Heal The Abuse - Recover Your Life, Jason Goodwin [ink book reader .txt] 📗

_____ 6. I am learning that I need to meet myphysical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs.

_____ 7. I regularly take good care ofmyself, because I like how it makes me feel.

Chapter 27 –Unhealthy Relationships

“Let’s face it…most relationships you have inlife don’t work out.”

-Alex Bennett

Unhealthy relationships are those that failto meet our needs for love and respect. Many of us developedunhealthy patterns when we were sexually abused. We may repeatthese same patterns later in our adult lives.

When we examine the facts, we find that thedivorce rate in our country has risen to well over fifty percent.What does this mean? Are our relationships getting worse, or havewe become less tolerant of the problems we experience? Do we expecttoo much?

I have found no evidence to suggest that theaverage relationship has gotten better or worse over time. Therehas always been domestic violence. There has always been adultery.People have always experienced problems in their relationships.What seems to have changed is the way we handle those problems.

In the past, men and women were expected tosimply endure their partner’s negative behaviors. They wereexpected to keep quiet about the problems they were having.

America is a grand experiment. With theadvent of equal rights, women’s liberation, advances in the fieldsof therapy and counseling, shelter and protection for abused womenand children, and the proliferation of no-fault divorce, ourstandards and expectations for relationships have risen. Peopleexpect to be treated with dignity and respect. We look for specificcharacteristics in a partner like compatibility, mutual interests,religious orientation, sexual attraction, and a stable financialsituation. The list of characteristics people are “shopping for”has become unrealistic. Gone are the days when finding a partnerwas simple.

In a sense, we have become incrediblyspoiled. Our relationships have progressed from arranged marriages,where a bride and groom were given no choice about whom to marry,to today’s unrestrained freedom of choice. Most of us want thefairy tale romance we read about in pulp fiction novels. We wantrelationships that will make us feel better, never cause stress inour lives, and perfectly meet all of our needs.

We are living on planet Earth. Even healthycouples have disagreements and struggle from time to time. Is itfair to hold our partner to standards so high that we ourselvescould never measure up to them?

I believe the level of commitment people arewilling to make to relationships today is the lowest it has everbeen. People are divorcing for increasingly trivial reasons. Thereis little cultural pressure to stay in a relationship and workthrough the problems.

In my view, there are too many of us who lackmotivation to change our behavior. We are encouraged to indulge ourfantasies and our dreams. Why take responsibility for our personaldefects of character if we don’t have to? It’s easier to pay for ano-fault divorce.

Of course, some of the trends emerging fromthis movement have been tremendously positive. In the past, whenpeople were being verbally, emotionally, or physically abused, theyhad no legitimate means of escape. People had no way to removethemselves from an abusive relationship. Many men and women stayedin relationships that were damaging to their self-esteem. Theyaccepted disrespect, cruelty, or even abuse from theirpartners.

Where is the balance? As a society, we haveobviously not found it.

There have always been people who abusedothers and were unable to compromise. There have always been peoplewho could not allow for any imperfections in their partner. Peopleof this type are incapable of developing healthy relationships,because insisting on perfection from another human being is crueland unrealistic.

We need to take things slowly beforecommitting to a relationship and giving someone our trust.

As survivors of sexual abuse, what kinds ofpeople are we attracted to? Abusers or other survivors of abuse? Ifwe find ourselves attracted to unhealthy partners, than we are asmuch to blame as they are.

The five characteristics of a goodrelationship are respect, trust, communication, boundaries, andsupport.

In Chapter 28, I describe issues of respectin greater detail. But unhealthy partners also have problems withtrust. They fail to trust others or become overly controlling orjealous. They often lie or misrepresent the truth. Life with adishonest partner becomes a game of “catch me if you can.”

Some unhealthy partners have difficulty withcommunication. They fail to communicate the things they want orneed from a relationship. They use accusatory or vague statementslike, “You’re always messing things up.” Healthy communicationinvolves “I” statements that are specific. An example of an “I”statement might be, “I don’t feel respected when you show up 30minutes late for dinner.”

Another characteristic of an unhealthypartner is that they fail to respect our boundaries. They continueto act in ways we feel uncomfortable with, like flirting with theopposite sex or failing to live up to their commitments. Sometimesthey have difficulty setting healthy boundaries with others.

Finally, unhealthy partners are unsupportive.They abuse or criticize us when we feel down instead of building usup or helping us to face the challenges of life. An unsupportivepartner may fail to provide encouragement, money, love, commitment,intimacy, or time to a relationship.

Abusive relationships can be a disaster, andeach new abusive relationship will be just as painful as the last.When children or financial commitments are involved, abusiverelationships can cause a great deal of suffering for everyoneinvolved.

Whether we realize it or not, we are oftenattracted to people who struggle with the same issues we do. Everywoman I ever dated was a survivor of sexual abuse. How could I haveknown that before I started dating them? I don’t seem to rememberasking, “Excuse me, but are you a survivor of sexual abuse? I onlydate women who have the same issues I do.”

No, I was never consciously aware of thispattern. Yet in every relationship, I eventually discovered thatthe person I was with had been sexually abused. Now I finallyunderstand how this happened. Why I kept repeating the same, sickrelationships. It was because I never fully resolved my sexualabuse issues.

This pattern was not an accident. We areattracted to certain characteristics in another person. I believethat we can sense these characteristics on a subconsciouslevel.

Why do we feel attracted to abusers? It isbecause our mind is constantly trying to resolve whatever issues westill struggle with. It is attracted to unfinished