Dragonslippers
I need you to help me because I feel like I'm going insane. It has to do with my sister and her boyfriend. She's been with him for nine years and living a lie ever since. He's been unfaithful to her since the beginning of the relationship and continues to do her wrong. When times get hard, he runs out on her.
She has a daughter from a previous marriage and one with him. He plays in a rock band and never has time for them. He stays out every weekend and says he has a show, when in actuality he is with another woman. He has girls text messaging him and she's seen what they say to him, yet she covers for him and says it's nothing.
Her children are suffering because she doesn't pay attention to their needs. Just a few weeks ago, he tells her he's leaving her again and moves in with another woman. Then he texts how miserable he is without her and how much he loves her.
I know she will take him back, and I think it will be the last straw for me. I love her with all my heart, but I worry more about what she is doing to the children. She acts as if she can't live without him and will put up with anything--lying, cheating, disrespect--just so he won't leave her. What can I do to help her see the light?
Bernadette
Bernadette, there are only three things you can do. First, you can be the best aunt to your sister's children that you can be.
Second, accept that your sister is in an abusive relationship. For some reason, she is willing to put up with this behavior. You don't understand that reason, but it has great power over her. So to gain more understanding, and possibly be of help, start reading about abuse and contact organizations for abused women.
One question outsiders always have is, How can an otherwise smart, capable woman put up with abuse? Dragonslippers, a recent book by Rosalind Penfold, provides an answer. Roz Penfold was in such a relationship for 10 years. She kept a diary, and when words failed her, she drew pictures. The book is a graphic portrait of abuse.
Many women like Roz ease into abuse one small step at a time and use common ideas in our culture to justify what they are doing--turning the other cheek, forgiving the other, accepting bad behavior as a disease.
It is a truism that a woman with an abusive man will not leave that situation until she sees things in the particular light which will make her change. For one woman, it might be consideration of the children--their suffering, their future, their well-being. For another woman, it might be understanding that she seeks abuse because she feels unworthy of anything better. For a third woman, it might be a vision of her own future.
In dealing with your sister and her family you must be totally honest. If your sister praises her boyfriend, let her know everyone knows exactly what he is like and how he fails as a man. Don't go along with any imaginary or delusional way she presents his behavior. Let her children know that a good man does not treat a woman this way, and that a woman should never put up with this sort of treatment. In short, educate them to your way--the proper way--to view their home life.
Finally, realize she may never change, and there may be nothing you can do to cause her to change. An accident of birth has linked the two of you as sisters. Just as you cannot allow alcoholic and drug-based behavior, or criminal behavior, or abusive behavior to dominate your life, so you cannot allow her self-demeaning life to ruin your own.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of June 5, 2006)
Jailbreak
My girlfriend is really upset over her friendships. On her last birthday her two best friends didn't show up. All her friends constantly break plans with her which makes her feel unwanted and lonely. She lives in an emotionally abusive home and needs good friends, but she feels if she gives up the old friends she will have no one.
She also feels every new friend she makes will do the same thing. I've suggested she find a club or group where she can meet people with similar interests. I even went so far as to look up her university and send her Internet links. However, I don't think she intends to try them.
She considers my friends and their wives or girlfriends more like friends than her own. When I tell her to give them a call, she says she wouldn't feel comfortable talking about our relationship with them. While watching me play volleyball, she became close to one of the girls I play with. I told her to e-mail this girl or I can, but she said it would be strange calling her up after so long.
Rafe
Rafe, your girlfriend can't get a new family of origin, and they won't change. Why would she think she will be treated well by anyone, when she has not been treated well by the people who are supposed to love her? Why would she think she can escape from any situation in her life?
She is in a prison, and people in prison become institutionalized. They would rather stay in the life they know than take a chance on life outside prison walls. That is how she views things.
But beneath her bad experience is her human essence, and that essence is positive, hopeful, resilient, and able to change. We are not the kind of people who tell others to "have a nice day." We are realists. We are saying this because it is true.
Your girlfriend needs someone who can show her how to get past emotional abuse. You've tried to help her and failed. That suggests she needs skilled help.
Wayne
(From the column for the week of April 24, 2006)
Beyond Your Control
My father is verbally and mentally abusive. He is an alcoholic, stubborn, and old-fashioned in his thoughts and feelings. I left home at an early age to live a normal life. My concern is my mother who still lives with my father. She is a very intelligent woman, but he is verbally abusive to her and he used to hit her. I am not there now, and I don’t know if he still hits her. She wouldn’t tell me if he did.
I tried to persuade her to leave, but she is afraid of him and brainwashed. I want her to have a normal, happy life. We recently had a death in our family, and the relative that died had a long happy life with no regrets. I want my mother to have the same. How can I help her?
Mia
Mia, there is no easy answer to this one. The first principle is save yourself. You have done that. One characteristic shared by the children of alcoholics is feeling responsible for what went wrong with their family. In fact, they often feel responsible for everything that goes wrong in their part of the universe! You are not responsible for your mother’s life or your father’s behavior.
Having escaped a horrible situation, the most important thing is not to let yourself be dragged back into the quagmire. One of the first things a lifeguard learns is not to let the drowning person drown them. Losing two lives helps no one. The most vital thing you can do is live your life to the fullest. Don’t let this situation consume your life, or the lives of your children and your spouse. This may sound cold, but it is the most realistic and practical advice we can give you.
Your father’s alcoholism and abuse are extremely deep-seated behaviors. It is a truism that alcoholics normally have no chance of changing until they bottom out. Even then they often show the same personality traits they did when they were drinking. The same is unfortunately true of your mother. Whatever combination of choice, upbringing, and circumstance put her in this situation, it may be impossible to extricate her.
