pixilation

See, I'm finally at the point where I understand what this
means, and can recognize that he is doing that right now. And I'm not falling for it this time.

DonnaJL

I've been reading the book, and I'm more confused than ever. Chapter 8 saying that alcohol does not make the person abusive has my head spinning. Can this be true? After 20 years of him being alternately drunk and verbally/emotionally abusive,or sober and totally normal, loving and congenial to me, is he really an abusive person but somehow controlling it when he isn't drinking. If this is accurate, then I am feeling severely disappointed, hopeless and alarmed.

DestinyM

I downloaded the book on my NOOK and I'm really messed up. Its waking up some things in me, some more of the scales of denial are dropping off my eyes. My marriage of 8 yrs to my AH has been riddled with all kinds of abuse and I definitely believed the myths, had the excuses and definitely blamed it all on his addiction. Entitled is his mantra! He has all the points for the nature of abusive thinking. This book has shown me the light. I had to put it down Friday to process the first 3 chapters.

LS2

Thats the chapter I just read, I can't help myself but keep reading! Anyways some of it confused me too. BUT the part that really hit me was this, "Other abusers become more controlling when sober than they were while drunk, standing guard with eyes that are no longer clouded by alcohol." That whole chapter was just one that I need to re-read. It says, "Addiction doesn't cause partner abuse, and recovery from addiction does not "cure" partner abuse."

I would say that with your AH he uses his addiction as an excuse to his behavior. Drunk or not, if he is abusive to you...then he is an abusive man. The alcohol is NOT an excuse for anyone to abuse. It is not okay, ever.

LS2

This chapter was, like the others, eye opening! I am looking at what I underlined and quite frankly might as well be the whole book... "He uses the good periods to shape his public image, making it harder for you to get people to believe that he's abusive." This one he doesn ALOT.

It talked about" real change and how it looks different from a typical good period-so different that you could scarcly mistake the two, as we will see in ch. 14"
It just seems that when they are so far in their abusive relationship with you, they wouldn't want to change-like they would rather find anyother person to prey on and abuse rather than change their own self. That is one of the many reason, I will choose not to stay with him. Period. I am heading for the door as soon as everything is in place.

DonnaJL

In my heart and in my head, I don't think that the info in chapter 8 can be taken as a blanket statement about all alcoholics who are abusive when they are drinking. I simply don't buy that and I think it's wise to take everything written and compare it to what is KNOWN about your own personal situation. Nothing is black and white. Everyone is different. Maybe I am the one who is in denial, but from my own experience, I know that my dp is not verbally and emotionally abusive when he is sober. As I've mentioned in other posts, we met in a bar, we both drank (sometimes to excess) I stopped because I couldn't deal with the huge hangovers, it wasn't worth it. But even when we were both trashed, he wasn't verbally or emotionally abusive or bullying at that point. This is something that has evolved over the years as his drinking escalated. This chapter really has me effed up. I couldn't sleep last night, cried myself to sleep and I'm in a horrible frame of mind this morning because of it and, ashamed to say, I'm having a drink right now (9:30AM) just to try and calm myself. I really wish I hadn't read that chapter. If I believe it, then it takes away any glimmer of hope that I had for a normal life for us if this medication works, and he quits the booze.

LaTeeDa

Donna,

I humbly suggest that your life has become unmanageable. I understand where you are at, because I was once there, too. You have all your eggs in the "he gets sober and we live happily ever after" basket. Staking your future and your happiness on the actions of another puts you at his mercy. You have just read a chapter in a book that suggests things may not work out the way you want them to and you are drinking at 9:30am to "calm yourself." You can see that's not a healthy place to be, right?

Hoping for his sobriety is not a bad thing, but making a plan B in case he doesn't do what you want might be a good idea. It's not that you have to act on it right now, just have a backup plan.

I assume the medication you are talking about is Antabuse. If so, it does not cure alcoholism, much less abuse. Most of the stories I've read on this board involving an alcoholic who thinks that this is a magic pill to cure them end up drinking anyway and stop taking the drug. It doesn't stop the desire to drink, it only makes them sick when they do drink, so if there is no other recovery plan, they just stop taking it.

Please seek some help to take back your life. Alanon, AA, counseling are all options that can help you regain control of YOUR life.

