If it’s easy getting into a relationship with an exploiter, getting out isn’t always so simple. What makes the getting out so difficult?
In retrospect (if we’re lucky enough to say “in retrospect”) it seems like it should have been a no-brainer. In truth there are many reasons it can be hard to leave a destructive relationship and destructive person. I’ve addressed several of them in previous posts, and the LoveFraud community in general has addressed this theme comprehensively.
But here I’d like to consider a less-appreciated factor.
I regard it as the factor of habituation. Optimally the best time to end a relationship with an exploiter is the very first signal you get that something is amiss. The next best time to leave the relationship would the second signal that something is amiss.
When we don’t act on these early signals, increasingly we are less likely to act on subsequent ones. One of many reasons for this is the process of habituation.
Habituation is basically how, through repeated exposure to something initially uncomfortable, even highly disturbing, we adjust to it. We are built, it seems, to habituate to unsettling situations and experiences.
And the key to successful habituation is exposure. Sustained exposure to almost anything increases our tolerance of, and comfort with, it.
Consider what happens when we’re willing to endure the initial shock of cold water in a lake, or pool. Our sustained exposure (non-flight) gradually results in our bodies’ adjusting, or habituating, to the cold water, which begins to feel less cold, maybe even warm.
This is great news for someone with a social phobia. We just have to be willing to intentionally expose ourselves, repeatedly and sustainedly, to disturbing social situations, and quite likely we’ll experience a gradual reduction of anxiety.
Unfortunately the same thing can be said of abusive, exploitative relationships. The longer you expose yourself to, and repeatedly tolerate, the abuse, the more habituated you become to it.
Alarming behaviors that initially signaled our self-protective response (like flight) gradually lose their activating properties as we habituate to them. The avoidance-flight signal particularly—in the face of repeated, sustained exposure—dulls and/or we become less responsive to it.
Heeding the avoidant-flight response, in other words, can be critical to our safety and self-interest. It is great to confront and conquer avoidance when the avoidance hinders our personal growth; but it is dangerous to do so in the face of real, violating circumstances.
When I work with partners of sociopaths and other abusers, I find that habituation to the exploiter’s abuse often has occurred over time and contributes to the inertia that keeps the exploited partner in the relationship.
Of course there are often many other (and sometimes more compelling) reasons that one stays in a relationship with an exploitative partner.
But habituation to the abuse, I believe, is not only real, but sometimes helps explain why an otherwise dignified individual would tolerate behaviors that, from the outside—that is, from the unhabituated’s perspective—should be (or should have been) no-brainer deal-breakers.
When relevant I encourage clients to examine this factor in their analysis of the indignities they’ve sustained sometimes for years in relationships with disturbed, violating partners.
Paradoxically (and precisely to my point) their suffering was often highest early in the relationship before, through habituation, they grew slowly more numb and inured to—more tolerant of—the abuse, and thereby less motivated to do what was advisable at the outset—flee.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2008 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
DearBrokenhearted,
I have “kissed a lot of frogs and only got warts for my trouble” and there’s no guarentee that any of us will find that kind of love, but once I did. I missed it terribly. Not that my husband was perfect and we never had a cross word, we DID, and both being strong willed individuals we BUTTED heads plenty about things. He was an engineer and they think they know everything about everything, I think they are somewhat N-ish in many ways (engineers) and he was an expert in MANY FIELDS there is no denying that. He held national recognition in several fields and was a man who was well respected by most people. He did have a hard head about somethings and got bamboozled out of his business once by some P=con men who left him broke and very angry. He never let go of that anger though I tried to get him to let it go. But we DID have something very special between us that I’ve never had with any other man and I don’t think he ever had with any other woman. It was spirtual, intellectual, emotional, and physical. I think the perfect combination. I trusted him completely and he trusted me completely so there was never any jealousy or any trying to put the other one “down” and he encouraged me to persue my own interests and I encouraged him in his, we helped each other and we also had interests together. Four hundred people turned up from all over the US and the community for his memorial service whick went on for 4 hours because so many people wanted to speak about his influence on them and their lives.