You are not responsible for this problem. It is already too late for your mother to live a life with no regrets. Give her what support you can, but realize you may be no more able to alter her tragedy, than you can alter the tragedies you see each evening on the nightly news.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of March 13, 2000)
Go Ask Alice
I am involved with a woman whose husband abandoned her. At first our relationship revolved around her heartbreak over his actions. He was unfaithful to her and moved out of the house twice. The first time he left she begged and begged for him to return, and he eventually did.
He promised he would be the perfect husband, but less than a year later he left a note in the kitchen saying he was leaving again and took all his stuff. He abandoned her completely. He had emotionally abused her in too many ways to mention.
I met her four months later. Initially I provided a sympathetic ear for all her problems. Slowly we became closer until one day she told me I made the pain go away and she loved me. I fell in love also, and she filed for divorce.
After he was served papers, I overheard a telephone conversation and was shocked to hear the abuse coming from him. He screamed profanities and made threats. I watched as she listened and afterwards told her his behavior was awful. She stated "he's just mad," no big deal.
I was leery that she was so prepared to rationalize for him, but she swore everlasting love to me. About six weeks ago her ex found out about our relationship. He promised he would do anything, including go to church, if she would take him back. He kicked it up a notch and confessed he was the worst husband ever.
He called and cried, playing the I'm-still-your-husband card. He kept her on the phone and dragged out the conversation. Last week she agreed to see him. More tears and begging. I told her this was pure manipulation and so did every friend and member of her family.
After a day of agony we recommitted our vows to each other, and I thought we were going to get through this. Last night we had a wonderful evening together. Then when she got home, he was waiting for her.
Around noon I received this e-mail. "Real love requires risk, putting one's feelings out there in the most vulnerable state. The thought of risking another chance with him scares me to death, but in reality, the risk would be no less with anyone. I believe this with all my heart." She is ignoring my phone calls, and I need advice.
Tyler
Tyler, she is an abused woman who is not ready to break the cycle of abuse. Framing her decision in terms of love makes sense to her, but that is a measure of how distorted her thinking is. Real love has nothing in common with her relationship to her ex.
A person eases into abuse one small step at a time. No one step seems large, but over time a person's perception of reality is changed. The leap from where she is to where you are is too great for her to make. It will be years before she can choose a healthy relationship over an abusive one. If there was something you could do to change her behavior, we would gladly share it, but the best thing you can do is accept her decision and move forward with your life.
Wayne & Tamara
A Week Later
Wow, you guys were right on the money. I learned today she let him move back in! How does one move from one bed to another so quickly? I don't know who is the bigger idiot, her or me.
Tyler
Tyler, without warning you were dropped into Oz, and like Dorothy, you are disoriented. You found yourself in a world where the rules most of us share don't apply. It is easier for her to leave her interior world intact than to step into your world. Life is simple in Oz, once you know the rules and decide not to question the man behind the curtain.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of August 28, 2006)
Hitting Bottom
I’m hoping you can help us out. For four years my girlfriend, Wendy, and I have carried on an affair. Yes, she’s married. I know, I know, but hear me out.
From day one we clicked on all fronts, and our communication is outstanding. We can talk about the most intimate things. She is the woman I’ve hoped for all my life. I know this sounds like a Hollywood movie, but so what.
A dozen years ago she married a man she didn’t love and could not stand having sex with. He is immature, overbearing, and obnoxious. Is my dislike showing? Maybe, but it’s accurate! Six years ago they stopped having annual sex because she would never bring a child into the world like him.
We’ve talked divorce to the point where it’s been beaten to death. She shakes, cries, and becomes frozen with fear when she tries to tell her husband. She cannot pinpoint the fear. In private counseling she was told to use the abundant strength she has in the business world to confront him. But she cannot. She crumbles.
Her father was an alcoholic and her mother the classic enabler. In my armchair opinion, Wendy replaced her father with a tyrant father figure husband. He publicly insults her and diminishes her.
Wendy fears she cannot make it on her own financially even though she has a good income. Three years ago I started a catering business. For three years it’s been starvation, but just last month I started on the road to success. I don’t represent security to Wendy, but if I showed up making six figures, tell me that wouldn’t speak louder than a herd of elephants.
We’ve tried self-help books and two counselors. Wayne and Tamara, tell me what she is getting from staying in this marriage? I’m praying you can spot something here which can help us. When someone comes along who connects with you down to the level of your DNA, there is no way you cannot play it to the very end, whatever that end may be.
I know the odds against success are slim. But what about the men who built the Golden Gate Bridge, or stepped on the moon, or the woman down my street who sweated herself out of a wheelchair to walk. They didn’t accomplish that by listening to what can’t be done, did they?
Andrew
Andrew, it is often said that an alcoholic is an alcoholic from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. The same is true of the children of alcoholics.
Wendy’s family shaped how she addresses the world. It’s almost as if her consciousness was poured into a mold and given a shape as rigid as steel. Like steel, her awareness can be changed, but only with a great deal of energy.
Why does Wendy stay? Aside from feeling familiar, she has found a way to make her marriage bearable. You. You are her coping mechanism. Having you in her life makes it possible to endure life with her husband. You are what keeps her from hitting bottom. You are what keeps her from developing the passion, and the desperation, to change.
A friend who treats alcoholics once told us, “The best way to deny you are an alcoholic is by admitting it.” What he meant was that by the time people reached him, it was no longer possible to deny the problem. So they did the counseling and admitted how much they had hurt others. But they still wouldn’t change.
That’s where Wendy is now. She lives life with deeply ingrained habits. Her interior consciousness will fight like a wildcat not to change. Like others before her, she must realize she will never change for an external reason. She can only change for her own sake. She is not ready. She may never be.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of March 5, 2001)