L

DonnaJL

I agree completely about a backup plan, and I am saving money and working towards that but for me it will take time, as I am not in a financial position to make a big move, although if things don't improve, I will have little choice. The drug to which I referred is naltrexone, and was prescribed by his brother. I know that it's not a magic bullet, but his willingness to try it is, for me, a step in the right direction. I have lived with him during sober times and for me they were the happiest times of my life. I was able to feel peace and regain the love for him that drew me to him in the first place. I guess I am pinning my hopes on this medication and the clarity it will bring to both of us. I left a physically abusive drunk when I met my dp, so it was like manna from heaven to be with someone who didn't treat me badly. It was when his drinking became a problem that things changed.
In retrospect, I think taking that drink this morning (and I'm not a drinker) was an attempt at exerting some control over a situation that I know I cannot control. It really didn't do anything for me; I think it was more of a placebo (?) because if I wanted to over-do it, I could drink more but I know it wont change anything. There are 3 overwhelming stressful situations in my life, and living with an alcoholic is only one of them and I can't change any of them and it's driving me up the wall.

StarCat

Donna,
Take a look at this list. Before I even would admit to myself that XABF was abusive, I ran across this list, and half of them fit XABF (and of those, 1/3 of them were recent, within the two weeks prior, so he was also accelerating). It actually is a really good list, and can help you try and figure out where things stand.
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...sal-abuse.html

I absolutely have some comments on this chapter - better left for when I get home tonight.

DonnaJL

Actually, out of the long list, there are very few of those listed that are applicable to my/his situation.

Yes, he was beaten badly as a child, along with his brothers, father was an alcoholic bully and pseudo-Mafioso don who like to wield his 'power' over others. Mother was alcoholic who seemed to enjoy infuriating Father to the point where he'd smack her or the kids.
Yes, he gets verbally loud and abusive when drinking to the point of bullying, but doesn't see it as such.
No, he is not open to compromise when it comes to drinking, i.e., asking him to limit his drinking until after dinner or whatever.
He uses alcohol with adverse affects, as described, which includes mood swings from happy and loving to mean and hateful.

I look forward to your comments, when you have the time.
thanks for caring.

StarCat

I would keep checking the list periodically, just to see what changes.

From what you have stated regarding his past history, there still could be a chance that he is an abuser without the alcohol, so it is still good to educate yourself, and it is definitely something that you need to keep tabs on. It is in his past, so he could still cross that line.
I personally identified the most to these points - 2, 13, 14, 15, 18, (28). These are the ones that my XABF had very early on, when he was not drinking. (The "28" is in parenthesis because he was always saying that he did not want to control me, but his actions said otherwise, so pay more attention to the actions than the words.) In my mind, these are the big ones, because they are a window to his underlying thinking, and were present all the way back in the "honeymoon" stage when he was on his best behavior.

You need to be sure where your boundary is regarding this, and take steps to keep yourself safe should he attempt to cross that line (or succeed at crossing it).

I am not saying I guarantee he will cross it - but now that you have the chance, you might as well prepare, just in case you need this later.

boomerlady

Wow, I was reading chapter 3 last night, and the statement that most stuck with me was:
He doesn't have a problem with his anger, but he has a problem with yours. This struck me because it explains so much about my AH and why he ignores, redirects, and runs when he knows I'm angry. When he's angry, he just blows up and spews vomit all over me and then he's fine. I'm suffering afterwards, but that doesn't bother him. He acts nicely for awhile in the hope that I'll forget the latest explosion.
This book is amazing and it's teaching me so much!!

StarCat

Alright, I am going to quote a bunch of random bits of this chapter that stuck out to me.

One of the earliest lessons I learned from abused women is that to understand abuse you can't lok just at the explosions; you have to examine with equal care the spaces between the explosions. The dynamics of these periods tell us as much about the abuse as the rages or the thrown objects, as the disgusting name-calling or the jealous accusations. The abuser's thinking and behavior during the calmer periods are what cause his big eruptions that wound or frighten.
I'll confess, it was only when I started to examine the times when XABF wasn't exploding that I started to realize just how abusive he really was. Even though he wasn't yelling or screaming, even though he wasn't in a drunken verbally abusive rage, I just never felt like I was permitted to be myself, or that he even cared how I felt.
I always felt manipulated and dismissed, but I didn't realize I always felt that way until I had enough space to breathe, enough quiet to think about more than just the rages. Compared to the rages, it didn't seem so bad in the quiet times... But actually now, I think it was worse when he wasn't raging, because it was harder to see.

