Domestic Violence
My plans unexpectedly fell through recently, so I decided to see the movie It Ends With Us. It's been in theaters for a hot minute, but I finally had some free time to see it. If you're unaware, this movie is a screen adaptation of the book of the same name, released in 2016 by Colleen Hover. It's been a bit controversial, and after watching it I can understand why. The film (and book) is a very real depiction of emotional abuse, physical violence, toxic relationship dynamics, and the cycle of generational trauma.
I think what's confusing to most people who've never been in that type of relationship dynamic is grasping the fact that a seemingly charming and loving husband could be so cruel behind closed doors. But that's just it. If abusers looked like the monsters they were on the outside no one would be with them. They can be your family members, friends, neighbors, or coworkers and unless they drop their mask in front of you, you'd never know it. It's far more likely that you'll reject the truth when it comes out instead of believing it, especially if you know them personally. Abusers are master manipulators, charming, charismatic, and above all, wolves in sheep's clothing.
Domestic violence is not an easy subject to write about, especially since this one hits so close to home. Honestly, unless you've been in an abusive relationship yourself, you can try your best to understand but you'll never truly know how it feels to be in that dynamic or the immense amount of strength it took for them to leave, that is if they even chose to leave. So to help those of you who fortunately have never been in this dynamic understand what it's like, how it starts or happens in the first place, and why it's so hard to leave, I'm going to open up and share purposeful parts of my story to give you a peek behind the curtain so to speak.
One thing I felt that was perfectly captured in the film was the cold, dead, black, and hate-filled stare Ryle had when he inflicted abuse. Any victim of domestic violence knows those eyes well. There was one scene in particular where he stared coldly and aggressively at Lily right before snapping and it triggered me. All these years and vast amounts of healing later, I was transported back in time to a moment where my abuser was staring at me with those eyes. Those eyes are ones of dominance, a means to control, and a warning that if you don't fall in line, far worse actions or words are coming next.
I hate those eyes. As a survivor, I don't think I'll ever forget them. For me, those cold, dead, black eyes were routinely followed by my abuser getting up in my face, staring at me coldly, trying his best to repress the rage that was boiling just under the surface and ready to be unleashed if I made one slight wrong move. Once the staredown started, it was often followed up with his thumbs in his pockets and his arms flared outward, like a peacock displaying his tail plumage, only this was a means to become more intimidating. Next came the verbal abuse with his words barely escaping between the cracks in his teeth because he was clenching his jaw so tightly as he tried his best to hold himself back. If I fought back, he would move in closer and become even more intimidating to get me under his control. And you know what, it worked.
If you know me personally, the thought of me allowing another person to intimidate me in this way is probably very shocking and hard for you to believe. These days, I definitely don't put up with much of anything and my cutoff game is strong. I have zero issues with boundaries, sharing what's on my heart, or removing access to me for people who are unhealthy. But trust me, there was a time in my life, actually for a good portion of it, that I was this way. Fortunately for me and my children, I found the courage and strength to leave and transmuted these painful experiences into a source of personal power and transformative growth.
A couple of months ago, I was out at dinner with a couple of friends when one commented to me "You must have been loved the right way as a child." Ha, right...he had no clue. Our connection is still new and all he sees is the best version of myself to date, including my high level of emotional intelligence, and naturally, he assumes it's a byproduct of a healthy and loving upbringing. This couldn't be any farther from the truth.
While not all parts of my childhood were horrible, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows either. My childhood was chaotic, unpredictable, unstable, and riddled with abuse and violence in various forms, all as a direct result of having emotionally immature parents and being caught up in generational cycles of trauma. Both of my parents failed my siblings and me by refusing to heal themselves, so the unhealthy cycles continued in our lives. All of our lives. Not a single one of us six children was spared.
Just let that profound statement sink in for a minute.
My upbringing perfectly primed me to be accepting of an abusive relationship. I was given all the tools on how to survive in a dysfunctional and toxic environment because that's what I grew up in. This was shown in the movie, although I wish they had spent more time highlighting why this is an important part of how the abuse cycle repeats. My childhood experiences groomed me to accept pain when receiving love, and for this very reason, I became the perfect partner for any abuser. And I am not alone. Anyone with a chaotic, dysfunctional, abusive, or addiction-filled childhood is susceptible and very likely to enter this relationship dynamic. This is not love, it's a trauma bond. This is abuse.
