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.)
Hey Muldoon – He will comeback. Like Jen2008 just wrote – he will. That’s what they do, they use us at their convenience. He’ll come back to you once he’s devalued and discarded the other woman. And he’ll stay with you until he’s ready to devalue and discard you (and your children) again, when he’s found someone new to idealize for a while (and then later devalue and discard). It’s what he does. The challenge, for you..and it’s a HUGE challenge, is to get out of the dance. It’s so hard because you have formed a very strong attachment to him (he’ll claim he has with you, but he hasn’t. He owns you and wants to use you with NO regard to how it will make you feel). I didn’t have children with my ex, but from what I understand, that makes it even harder. But just try to remember that he will keep this dance going forever until you are completed used up and wasted. He doesn’t care what he does to you. He doesn’t care that this in-and-out cycle is killing you. He doesn’t care at all. It may seem like he does, but he doesn’t, he’s being strategic. Your monumental task is to get out. It’s so hard, because we do not want to believe they are as horrible as they are. We want to give them third, fourth, fifth, thirtieth, sixtieth, chances, It is devastating to accept what they are. The bereavement you felt – that’s the feeling, or rather the predominant feeling, most of us feel for a long time. It gets mixed in with anger, sadness, jealously, bitterness, rage, and whole host of other feelings from the negative spectrum. But you have got to go through them. I believe there is something beautiful on the other side. From reading these posts, I see that other people get better. And I have witnessed myself getting better. I threw mine out of the house in March. March through July, the pain was almost unbearable. I thought I would die of pain, and wanting him back so much, and hating him so much. It’s gotten better since August, September, October….till today. I won’t lie – I’m still in pain. But it’s gotten much better, which gives me hope that i am on the progression. And people on this site give me so much comfort and encouragement. Keep coming. No matter what happens, what choices you make, keep coming. We understand.
Healing heart, read and cried at your post, cry alot these past days.I already know for sure that there can be no way back for him, for the first time ever I have told my family and friends exactly what has been going on, I have applied for a residential order on thursday to prevent him running off with them shoud he get it in his head to. I have been to womens aid who alerted social services to what has been going on.
I just dont know how he will react when i stick to my guns, the few times I have ignored his pleas he has threatened to get women to beat me up, to paint me a bad mother to the court, to kill me, to run off ith the kids, this interspesed with pleading…I have never taken it to where he does not eventaully get his way.
What will his reaction be say if he comes xmas eve looking to return and I stick to my guns/?
My intention is to ignore the door knock and busy the chldren so they dont notice and if he persists threaten to call the police. \Will that be enough or is ther going to be more than I am bargaining for?
I think i was born to be a victim, 1 of 10 children born to a socipopathic maybe even psychopathic father with a submissive dependant mother. Outright sexual abuse even in her presence without a word from her, physical and mental beatings and dire neglect behind closed doors.
ran away at 14, fell pregnant to a boy who said he would love me always, hardly knew him but was desperate for some kind of affection. Ordered home by the court, where at 4 months pregnant I was punched and kicked to induce miscarriage by my father while my mother looked on silently, sent to coventry by siblings on order and to be addressed as the whore only, when none of these things induced miscarriage I was forced to push his van up and down the road maybe several times a day till it started. In the end at 22 weeks pregnat I delivered a still born baby.
Left home at 16, slept rough then met my first husband, second and third husbands soon folowed but no chldren.
My last husband before this one was a serial womaniser with many socioathic traits, ran to a refuge to escape the escalating violence.
Met Kevin in feb 1999, a whirlwind romance, he was perfect and compassionate and like me he had a lousy childhood, my mother hated him immediately and said he was like my father.. A girl came up to us in the cafe and began giving me evil looks, Kvin threatended her to go away and she did, but it niggled me as to why, on asking he said she was nuts.I ignored this, after 2 weeks he moved in, well he just never left really and everywhere I went he followed. Then the first blow, after8 weeks he told me he was on parole for petty theft and was due to be sentenced to return to serve the remainding 22 month sentence…Stood by him, paid for a solicitor to fight for his freedom cost £1000..Solicitor advises him to plead guilty, turns out he was actualy not a petty theif but a burglar…duly he gets the 22 months. He tells me he didnt do it but he is taking the blame for another person..I believe it and admire the loyalty.