The abuser's problem is not that he responds inappropriately to conflict. His abusiveness is operating prior to the conflict: It usually creates the conflict, and it determines the shape the conflict takes.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
He was always telling me I talked too much, then he'd ramble on for hours, get mad if I interrupted, and get mad if I didn't "talk" at all while he did it. (His version of me "talking" usually consisted of me agreeing with him.)
He'd frequently set himself up to play victim, by doing crazy things like sleeping out in the car because "nobody inside appreciates me" - then expecting me to spend all my time trying to convince him to come inside before he freezes to death.

1. He considers it her job to play a supporting role to him.
2. He is constantly focused on her faults, so he assumes everyone else is, too.
3. He doesn't like having her appear in public as smart, capable, and interesting, because that collides with his deeply held belief that she is irrational, incompetent, and worthy of being ignored - a view of her that he may want others to share with him.
4. He is afraid on some level that if she gets enough support for her strengths, she will leave him - and he's quite likely right.
In my case, XABF was always telling me how smart I was, and then taking credit for it, so he wanted everyone to think I was smart, because that made him look better.
Also, in his case, he couldn't comprehend that I would ever leave for any reason, so he wasn't so afraid of anyone supporting my strengths, at least at work... He did isolate me from everyone outside of work, though.

Abusive men are uncomfortable when they see signs of budding independence in their partners and often look for ways to undermine the woman's progress in the days ahead.
This is why he kept calling me from rehab, why he proposed when I told him I needed more distance, and why he is now in semi-creepy part-time stalker mode. His empty words do not have an emotional hold on me, so he is trying to keep up they physical effects as "safely" for him as possible. It's not working, but he is still trying.

He thinks she doesn't care about him because in his mind she can't care about him unless she cares ONLY about him, and not at all about herself or other people. He thinks she is full of herself because she sometimes gets excited about her own goals or activities, when he believes she should be most excited about what HE'S doing. He thinks she dwells on her grievances because she sometimes attempts to hold him accountable rather than letting him stick her with cleaning up his messes - literally and figuratively.
Bookwyrm touched on this one above, but I feel it's important enough to mention again.
This made a lot of sense to me. I always thought he was projecting his own opinions onto me, but really he was projecting his own over-inflated importance onto my actions and complaining when they did not match his invented reality. My entire existence was meant to be centered around him and his wants.

Each verbal battle with an abuser is a walk through a minefield, and each field is different.
Oh, yes.
I would do my best not to engage, to stay detached, not to be pulled in...
The harder I tried, the worse the blow-up was when it eventually happened.

Your happiness in a relationship depends greatly on your ability to get your needs heard and taken seriously. If these decisions are taken over by an abusive or controlling partner, you experience disappointment after disappointment, the constant sacrificing of your needs. He, on the other hand, enjoys the luxury of a relationship where he rarely has to compromise, gets to do the things he enjoys, and skips the rest. He shows off his generosity when the stakes are low, so that friends will see what a swell guy he is.
He always took us to expensive dinners, bought me expensive clothing, took me all over the place... and then I was constantly bailing him out, and propping him up behind the scenes, and being blamed when things went poorly.
He'd snap at the littlest things, and then use that as an excuse to snarl obscenities at me, then hold these un-solicited gifts over my head as reasons why he was doing his part of the "relationship" and how I was being useless and selfish when I complained about doing all the chores.

I am lucky that he had so much debt, and wanted me to have a good well-paying job so that I could help pay for everything. Otherwise I'd be stuck even worse.

That's the main notes I took this chapter that Bookwyrm hasn't touched upon.
This chapter was less emotional for me than the others, and more of a factual eye-opener. It explained so many things that didn't make sense regarding the times I felt he was "non-abusive" but I was still uneasy.
Turns out he was abusive, just more subtle.

bookwyrm

Thanks Starcat! It takes me a couple of hours to post each chapter and I love that you come and add the stuff I either missed or hadn't quite thought about in that way! I'm not terribly good at expressing myself so I'm actually processing a lot when I summarise the chapters and it does take a lot out of me. I like having a co-author, especially when this stuff is so hard. Your support has really helped me keep on going! (I'm really dreading the next chapter - but one day at a time!)

