Control Is an Illusion.

Letting Go, Relationships 0

Control is an illusion.  It doesn’t work.  We cannot control alcoholism.  We cannot control anyone’s compulsive behaviors — overeating, sexual, gambling — or any of their behaviors.  We cannot (and have no business trying to) control anyone’s emotions, mind, or choices.  We cannot control the outcome of events.  We cannot control life.  Some of us can barely control ourselves.

People ultimately do what they want to do.  They feel how they want to feel (or how they are feeling); they think what they want to think; they do the things they believe they need to do; and they will change only when they are ready to change.  It doesn’t matter if they’re wrong and we’re right.  It doesn’t matter if they’re hurting themselves.  It doesn’t matter that we could help them if they’d only listen to, and cooperate with, us.  It doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter.

The problem was, I didn’t know that then.  I thought controlling and taking care of other people was my duty, my God-given job.  My motto from then on became “Do for others what they refuse to , but should, be doing for themselves.”  If other people don’t want to be responsible I’ll pick up that slack.

— Melody Beattie, Playing It By Heart, p. 148

Valuing Our Needs

Core Value, Relationships, Truth 0

When we don’t ask for what we want and need, we discount ourselves.  We deserve better.

Maybe others taught us it wasn’t polite or appropriate to speak up for ourselves.  The truth is, if we don’t, our unmet wants and needs may ultimately come back to haunt our relationships.  We may end up feeling angry or resentful, or we may begin to punish someone else for not guessing what we need.  We may end the relationship because it doesn’t meet our needs.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 355

Why Defining is Abusive

Relationships, Truth 0

Clearly, when one person defines the other, the person doing the defining (abusing), has closed off from the real person.  When a person is told what they are, think, feel, and so forth, it is not only a lie told to them about themselves, but also it means that the abuser is closed off from the real person.  The abuser cannot really hear, see, and take in information from the real person.  It is as if he sees someone else.  For instance, if the abuser says, “You’re too sensitive” or “You’re not listening,” he is talking to someone whom he defines as “made wrong” or as “not listening.”  So, the real person isn’t seen or heard.  It is as if a wall has arisen between the verbally abusive man and his partner.  This is why, when a man defines his partner, she feels pain.  At some level, she experiences the end of the relationship.

— Patricia Evans, The Verbally Abusive Man, p. 112

Our Own Journey

Letting Go, Life, Relationships 0

Minding other people’s business simply isn’t the work we are here to do, regardless of how seductive the idea may be.  We each must make our own journey, and even when it appears that someone we love is making a poor decision about an important matter, unless we are asked for advice, it’s not our place to offer it.  Besides, minding your own business will keep you as busy as you would ever need to be.

— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 45

Nonsense!

Healing, Relationships, Truth 0

People who indulge in verbal abuse want to keep real people out of their pretend world.  They want to turn real people into pretend people.  They feel they have succeeded if they can get the real person to try to explain him- or herself.  If the real person tries to explain and argue against what the abuser is saying, the real person is acting as if the abuser’s world is the real world, instead of a pretend one.  It is a “win” for the abuser because he or she has gotten someone to take his or her pretend world seriously.

It is better to say, “Nonsense!” to verbal abuse (since it is nonsense) than to try to deal with the abuser in a logical way.  In other words, explaining why something said to you is wrong doesn’t keep the verbal abuser from abusing you.  When people indulge in verbal abuse, they are not being logical.  They are being irrational.  Verbal abuse is all pretend talk….

Thinking about it, we know that no one lives inside another person, so no one knows our inner world.  But when someone tells us who we are or how we feel, or anything else about our inner world, our identity, how we do what we do, or how successful we’ll be, most of us feel as if we want to set them straight, correct them, or give them an explanation.  In other words, we want to talk to them as if they were in the real world with us.  But they are in a pretend world.

— Patricia Evans, Teen Torment: Overcoming Verbal Abuse at Home and at School, p. 21-23

Verbal Abuse Is Not Rational.

Healing, Relationships, Truth 0

Realizing that verbal abuse is not rational, it becomes clear that the man indulging in it can’t hear a rational response from his partner.  But it is difficult for the partner not to respond with a rational explanation.  For instance, she may say she didn’t deserve to be yelled at, or she didn’t do what she is being accused of, even when she knows that rational explanations just won’t work.  It takes enormous conscious effort for the partner not to explain herself to her mate.  It usually seems to her that he is rational and will apologize and not do it again.