I travel 250 miles every wek for the 22 months, wrote three tiomes a day everyday and barely went out of the house incase he phoned.Had our first child whilst he was in.
Row with his brother over them not bothering with him, brother tells me..” He wont stay with you, you are a convenience for jail, he will kick you in toi touch as soon as he is out”.
Within 2 months of coming home he has done away with my friends calling them sluts, he was not the kind loving man when making love since his return, it was like hardcore pornography, i put it down to jail.
eve of wedding, happy as he goes on his stag do, at midnight he is at the door wanting to kill me, best man begging him to leave it and come away, he knocks doors of neighbours and tells them how fat and ugly I am and how he wont be marrying me in the morning. Best man fights with him to stop him, ends with bestman breaking his leg. All night he abused me and sat tellingm e how disgusting my tears looked.
He fell asleep and upon waking, apologetic and yes you guessed….the wedding went through. all day chartming infront of the guests. Off on honeymoon…as soon as we alone it starts again and I receive my first true beating within an inch of my life…It went on for 5 days, I sought a solicitor and was issuing proceedings to absolve the marriage…Mr nice comes back,
pregnant and now the mood swings begin, at first just silence for days on end, my pleas for normality or a reason met with abuse, or and excuse of some petty thing i had said days before. I begged pleaded and seduced him in to better moods.
The moods over and its mr nice again, loving, happy helpfull.
Mood swings increase in regulality till i am on the verge of a breakdown, cant sleep, weight loss and sleep deprivation induced psychosis, doctor decided i cannot endure teh pregnancy as my mental health, termination booked. Find out he has been chatting to someone on a kinky site for people to meet for sex. He is far from sorry, he tells me I am fat, ugly, useless, totally character assasinated me.
Then back to nice..untill its too late for the termination to take place, then beat me physically and mentally right through to and during birth. baby in intensive care, still wont speak to me other than to abuse me , staff call police…I refuse to complain. He demands I walk home with him, its 6 miles, Febuary and I am bare foot in just a nighty bleeding heavily from birth. He tries to have sex with me and demands when i cannot to help him out with a hand as he calls it, I do whilst weeping, this appears to rurn him on!
On off like that, catching him looking and advertising on swinger sites and watching degrading porn.Mood swings, abuse on every scale.
April 2008 out of the blue when we had been on a happy period he begins to not want to walk with me or have me pick him up from work anymore, tells me its over, doesnt love me…By now had enough, social services showing an interest in to why i never press charges when people call the police to save me, say i am putting kids at risk..I say F*** off and off he goes..returning the next day as if nothing has occured..he sleeps well that night while my head is mashed, a text comes through on his phone, its a woman…I ring her, she tells me he stayed the night there the previous night, that he told her he was divorced, she says I want nothing to do with him…I wake him and ask what is going on…he jumps up, smashes me in the face knocking out my front tooth, breaks my nose, fractures my cheek and then commences to light a cigarette and sit astride me smoking, strangling me to semi conscious then burning my head to bring me to..all the time telling me “this is the last moments of your life”. the baby…4 appears, screams still kno let up…then one of the older children appears and he stops. Sends the elder child to bed byut baby clinging to me..as he tells me get her to sleepi” am going to kill you when she is asleep”
Manage to reach the phone and dial 999, he was audible saying he was going to kill me…within ten mins police here.
Given bail, he starts to harrass me and everytime i report it he is re arrested. House raided, he has told police whe his stash of class a drugs were hidden and blamed me.
Find out that a week before he has met a girl in work and now he with her…she rings me and says so, i tell ehr what he is doing…she finishes with him….back he comes to haunt me…
baby clingy from it all he says he sees the price and willnever do it again….august, he agains says dont love you it over etc…on daughters birthday..I throw him out, he goes willingly, but texts me abusng me, abuses me on collecting the kids etc.
then out of the blue he is begiging to come home, its been 7 weeks apart I think yes he will ahve learnt….Hittng me within a week, telling me not sorry hopw people hate me and how he loves to hurt me/
8 weeks pass of mainly happyish times except i walk on egg shells as do the children.
Monday this week one of kids comes across porn on P.C…I dont bother sayinga bout it I know it will set him off as it has always done, so i download net nanny…he sees the thing on the P,C and all hell broke loose….He asks who is policing my use of P.C , I point out I dont need policing.. year old pipes up with daddy i dont like you playinmg with your front bum on the P>C!!! I go mad….Off he goes, he is leaving, I say good…back and for telling kids mum has made me homeless at hristmas, smashed my glasses rendering me all but blind and my car.Tells people I am n uts and says never wants to see me or kids again…
Turns out he is with the one from august again and was all the long..
