Heal The Abuse - Recover Your Life (24 page)

5. Taking A Hot Tub/Bath/Shower

6. Getting A Massage

7. Acupuncture

8. Praying

9. Deep Relaxation by Candlelight

10. Listening to Soft Music

11. Playing Piano

12. Exercise/Running/Kick-Boxing

13. Cleaning The House And Car

14. Getting A Haircut

15. Cutting Fingernails/Putting Lotion On My
Hands And Feet

16. Playing Computer Games

17. Playing With The Dog

18. Going Out To Eat

19. Having Healthy Sex

20. Writing About The Stress In My Life

21. Talking About Stress With
Family/Friends

22. Doing The Emotional Work In This Book

23. Maintaining Healthy Relationships

Stepping Stones to Health

Self-Care

-Try to identify where you are in the
stepping-stones to health and the next step or steps you need to
take.

_____ 1. I do not take care of myself and I
don’t care.

_____ 2. I have noticed that I feel bad when
I don’t take care of myself.

_____ 3. I am tired of feeling bad about
myself.

_____ 4. I did something to take care of
myself and it made me feel better.

_____ 5. I am starting to enjoy looking good
and feeling good.

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

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

Chapter 27
–
Unhealthy Relationships

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

-Alex Bennett

Unhealthy relationships are those that fail
to meet our needs for love and respect. Many of us developed
unhealthy patterns when we were sexually abused. We may repeat
these same patterns later in our adult lives.

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

I have found no evidence to suggest that the
average relationship has gotten better or worse over time. There
has 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 to
simply endure their partner’s negative behaviors. They were
expected to keep quiet about the problems they were having.

America is a grand experiment. With the
advent of equal rights, women’s liberation, advances in the fields
of therapy and counseling, shelter and protection for abused women
and children, and the proliferation of no-fault divorce, our
standards and expectations for relationships have risen. People
expect to be treated with dignity and respect. We look for specific
characteristics in a partner like compatibility, mutual interests,
religious orientation, sexual attraction, and a stable financial
situation. The list of characteristics people are “shopping for”
has become unrealistic. Gone are the days when finding a partner
was simple.

In a sense, we have become incredibly
spoiled. 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 the
fairy tale romance we read about in pulp fiction novels. We want
relationships that will make us feel better, never cause stress in
our lives, and perfectly meet all of our needs.

We are living on planet Earth. Even healthy
couples have disagreements and struggle from time to time. Is it
fair to hold our partner to standards so high that we ourselves
could never measure up to them?

I believe the level of commitment people are
willing to make to relationships today is the lowest it has ever
been. People are divorcing for increasingly trivial reasons. There
is little cultural pressure to stay in a relationship and work
through the problems.

In my view, there are too many of us who lack
motivation to change our behavior. We are encouraged to indulge our
fantasies and our dreams. Why take responsibility for our personal
defects of character if we don’t have to? It’s easier to pay for a
no-fault divorce.

Of course, some of the trends emerging from
this movement have been tremendously positive. In the past, when
people were being verbally, emotionally, or physically abused, they
had no legitimate means of escape. People had no way to remove
themselves from an abusive relationship. Many men and women stayed
in relationships that were damaging to their self-esteem. They
accepted disrespect, cruelty, or even abuse from their
partners.

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

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

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

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

The five characteristics of a good
relationship are respect, trust, communication, boundaries, and
support.

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

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

Another characteristic of an unhealthy
partner is that they fail to respect our boundaries. They continue
to act in ways we feel uncomfortable with, like flirting with the
opposite sex or failing to live up to their commitments. Sometimes
they have difficulty setting healthy boundaries with others.

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

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

Whether we realize it or not, we are often
attracted to people who struggle with the same issues we do. Every
woman I ever dated was a survivor of sexual abuse. How could I have
known that before I started dating them? I don’t seem to remember
asking, “Excuse me, but are you a survivor of sexual abuse? I only
date women who have the same issues I do.”

No, I was never consciously aware of this
pattern. Yet in every relationship, I eventually discovered that
the person I was with had been sexually abused. Now I finally
understand how this happened. Why I kept repeating the same, sick
relationships. It was because I never fully resolved my sexual
abuse issues.

This pattern was not an accident. We are
attracted to certain characteristics in another person. I believe
that we can sense these characteristics on a subconscious
level.