This chapter was actually harder for me. XAH didn't have a whole lot of outbursts - only when he was drinking. It took me a long time to actually recognise that his behaviour in between was more manipulative, more damaging and harder to identify as abuse. Its the more subtle stuff that I'm still trying to unpick and this chapter has really helped!

BobbyJ

Bookwyrm
Appreciate the hours you have put into typing your post.
Your poor eyes must get tired...lol
Love Reading Them!

THANK YOU!!!

StarCat

*Blushes* Thanks, bookwyrm. Never thought of myself as a "co-author," but I'm happy to help!
We're just wandering through, trying to sort this out together.

XABF was a rager, in my case, although it was awhile before he started raging against me - usually it was against society in general, then specific people he felt had wronged him... So it was only against me at the end. Subtlety was not his strongest suit, but he did manage it often enough to "balance out" the rest.
This chapter did help me sort out the hooks that got me into the relationship in the first place, to be honest... And also helped me disregard his constant requests when he started in on,

"You know I don't mean any of that stuff! It's just the alcohol talking. When I yell at you like that, just remember all the good things we do together, and all the nice things I say to you, so that you can remember not to listen to me when I'm being cruel."

...What kind of a relationship is that, really?
And now I'm looking back at all the "beautiful" poems he wrote to me, and they're all about how he loves the things I do for him, and all about how I complete him, and none are really about me. But they touched him enough that he cried whenever he read them.
This chapter fully explained that emotional level of him. Now reading back to his "nice times" I can still see the manipulations and abuse. They're there, alright.


And I do agree with Donna - thank you so much for taking the time to run this book study. I am still learning so many things, and digging deeper into the book, and your time in this thread is helping a lot!

nodaybut2day

My XAH was like this too. He felt that EVERYONE was out to get him and that every women he'd been with had used/abused him. He generally felt victimized by the world and his reaction to that was ANGER. He was deeply misogynistic, believing that women are either saints or wh*res, who use their feminine charms in some way or another to advance their careers or acquire material things.

He was also very racist and had a problem with almost every ethnic group out there, the Jews, the Asians, the Blacks, the Middle Eastern, the South Americans, and of course the French Canadians...as well as most minority groups, like gays, or the physically/mentally challenged. He regularly went on long rants about how "those people" were whiny and should just accept that the "strong white man" had defeated them. If I *dared* interrupt him, or challenge his reasoning, then hellfire would rain down on me. Looking back, I realize the man was addicted to his rages and the feeling of superiority he granted himself by stepping on everyone around him. It was a kind of continual emotional masturbation.

StarCat

Oh, yes! I had actually forgotten that!
In his case, it was African Americans and Puerto Ricans.
He was very accepting of everyone else, and would even brag to people, "I'm Albanian!"
His grandfather was Albanian, and it's great to get in touch with your heritage, sure... My grandmother was German, and if the topic comes up I'll state that as fact, but I don't go around telling everyone "I'm German!" because the only German thing I know is her recipe for pound cake, and my mispronounced attempts at singing "O Tannen Baum."

bookwyrm

The Abusive Man in Relationships - Abusive Men and Sex

He's not attracted to me anymore, which really hurts me.
It's easier sometimes to just give in.
He never hits me but he did force me to have sex once.
We both have an infection now and he says it must have come from me but I haven't had any affairs, so I know it's him.
It seems like the only time we feel close is when we're making love.


This chapter starts with 2 examples - one of Arnaldo, the sexually amazing abuser and Ernie, the sexually degrading abuser. The chapter then describes their common attitudes. When we look inside the abusers mind we often find that dazzling love-making and spirit-murdering sexual aggression can actually be two aspects of the same mindset.

Studies show that women whose partners abuse them sexually can have some of the greatest emotional difficulties, including depression, of any abused woman.