In the film, Lily witnesses the physical violence her father inflicted on her mother, vowing never to be in that type of relationship. And guess what, she married the carbon copy of her father and was put in the same position she witnessed her mother in. Guess who else witnessed violence inflicted upon their mother and vowed never to let a man treat her that way? Yup, you're right, it was me. And just like Lily, I ended up marrying the carbon copy of my father.
Do you know what I love about cycles and patterns? They are recognizable and predictable. You possess the power to change the pattern and outcome by simply choosing differently. What's hard about a dysfunctional family and abuse is that you have to become aware of the fact that it's toxic before you can choose differently. This can be difficult because the abuse and dysfunction are normalized in the family, making it hard to see, and you will be rejected and ostracized by anyone in the family if you choose to wake up. Don't believe me? Give it a try. You'll quickly see how your healthy standards and boundaries will ruffle all the feathers in the family. You'll be labeled as crazy, too good, difficult, sensitive, or anything else derogatory and untrue because your healing is a threat to the family ecosystem. Your healthy choices and outlook will shine a light on their unhealthy patterns and choices, which will be very uncomfortable for anyone in the family unwilling to evolve and grow. Abuse and dysfunction require everyone to accept and normalize the behaviors and play their part.
In the film, Lily asks her mom why she never left her father. Her mother replied, "It was easier to stay." And that's just it, it is easier to stay than do the hard thing which is choosing different and leaving. The reality of being put into the position of needing to decide to stay or go is much more complex than what's presented on the surface. It's not that simple. The choice to end the pattern is interwoven with many fears and emotional ties to the abuser and your pain.
I can recall the moment that I decided enough was enough, proving I had no other choice but to leave. We were on the couch in our living room after I had just been released from a 12-day hospital stay, and with his arm around my shoulder comforting me, he said to me "I like seeing you this way." Umm...excuse me? He went on to expand that he enjoyed seeing me vulnerable because it "made him feel powerful." I don't know if he even realized what he was confessing or if it clicked as to why my eyes were as wide as saucers. During that pivotal conversation, I learned a lot about my now ex-husband and how he would have systematically destroyed the life I worked so hard to build for us and our children if I hadn't recovered. I also learned that the only reason why I was in the hospital for so long was because he kept telling the doctors that something was still off with me. So more tests were run and more days were spent in the hospital even though nothing was wrong with me, resulting in a lot of unnecessary stress and trauma to me, our children, and many thousands of dollars in medical bills. The only thing that was wrong with me was unfortunately ingesting tainted nutritional supplements and having bad timing in doing so.
A couple weeks before going into the hospital, I had finally dropped the bomb on my now ex-husband that I wanted a divorce and I was done being the only one fighting for our marriage. So when the issue with the nutritional supplements was discovered, he somehow got it into his mind that they must have also magically altered how I felt about him. Because I wasn't being loving towards him and I hadn't changed my mind about our divorce, I was being punished and kept in the hospital. Thankfully one of the doctors caught onto the dynamic, discharged me, and highly recommended that I speak with a therapist about my relationship with my husband because he had reason to worry about my safety. And that's exactly what I did and he was 100% right to worry. While my ex-husband never laid a hand on me, it would've likely continued to escalate and that could have been a very real possibility.
After returning home, I learned he almost completely uprooted our lives in under two weeks and sabotaged many of my relationships with friends and family. He was making plans to leave our home, sell his car (not mine, mine was nicer), and basically plan for me to never come home. This is when I realized how dangerous my marriage was for me and my children because when I needed him the most, he failed me. He failed to protect me. He failed to protect our children. He caused far more chaos and harm to our lives because he didn't know what to do and was blind to his own chaos and darkness.
Do you recall what I said about trauma bonds earlier? The constant hot and cold behavior, instability, and insecurities within this dynamic leave your body physically craving the dopamine hit from the abuser because, for one small moment, you were chosen and felt loved. Similar to an addict, the codependent in the relationship becomes addicted and obsessed with their partner, craving only validation and attention from that one person. Isn't that quite sick and twisted? The very person who is causing all of the hurt and pain is the one who also possesses the medicine to 'cure' the pain. They aren't curing anything, rather they are perfectly playing their part in the dynamic, keeping both people stuck in an unhealthy dynamic. Unless the pattern is disrupted and someone chooses differently, the cycle of abuse will continue.