Women often talk about how hard it is to remember that there is no point in their ever responding rationally to verbal abuse, even when they know that verbal abuse is a lie.  However, it is important for you to keep in mind that since the verbal abuse is a lie, it is incomprehensible.  You must decide to see it as so untrue, so unimaginable, so unreal, that you simply say, “What?” or “What did you say?” or “What are you doing?”  This may gently prod him toward hearing himself if he starts defining you in any way.

— Patricia Evans, The Verbally Abusive Man, p. 108

You Don’t Have to Listen

Growth, Letting Go, Relationships 0

He won’t change unless he wants to.  If his partner confronts his verbal battering, if she recognizes it for what it is, if she asks for change and he refuses, if his attitude is, as one abuser put it, “I can say anything I want!” the partner may realize that he can say anything he wants, however, she may also realize that there is nothing heroic about staying around to hear it.

— Patricia Evans, The Verbally Abusive Relationship, p. 34

Verbal Abuse Defined

Core Value, Healing, Relationships, Truth 0

Verbal abuse defines people in some negative way, and it creates emotional pain and mental anguish when it occurs in a relationship. . . . 

Any statement that tells you what, who, or how you are, or what you think, feel, or want, is defining you and is, therefore, abusive.  Such statements suggest an invasion of your very being, as if to say, “I’ve looked within you and now I’ll tell you what you want, feel, etc.”  Similarly, threats are verbally abusive because, like torture, they attempt to limit your freedom to choose and thus to define yourself.  Of course, if you have defined yourself to someone, “I’m Suzy’s Mom,” and that person says, “That’s Suzy’s Mom,” they are affirming or validating what you have said.  On the other hand, verbal abuse is a lie told to you or told to others about you.  If you believe the lie, it would lead you to think that you are not who you are or that you are less than you are. . . .

Another common way the abuser defines his partner is by walking away when she is asking a question, or mentioning something, or even in the middle of a conversation.  By withholding a response, he defines her as nonexistent. . . .

Defining statements are the opposite of affirmations, which are positive statements that confirm what we know and value about ourselves.  For example, when a man says, “I hear you.  I understand,” even if he does not agree with you, he validates or confirms what you have expressed to him.  If, however, he says, “You’re too sensitive,” or “Where did you get a crazy idea like that,” he invalidates and defines you.

— Patricia Evans, The Verbally Abusive Man: Can He Change?, p. 5-6

Forgiveness as a Way of Being

Forgiveness, Love, Marriage, Relationships 0

Forgiveness is an aspect of the workings of love.  It can be a bridge back from hatred and alienation as well as a liberation from two kinds of hell: bitterness and victimhood on one side; guilt, shame, and self-recrimination on the other.  The wish to repair a wounded relationship, whether it takes the form of forgiveness, apology, or some other bridging gesture, is a basic human impulse.  The need to forgive — which may grow out of understanding, gratitude, sympathy, regret over the hurt one has caused, or simply a wish to reunite — may be as strong as the need to be forgiven, even if it comes upon us more subtly.

All sustained relationships depend to some extent on forgiveness.  Successful marriage means an inevitable round of disappointment, anger, withdrawal, repair.  People hurt each other no matter how much love they share, and it’s a truism that the greatest hurts are meted out by the closest of intimates.  No friendship, no marriage, no family connections of any kind would last if the silent reparative force of forgiveness were not working almost constantly to counteract the incessant corrosive effects of resentment and bitterness, which would otherwise tear us apart.  Without forgiveness there could be no allowance for human frailty.  We would keep moving on, searching for perfect connections with mythical partners who would never hurt or disappoint.  In that sense, forgiveness should be thought of not only as a discrete event but also as a way of being.

— Robert Karen, PhD, The Forgiving Self: The Road from Resentment to Connection, p. 5-6

The Truth

Relationships, Truth 0

Still, the truth with all its potential for causing pain is real and enduring — it won’t go away.  Unlike the confusing and ephemeral lie, the truth informs, clarifies, and teaches.  The truth feels right because it is right.

Even if the particular relationship they were in didn’t have a happy ending, the women who were told the truth were given a powerful gift.  They finally had a chance to understand what was really happening.  They had won another chance to build their future on more solid ground.  Although they had feared the truth, it was the lie and all it represented that had caused them and their partnerships the most grievous damage and robbed them of choice.

— Dory Hollander, PhD, 101 Lies Men Tell Women: And Why Women Believe Them, p. 270-271