The underpinnings of the sexual mentality of many abusers:

1. Its for HIM.
Sex is about meeting his needs. He may put some effort into creating pleasure for his partner but probably not because her satisfaction, or sharing a mutual experience, is important to him. He is invested in having her reach orgasm so that he can see himself as a great lover...Everything refers back to him.
...he compensates for the lack of genuine intimacy by elevating sex to the highest plane, burdening it with the responsibility of providing him with all the emotional satisfaction that he is not receiving elsewhere...

2. She owes him sex.
...believe that a woman gives up her right to decline sex once she becomes seriously involved with a man. It's her responsibility to have sex with him to make him feel loved, to meet his sexual needs or simply because that's her job.
..seem to believe that the woman loses her right to refuse him if the man deems it has been 'too long' since they have had sex.
He believes his wife is keeping something of his away from him when she doesn't want intimate contact. He sees sexual rights to a woman as akin to mineral rights to land - and he owns them.

3. Sex is a way to establish power and dominance.
'I have power over you because we have sex' Once he has gone 'all the way' with a woman he feels that he owns her or ta least owns a piece of her.

4. He sees her as a sex object
An abuser who exhibits any one of the sexual attributes above , or all three, has to distance himself from his partner's thoughts and feelings in order to avoid guilty feelings about how he is using and wounding her sexually...This depersonalising of his partner can, in the long term, be as psychologically injurious to her as any of his other abusive behaviours.
He just makes me feel gross.
I feel dirty and slimed on.
He makes me feel cheap.
The sexual stuff he does has really ruined my self esteem.
Its been years since I had sex that felt loving or voluntary. With him it seems more like he thinks he's winning a war or something. It's like an invasion. I hate it.

Dehumanisation can be a sickening, horrible experience for the person whom it is directed. If you are involved with a sexually exploitative partner, you may find that sex is sometimes, or perhaps always, a nightmare. Exploitative, rough, coercive, uncaring sex is similar to physical violence in its effects and can be worse in many ways. A part of why it feels so degrading is that a woman can sense the fact that in her partner's mind she has ceased to exist as a human being.

Mr Amazing
...can create a vibrantly sensual lovemaking experience because of how engrossed he is in seeing himself as an awe-inspiring person...Mr Amazing is enraptured for another reason. He finds possession enthralling. He feels like he is entering a magical realm where you belong to him totally...

The abuser who isn't interested in sex
The man has lost sexual interest almost completely and the woman is feeling rejected and hungry for sex and affection. His drop in sexual energy can be propelled by several forces including:

• A substantial proportion of abusive men are sexually shallow and so are only attracted to women with whom they have not had sex or to those they have been with only a few times.
• Similarly, he may be incapable of sustained sexual attraction to any woman who doesn't meet his exaggerated ideal.
• He may be attracted primarily to sex involving domination...he may feel disappointed to discover you don't fit his fantasy of a concubine.
• He may be punishing you for some way you have challenged him or for times you have not felt like having sex with him...
• If he is indeed having an affair, his energy for sex at home is bound to be siphoned off some.
• He may be addicted to drugs or alcohol. Some substance abusers lose their sex drive.
• He may be gay.
• He may ration out sex as a way to gain power, sensing that you will try extra hard to keep him happy in hopes of getting him interested in lovemaking.

Sex as a cure all.
Why does he want to have sex after abusing me?
He is seeking a quick fix for his abusive behaviour. He feels that if you have sex together, it proves that his verbal degradation or his violence is not that serious, that you aren't hurt by what he did and that everything is forgiven and forgotten.
He wants to reassure himself that his abuse isn't going to cause you to pull away from him emotionally or sexually. In fact, pursuing sex after abuse can be an expression of the man's entitlement, as if to say, 'Even if I'm mean to you, I should still get to have sexual access'.

Sex as a way to keep women divided.
By getting women to channel their energy into fighting with each other he escapes confrontation or accountability for his own actions and gets women to focus on meeting his needs and keeping him happy.
How to stop this routine?
...keep the following principles in mind:

1. An abusive man lies a lot. Don't believe what he tells you about what is happening in his relationships with other women, including what those women have supposedly said about you.
2. Communicate directly with other women as much as possible to compare stories about what he's saying and doing so that he can't play you off each other.
3. If a man cheats, that is 100% his responsibility. Don't let him channel your anger toward the other woman as if he were the helpless victim of seduction. Abusive men love to portray themselves as unable to control their hormonal urges, which is nonsense.
4. Apply the principles of 'no third chances'. When a man, especially an abusive one, cheats for the second time, that means that more affairs will follow, no matter what promises he may make.
5. Many women want to have a sexually intense partner, which is fin, men don't have to cheat to be sexy.

