way. Call 911 and ask for help. Or do a Google search on what to do. No, its not your problem or your responsibility, but do it anyway.

I assure you, it won’t go down the way you think, but silence keeps abuse going and the dynamic between the victim and abuser may seem unnatural and hard to understand. But that relationship is in the middle of a giant storm that is causing lots of damage and no one in it is thinking clearly.

It takes a lot of courage to help someone in that situation and it is understandable why you might not want to get involved. There are a lot of reasons not do, not the least being that victim and abuser might not like it at first. But, abuse needs to stop immediately and outside help is usually the only thing that will stop abuse other than serious injury or death.

You are necessary. Confronting abuse can save lives and mitigate emotional damage for all involved.

And once you know about abuse, please don’t turn away from it. Hold the abuser accountable. Give the victim your support. Please don’t try to keep the fantasy that was presented before the abuse was uncovered alive after you know the truth. I know it is sad to face the reality that someone you know is not what you thought.

I know that involvement is difficult. No one wants to jump into someone’s private lives. But, know that abusers prey on that sentiment and are emboldened by it. Abusers are happy when you choose to ignore their wrong-doing and believe that they were right to blame their victim.

And when you have the opportunities to address the issue of domestic violence, speak out against it. Teach your children what it is and why it is wrong. Teach your daughters that they do not have to put up with this and that real love does not cause pain.

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Do you suspect abuse in a loved-one’s life?

Dec. 1, 2011 _ Do you suspect that someone in your life is being abused? Do they seem numb, depressed, resentful, anxious about little things? Are they sporting bruises? Are they giving you strange stories of their personal life that don’t add up? Are they hinting that something is wrong? Do you know her partner and he is arrogant, distant, acts above it all? Does he seem to always be on the “right side” of arguments? Does he have trouble admitting wrong-doing, defeat in a debate, unwilling to listen to others?

If you think someone is being abused, do something. I know that it is hard and uncomfortable. I know that we would rather not get involved, but you just might save a life if you do.

Yes, your friend or love one might not respond well. In fact, it is highly likely that she will react badly. Victims of abuse by in large seek privacy about the abuse because they are in massive denial about it. Facing abuse is very hard and scary because it means a 100 percent complete life change for everyone. When was the last time you willing decided to completely change your life?

But know that you may be saving a life if you can overcome your fear.

If you are right, you may be the first step your friend takes toward freedom from abuse. It may take a lot more steps to get out, but you may have given her just enough help to make that first step.

If you are right, don’t let the abuser off the hook. Abusers enjoy believing their abuse is private and that they are getting away with it. Abusers want the image that non-abusers have, so they allow themselves to believe that they aren’t abusing. Confront an abuser, and there is a high likelihood that he will stop.

Of course, do not do anything that will compromise your safety or your friend’s. Call 911 if you suspect the abuser will hurt someone again. Call a domestic abuse hotline if you don’t really know what to do. But don’t remain silent. Please.

You could be helping your friend and her kids from receiving another blow.

Abusers are very insecure people and don’t want to face their choice. When they know that you know what they have done, they won’t do it again. Silence is what keeps abusers free to abuse. It is a choice with the desired payoff. But they don’t abuse in front of others, because they would receive an undesirable outcome … the distain of others. My abuser once saw our neighbor through the window while he was hitting me. He stopped immediately and ran out of the house, I guess because he worried that the neighbor had seen him hitting me or heard me screaming and called the police.

It is against our natures to get  involved in people’s private lives and what goes on behind closed doors. But domestic abuse is not a private matter and it is time for it to come out in the open. It is the only way to stop the damage of domestic abuse.