For me, it wasn't until I had a significant amount of therapy that I began to awaken to the fact that my marriage had crossed the line from toxic to straight-up abuse. There was so much learning early on about emotional abuse, narcissism (specifically covert narcissism), and awareness of the abuse cycle, codependency, and trauma bonding.
The cycle of abuse includes the following four cycles:
Tension Building: This is the "walking on eggshells" part of the cycle where you feel like everything you do or say could potentially upset your abuser, so there's a great deal of over-consideration of what you choose to say and how you say it. This is generally due to the constant underlying anger and irritability present during most interactions with the abuser. It seems like they're always upset and as the partner, you feel like you're the cause of it. This is also partially because many (if not all) abusers blameshift the responsibility of their emotions and issues onto their partners. During this part of the cycle, the abusers may become more controlling, and critical, or start minor forms of abuse such as giving the silent treatment or verbal threats.
Incident (Acute Explosion): This is where the peak or height of abuse is inflicted. Whether it is verbal, emotional, mental, or sexual, the abuser acts out in a way to establish control and dominance. Examples of peak abuse are violent outbursts, physical violence, threats of harm, or anything else that is the more extreme version of their abuse. Like a volcano violently erupting, this event comes unexpectedly even though you're aware of the building pressure or tension and this will always catch you by surprise. The shock of the abusive event leaves the victim in a state of shock and disbelief, throwing them into their trauma response (Freeze, Flight, Fawn, or Fight).
Reconciliation (Honeymoon Phase): I like to refer to this as the abuser's "coming to Jesus moment" because they miraculously see the "light" or error of their ways, realize how precious and loving their partner is, and promise to never act like the monster they just were 2.2 seconds ago. This phase tends to include lots of apologies from the abuser, gifts, promises to change, declarations of love or up-leveling in the relationship, and overall crying and begging for forgiveness because they feel so awful. Let me spare you a lot of time and a lot of therapy costs - the only thing your abuser is sorry about in this situation is feeling sorry for themselves. During this part of the cycle, there's a lot of love bombing to "make up for" the pain unfairly inflicted upon the partner. This is also where all the feel-good chemicals are released in your body, further deepening the trauma bond each time this cycle repeats with that person.
Calm (Lull): This final phase of the cycle of abuse feels very much like any healthy relationship, which only adds to the confusion many victims feel. There's a false sense of security during this phase which leads the victim to believe their abuser has indeed changed, which is why they are shocked every time the cycle repeats. The length of time spent in the phase before moving back into the tension phase is different for everyone and can be influenced by factors such as family or career stress, if the abuser has an active addiction, or any other environmental stressors. Change that's thrust upon the abuser tends to be a big trigger for most abusers to move back into the cycle, sometimes rushing through all four phases within the same day.
Abuse rarely ever starts as violent or with extreme outbursts. It takes time for the abuser to feel comfortable to drop their guard, which generally means the cycle needs to be repeated several times and the abuser feels confident that their partner will continue to accept their abuse. Everything ramps up and continues to worsen each time the cycle is repeated. What may have started as small put-downs disguised as jokes could eventually move into verbal lashings or even into physical violence. Partial reason for this is because every time the partner accepts the abuser's abuse by choosing to stay with them, the abuser continues to lose respect for their partners. This only further deepens the abuser's belief (even if it's only subconscious) that their partner is stupid or beneath them, justifying their reason for why they can inflict abuse on their partner. It's sick, twisted, sinister thinking from someone who was also abused at some point but chose to become the pain instead of healing it. This is why abuse and dysfunction are both generational and cyclical. Hurt people really do HURT people, but it's the responsibility of every one of us to choose to end the pain cycle instead of repeating it.
When I first woke up to the reality of my marriage being abusive, it was a VERY hard pill for me to swallow. I thought I had made a safe choice by marrying the "nice guy." It took several years for me to wake up to the reality of how dangerous and abusive the relationship had become, and even more years of healing from my family of origin to realize how the warning signs were there from the very beginning, I just couldn't see them because of my conditioning from childhood. It was also hard for me to see myself as a victim of domestic violence because it wasn't physical. I thought that abuse was only physical violence and minimized my pain and what was happening because "I could handle it" or "at least he wasn't hitting me." Those unhealthy beliefs were seeds directly planted inside me by my mother as I grew up witnessing her justifying her decision to stay with her abusers, thus normalizing the behavior and priming me to accept the same treatment. Those unhealthy seeds planted long ago would sprout and take root when the right conditions would present themselves. This is why our environment matters.