Why do we feel attracted to abusers? It is
because our mind is constantly trying to resolve whatever issues we
still struggle with. It is attracted to unfinished business. If we
have unresolved issues around sexual abuse, we may find ourselves
attracted to abusers or other survivors of abuse.

Sometimes we end up moving from one unhealthy
relationship to the next. Is this our fault? Is it something we can
control, or are there just too many “screwed-up people” in this
world?

What will happen if we get into a
relationship with an abuser or another survivor of abuse? Most of
us have experienced a string of failed relationships. It’s as if we
are doomed to repeating the same mistake over and over again until
we have learned the lesson.

The way to reverse this pattern is two-fold.
First, we need to become more cautious about our choice of
partners. We need to allow more time to pass before we commit to a
relationship. We need to be willing to ask for other people’s
opinions about our partner if we suspect that we are not seeing
them clearly.

And second, we need to heal our sexual abuse
issues. As we become healthier ourselves, we will attract healthier
partners.

We need to be realistic. There are things
about every partner that will irritate us. Our goal is to find
partners who are willing to work on their issues. Partners who will
not abandon hope at the first sign of trouble. We are more likely
to find partners with integrity when we give the courtship process
more time.

When we are ready to commit to a
relationship, we need to ask ourselves, “Can I live with his/her
quirks? Can I accept this person as he/she is right now?” A partner
may have great potential, but you can’t marry potential. You can
only marry another human being. Most of us don’t change that much
or that quickly.

Some of us try to turn our partners into a
project, which is both disrespectful and unrealistic. If there are
things about our partner that we simply can’t live with, we need to
resolve those issues before committing to a relationship.

By working on ourselves and becoming more
cautious about the partners we choose, we start to move in the
right direction. We cannot control whether we will ever find our
soul-mate. That is not for us to know. But as we work to heal
ourselves, all of our relationships will become more loving.

Relationship Errors

-Try to identify which relationship errors
you have made in the past, and how you can correct those mistakes
in the future.

1. Unrealistic Expectations – Wanting a
partner to be perfect often comes from feeling vulnerable or needy
ourselves. Instead of meeting our own needs and working to improve
our self-esteem, we want prince or princess charming to sweep us
off our feet. Getting into a relationship is not a solution for our
personal issues.

2. Fixing Loneliness – The best way to
address feelings of loneliness is to learn to love ourselves. Some
of us feel lonely because we can’t enjoy our own company. On the
other hand, if we tend to isolate or spend too much time alone, we
may need to reach out and take a risk. We may need to go out with a
group of friends or start dating again. We may need to get a pet.
We meet new people when we get involved in hobbies and recreational
activities or go to church.

3. Fear Of Abandonment – If we find ourselves
clinging to a partner or wanting them to be there for us all the
time, it is because we are afraid of abandonment. This is an inner
child issue. Our inner child may have felt abandoned in the past,
and may still be afraid. We need to work with our inner child to
help him/her feel safe and secure without always depending on a
partner.

4. Not Deserving Love – When we believe that
we don’t deserve to be loved, we often choose partners who are
incapable of giving us the love we need. We must come to the
realization that we are worthy. We must be willing to leave
partners who cannot give us the love we deserve.

5. Losing Faith – After a string of failed
relationships, we may start to believe that we are cursed. We may
decide that we should settle for less. Lowering our standards is
not the solution. We need to continue striving for healthy and
fulfilling relationships.

6. Blaming The Other Person – Most of us have
a hard time examining our own faults when a relationship ends. We
blame our partner for everything that went wrong. Sometimes we have
difficulty taking an honest look at the way our behavior
contributed to the break-up. Were we dishonest in some way? Were we
unwilling to work on our own problems or issues? Did we feel like
we always had to be right? Were we incapable of compromise? What
patterns do we keep repeating in our relationships? What is the
reason we were attracted to our ex-husband/wife or
boyfriend/girlfriend in the first place?

Entry #1: Attracting Survivors of Abuse

I just realized that I still have problems
with relationships. I am still attracted to survivors of sexual
abuse. I haven’t finished healing my own issues, so how can I
expect to attract a partner that would be good for me?

The answer is, “I can’t!”

I have to heal myself before I can attract
and be attracted to partners who would be good for me. Right now, I
am still attracted to partners with a lot of issues.

Entry #2: Relationship Affirmations

1. I forgive myself for having issues in
relationships.

2. I ask God to help me heal these
issues.

3. I give love freely in all of my
relationships.

4. I love myself freely when I’m in a
relationship.