The role of pornography
For many abusive men, pornography has shaped their sexuality since they were teenagers or even younger. It has helped to form their view of what women are like and what they ought to be....
Pornography tends to be filled with abuse of women, so his drive to make her watch it can also come from wanting to prove to her that his degrading treatment is normal.

What about sex that involves games of force and violence?
Is all sex play that involves adopting roles of domination or force abusive even if its consensual? No.
The key words are consensual and play.
The meaning of what happens during sexual play is determined by the context of the relationship.

Sex and double standards.
The double standards that are endemic to abusers can stand out sharply in the sexual arena...
The abuser who has frequent affairs is often the same one who interrogates his partner about her movements and social contacts and goes ballistic when he has the slightest suspicion that she is developing any kind of connection - sexual or otherwise - to another man. ...a popular justification...is that men have an inherent need to be with many women whereas women want to be monogamous....you might call this the 'human beings are basically baboons' argument. In reality there are plenty of examples of stable monogamy in nature.
...sometimes pressure their partners with the myth that men can suffer physical pain or damage if they become sexually aroused and are not satisfied. Of course, I have never heard them claim that this risk applied to unsatisfied women.
...the woman is supposed to consent to sex any time the man is in the mood but she is never supposed to initiate sex herself...nothing could better illustrate the way in which an abuser's approach to sex reflects his overall orientation toward power and control. he wants to run the couple's sex life and he doesn't want her needs interfering with his fantasy in any way.

Sex and vulnerability
For most women (and perhaps for most non abusive men as well) sex is an area of emotional vulnerability....the abusive man tends to make mental note of the highly personal knowledge he gains...his partner may find that her vulnerabilities are being thrown back on her.

Sexual assault is violence
Sexual assault is violence. An abuser who forces his partner to have any form of sexual relations against her will is physically battering her.
There is a societal tendency not to recognise the violence present in sexual assault which can make it more difficult for a woman to understand her own reactions and reach out for help.
Repeated studies have demonstrated that men who embrace certain key myths about rape are more likely to carry out a sexual assault. The misconceptions include the belief that women find rape arousing, that they provoke sexual assault with their style of dress or behaviour and that rapists lose control of themselves. These myths are easy for many abusive men to accept because they are consistent with the other characteristics of an abusive outlook in female partners.

Key Points:

• The abuser often believes that the ultimate decision-making authority regarding sex rests with him. He may see his partner as his sexual possession.
• Sex with an abuser can be especially good but it can also be a horror show. The two extremes actually result from similar attitudes in the abuser's mind-set regarding sex.
• The majority of abusers sexualise power including some who find violence sexually exciting.
• Since sexuality is an area of particular vulnerability for most women, an abuser may use any of your sensitivities against you.
• If you feel uncomfortable about sexual interactions with your partner, listen carefully to your inner voice regarding what is good for you. An abusive man will try to tell you that your discomfort is your own problem rather than a product of his coercive, disrespectful or humiliating sexual behaviour.
• Women (and men) can heal from injurious sexual experiences but healing is not likely to happen while abuse continues in the present. Attaining an abuse free life is thus the first step to sexual wellness.

bookwyrm

This chapter makes me feel physically sick. For a long time, this was how I felt about sex:
He just makes me feel gross.
I feel dirty and slimed on.
He makes me feel cheap.
The sexual stuff he does has really ruined my self esteem.
Its been years since I had sex that felt loving or voluntary. With him it seems more like he thinks he's winning a war or something. It's like an invasion. I hate it.

The onward march of his alcoholism finally saved me - he sex drive disappeared over the years and I was 'safe'.
XAH didn't use physical violence, he emotionally manipulated me into sex and then controlled everything.

I can't do this any more tonight. I'm sorry. I just can't. I'll come back to this tomorrow. I feel like I have to get this out somehow or it will fester inside of me...but not tonight. Time for bed...