Domestic violence or abuse may look different for each victim but there's always a pattern of behavior where one person exerts power and control over the other person in a relationship that falls into one or more of the following categories:
Physical Abuse: Arguably the most recognized form of domestic violence because it's the most visible, PA is where someone uses physical force that causes injury, pain, or harm to another person. This can be hitting, slapping, punching, choking, being pushed up against a wall, forms of restraint, shoving, or using weapons.
Mental and Emotional Abuse: These forms of abuse are used to undermine the victim's sense of self-worth, confidence, and overall emotional well-being through manipulation, degradation, and humiliation. Examples of EA are belittling comments, constant criticism, guilt, threats, name-calling, gaslighting, causing fear, and isolating the victim from outside influences such as friends and family.
Verbal Abuse: This is using language to hurt, control, manipulate, and dominate the victim. Examples of VA include yelling, using insults or name-calling, belittling, mocking, shaming, cursing, and derogatory comments.
Sexual Abuse: With SA sex and intimacy are weaponized by either being forced upon the partner with non-consensual acts or withholding intimacy. In either case, sex is used as a means to control, dominate, and humiliate the victim. Examples of this are rape, forced sex acts (even in a committed relationship or marriage), using threats and coercion, criticism about sexual performance and pleasure, and withholding sex as a punishment or only engaging in intimacy as part of a reward system.
Financial Abuse: In this dynamic, the abuser controls or limits the victim's access to economic resources, ultimately making them financially dependent on the abuser. This can happen even if the victim makes their own money and can look like restricting access to bank accounts, putting them on an allowance, sabotaging their career or academic success, preventing them from working, forcing the victim to give them their paychecks, or anything else that has a negative financial impact.
Spiritual Abuse: This is where the abuser uses religion, beliefs, or spiritual practices to manipulate, harm, or control the victim. Forcing religious practices upon the victim, using scripture or other beliefs to justify their abuse, keeping the victim from practicing their faith, and manipulating religious teachings to make the victim feel unworthy, guilty, or ashamed are all examples of spiritual abuse.
Stalking: Unwanted and repeated attention, surveillance, or harassment that makes the victim feel fear or causes distress. Examples of this are following the victim, showing up uninvited (especially after a boundary of no contact has been established), constant and incessant communication (texts, calls, and/or emails), threats, or anything else the victim finds distressing and unwanted.
Misc: Cyber/Digital Abuse (monitoring via GPS trackers, uploading intimate pictures/acts online without consent, demanding access to cell phones or social accounts, creating fake profiles for purposes of harassment or pretending to be the victim) Cultural Abuse (Racism, denying cultural beliefs or practices, derogatory comments due to sexual preference or identification, attacking the victim's gender identity) Reproductive Abuse (entrapment, forcing pregnancy or abortion, denying proper reproductive healthcare, poking holes in condoms or tampering with birth control, or refusing to wear a condom).
Abusers are made, not born. Almost always they are victims of domestic violence and family dysfunction themselves but choose to externalize their pain versus internalize it. By inflicting the same pain onto another person, they're able to justify the abuse that they received in a way by normalizing the behavior for themselves.
The relationship that my ex-husband and I have now is nothing short of a miracle. Neither one of us is the same person we were back in 2019 or who we were while together. We no longer know who those people are. This is the power of taking responsibility for your healing and then making the conscious choice to both heal the relationship dynamic.
Today we have an extremely healthy co-parenting relationship and have rebuilt our friendship. We both were able to drop our egos, accept and heal our parts, and work as a team to raise our children. Now we laugh and joke about how things "used to be" and are both so grateful that we get a happy ending for both ourselves and our children. We know we're doing something right because our children are happy, healthy, and more emotionally intelligent than most adults! (They are 10 and 7 for context)
If this is your story, you too can have a happy ending but both people must be open, willing, and able to put in the hard work to heal both as individuals and the dynamic together. And if the other person isn't ready or willing to heal their pain, focus on your healing so you can be strong and confident enough to establish healthy boundaries to make the best of the situation.