Bumping in to him places he knows I will be….jsut strarin…Dog sh*t through the letter box and now silence..w.hich i find more scary as it has me on edge..
Lowest points…masterbated whilst i say swalling pills, birthing as he telling me what a idiot i am…having me arrested on spurious counter allegations and telling secrets about family members causing mayhem.
Oh and two months ago he told me the girl in the cafe was his girlfriend who he hadnt told it was over or he was seeing me.
My Goodness, Muldoon, it sounds like you are really at a crisis point (actually, it sounds like you have been in a chronic crisis [so sorry, you don’t deserve this] but its reached a head), and need to circle the wagons. Do you have a restraining order? Many of us needed to get one. If you get one, however, you cannot let him back in, and you may have mixed feelings about that given your children/xmas holiday. I can’t tell anyone what to do, of course, and I don’t really know your situation, but you may want to consider getting one. He sounds dangerous. Also, do you have mental health services? A therapist? Social Worker? Case manager? It sounds like you and your children need mental health support and legal protection. Is your family helpful? You mentioned that you came clean with them in an earlier post. Hang in there! It sounds like you have begun the process of escaping. It’s so hard, but so critical. Keep going!
family not helpfull, they are all inadequate themselves. No restraining order as yet, been told fill criteria for him to have supervised access via centre..will be doing that…been through this site with a fine tooth comb, already knew lots but lots didnt that filled in what I did not know. No way will i go back, dont know if I am imagining it but feel I wioll be seriously maimed maybe killed but then I tell myself I may be being dramatic.
Think he is narcistic, he fits the criteria, seven short of full marks on the is he NPD quiz!!
I am in Britain, we are behind you americans with councelling etc and there are huge waiting lists. Did have a psychiatrist when he was dosing me up on tramadol in my coffee without me knowing, ended up addicted and had withdrawals which he almost got me locked up for as I was so clucky.
Christmas will be spoilt if he comes near so its all out preventing this, if the baby see#s him she will be sad and beg him to stay so i am going to refuse contact till he see’s a solicitor which wont be till january.
Have now been described olanzapine to help me stop going over it all in my mind, its all I can think of…Tried pulling nw files like it says somewhere on here, cant sustain it and have to do it several times an hour….used to be a bit OCD with counting sets of numbers, found myself doing that again.
Muldoon:
I agree with Healing Heart. You are at a crisis point. She is coming at her advice as a mental health professional. I am going to come at it as a legal professional.
Like Healing Heart, I do not know your situation. However, based on your post, I have serious concerns that your sociopath is escalating rapidly.
On the one hand you do not want to disrupt your children’s Christmas. On the other hand you fear that your sociopath will use this as an excuse to get his foot back in the door.
Domestic violence skyrockets over the holidays. Your children have witnessed him beating you. You do not want your children to witness him beating you on Christmas. Or worse.
A restraining order may help. However, too often they prove to be only worth the paper they are written on. Healing Heart has give you excellent advice. I am taking that advice one step further and urging you to seriously consider getting you and your children out of harm’s way.
On this site you will find Donna’s advice for leaving the sociopath. It is good advice.
Hi Matt…..Read the advice, its just not possible or practical. eldest child at critical time in school, exams etc. tried for an injunction, need him to assault me again and this time act on it. Have installed cameras at front and back and 999 is on contant recall..Neighbours vigilant on my behalf….I know I need stress/mental help, I feel like everything is surreal, almost dream like, I havent eaten in days and barely sleep, I cant switch my mind off and my mind is like mercury as peices fall in to place as I read more and more on this site. I am living on coffee and fags, and am chronic asthmatic so its nopt good at all…I still clean and cook and do my chores for kids, feel guilty all they are seeing is me crying or stressed.
Ia m doing my best.
Healing heart….mind me asking, whats the prognosis for people who suffer long term abuse by these bast*rds? |And the children who see it? My kids excell in school and are regular church goers, they seem fine, if anything they seem a bit too relaxed about it all.
I swear I will die this time before he gets a foot over the door or has the kids without a court ordering me to do do. ….it may even be him that dies because I wont be dying easy.