Types of Abuse

What Constitutes Relationship Abuse

I read Picture Perfect by Jodi Picoult about a woman caught in a cycle of abuse. Have to admit, I had a hard time empathizing. The character grew up with parents who needed her to take on their pain, which enabled them to continue their behaviors—the father could neglect his family, pushing the responsibility of the alcoholic mother onto the daughter. The mother had passive permission to continue her addiction.

Growing up, the daughter marries a famous man with his own twisted childhood and pain, and she allows him to take it out on her, telling herself she’s helping him, it’s not his fault. It’s difficult to imagine thinking like this if you’ve never experienced it.

Then I thought about the many unhappy couples who stay married, glued together by the once-upon-a-time stigma of divorce and today’s financial worries. We’re unhappy, despairing of ever being loved, appreciated, close to someone. Yet we stay—for the kids, personal security, fear of change or jumping from the frying pan into the fire. I wonder, emotionally, if that’s so different.

We’re still enabling each other’s dependencies and fears and, if not physically violent, often with a lot of vocal abuse. We all know couples we like apart and can’t stand together for more than five minutes. Even without obvious abuse, we seem driven to accept unfulfilling, lonely lives that can turn us inward toward anger and depression or outward to hours of social media or every cause, charity, or committee we can possibly squeeze in to give our lives meaning.

Solutions—anyone want to share positive or negative stories from personal experience?