Afte rhe died I found out about all the SECRET good deeds he had done, helping people who were down and out, abused women and children, he would take my son and the truck and trailer and go help some poor waitress whose husband had cracked her nose, move her and her kids to a safe place, but when I came home and said “what’d you do today” he would just say “oh, worked on airplanes.” Another time there was an elderly woman who was waiting tables and her car died and she had little money to replace it, since he was such a good diagnostic mechanic he and my son D took all day and drove this woman all over the state looking for a GOOD used car she could buy for the money she had. Same thing, when I came home and asked what he had done, “working on airplanes.”
I even got flowers from the little diner where he drank coffee in town. LOL (where the waitresses worked) I also found out after he died that he was a member of a secret organization of pilots called “the Quiet Birdmen” who do secret good deeds. I never knew. But you know, a lot of women if their Husband dies find out about the “OW” in his life and his affairs, and maybe even other children they didn’t know about, I FOUND OUT ABOUT THE OW in my husband’s life, but it wasn’t “affairs” it was secret charity. Secret good deeds. I was very blessed to find out these “Secrets” after his death and to have these people show up to pay him honor at his memorial service.
I was blessed to have this man in my life as a friend for 40+ years and as my husband for 20, he was a unique and wonderful guy. But his loss, made me very vulnerable to the P XBF because I was so devestated and not done healing and grieving over the loss of my “true love.”
The statistics are not “good” for me finding another partner, as there are about 100 single females from age 35-65 for every 30 males. Plus, a guy 65 can attract a 45 year old woman, so that puts all of those 100 women in competition for the 2 (TWO) guys in the age range I would be looking for 58-9 to 65. So, if you eliminate all the alcoholics, Ps, dead beats, stupid guys, etc from the mix, there is more chance for me to get the winning lotto ticket (I think the odds are 13 million to 1) than to find a guy that I would have. I realize that I can “lower my standards” and be married by tonight, just run to the rescue mission and pick myself out a wino and jump to the Olkahoma side of the border, marry him, and bring him home for my very own. LOL But is that what I want? NOPE, DEFINITELY NOT! But I realize now that I am happier and better off and P-FREE and if I stay that way the rest of my life that’s okay.
I too would see older couples that had gotten married later in life and I would envy them, and say “why not me”? But, though I would LIKE a relationship, I am sure not NEEDING one any more. So not being NEEDY I think will make me less liable to pick up a P and not see the flags.
I have a couple of close male friends that if I had pushed in that direction would have been “interested” and they are both great guys in their own way, but you know, we have differeing ideas about several things that would make us NOT GOOD MARRIAGE MATERIAL, and I’m not interested in a “friends with benefits” relationship, sex is too prescious to me for that. So, we have good boundaries between us and I would do anything in the world for them and vice versa, AS FRIENDS. GOOD friends.
Dear Iindie,
I didn’t see your post til I had finished the one above, so I guess we “posted over each other”– LOL
I think in my experience too, the better looking people, the “beautiful people” if you will tend to rely on their looks and not their personality. I actually was a very beautiful young woman, and unfortunately due to baking myself in the African sun got wrinkles and age spots much earlier than I would have otherwise…my mom was covered up like wearing a Burka her entire life and even at 79 has lovely skin, smooth and pink, no wrinkles or age spots at all, but I didn’t realize I was beautiful so didn’t feel like I could get what I wanted with my looks.
When I began to realize that I was starting to look like my grandmother, who also had been very beautiful as a young woman, but again, baked in the cotton fields, and by the end of her life she looked like “Granny Calmpett”–and when I started to see her face in my mirror—sheesh, it was really a devestating moment. But now, that same face in my mirror doesn’t horrify me any more. I see the mischievous sparkle in my eyes, the laugh lines around my eyes and mouth, and I may not feel like I look like a young “sex pot” but I’m a good looking old lady with CHARACTER to my face.
If a guy can’t see past those “character lines” and love me for what is behind my eyes not around them, then he isn’t anyone I would be interested in anyway. Like I said before, my husband was not a “greek god” by any stretch of the imagination but every woman he met “fell in love with him” and thoguht he was handsome because he made them feel beautiful.
Relying on physical beauty always leads to disappointment. A friend of mine used to say “we need topick our lovers by their personality cause we all end up lookinglike YODA in the end” and he was sooooo right! I’m nearly there! LOL
Oxy, What a beautiful testimony to a true love and a great guy.
It’s so nice to hear that true love exists. Far and few between, but it does exist.
I am so glad you found this in your life. Cherish your husband’s memories.
God Bless.
Ya’ll are freakin’ me out with the scorpio thing. My s was a scorpio too! I guess they sting their way thru life.
Thank you all for your posts. They are sometimes the only thing keeping me going right now.
When will the constant dreaming about the ex stop?!!!
Beverly– I really like what you have to say.
Do people on this site ever talk to one another? Or is that prohibited?
I wish there were a support group for survivors of psychopathy.
Akitameg,
I think it is just a coincidence about the Scorpio thing, so don’t freak at every Scorpio you meet thinking they may be a socio. lol I have a very good friend who is a Scorpio. I used to work with her and now we live several states apart, but have always frequently kept in touch. She is the one person I confided my situation to while it was all going on and she was like a rock in her support and encouragement towards me and she was very nonjudgemtal and never made me feel “less than” when I was all over the map with the back and forth crazy behavior etc. with the P. She is a super person, and she just happens to be a SCORPIO! 🙂
jen–
I was totally kidding about the scorpio thing. Totally. 🙂
akitameg
All the time:) prohibited? Ha ! No chatting ! Oh can I get a hall pass I need to Go to the restroom ! I remember thinking restroom was a place to take a nap 🙂 In The Navy it’s the HEAD Hum??! hahahahaha Now wini be nice and don’t think sexy thoughts !?! :)~ Opps did I just type That?! Peace
Oxy–re: beautiful people (like Granny from the Hillbillies)
I have a book called “Wrinkles are God’s Makeup”
How’s that for a book title? It’s about how our lines and wrinkles are meaningful and are a testament to our lives. The author teaches a version of the art of Chinese face reading where each line stands for a lesson we’ve encountered in our life. It’s sure a comforting idea as I get older.
amanwhocares–
THANK YOU for mentioning Alice Miller’s book. (The Germans crushing the spirit of their children caught my eye because my mother is German–first generation.) After looking at the book online another point jumped out at me–EMOTIONAL BLINDNESS caused by childhood trauma. Sometimes we can’t even remember the trauma; we’ve had to repress it to survive. I’m going to get this book and another one of Miller’s books. Thanks for the tip.
Hello,
Take Heart all who are hurting. Healing happens. It’s a long process but a worthy one. And, that which we acquire too easily, we value too little….(lest we forget and repeat our mistakes).
I don’t get time to come to LoveFraud as often as I’d like. It is such a wonderful healing place and I learn so much and make so many connections (aha moments) when I do. I read Dr. Steve’s article but only had time to get through about 1/3 of the comments so far. It occured to me that this habituation is something the preditors count on. This concept helps shed light on the process of manipulating victims into isolation. I experienced this (I see in retrospect now), and I see my x manipulating his new wife into the position now, (with the help of Mommy Dearest as always).
I’m glad Dr. Steve put a name on it. For a few years now, I’ve just referred to it as them “lowering your “normal” bar.” That is, we start out with some concept of “normal” boundries and interactions. Repeated exposures to “abnormal” treatment cause habituation (lowering the bar you guage “normal” with). Then, like a cult mentality they strive to keep it there by limiting your exposure to reality and people with healthy boundries, which might bring it back up. I read somewhere that in a hostage/captor situation, it is easier to brainwash someone if yours is the only voice they hear….and I add my own completion of the thought….and yours is the only reality they see.
Thank you all for being here. God put us here together to help each other. For me, I feel He is educating me so I can help my children. Since I can’t keep them from exposure to him, I can at least protect their psychees with what I learn. Then maybe they won’t grow up to be victims OR predators.
Peace and Be Well.