Like many children, I watched my parents interact early on. Children can absorb a lot from just observing. Human beings are arguably the most cognitive complex and behaviorally flexible of animals. Compared to most other animals we are born immature and helpless. Our lengthy period of infancy immaturity confers us with benefits and disadvantages. It allows us to learn and adapt to the specific physical environment into which we are born.
We as humans establish ourselves in so many different kinds of social groups, different cultures, than any other species I know of. Human cultures differ in terms of food, beliefs, and customs. And I think as Andrew N. Meltzoff says, “we are born to learn.”
Imitation, the ability to learn behavior from observing the actions of others. Imitation is so ordinary among adults and children that it is often overlooked in infancy, but infants make good use of imitation. Understanding imitation in infancy changes the way I have looked at infants. In so doing, it changed the way I look at myself and others, because I see our habits reflected in the behavior of even the youngest children.
The Reasons I Believe Keep People in an Abusive Relationship
1. Believing Abuse is Normal
Growing up I witnessed my father and mother interact in an environment where abuse was common. When my parents were in public they never acted like they did in private, in public they were just like everyone else’s mother and father. I remember thinking that the kids I went to school with probably saw the same things I did. Seeing my father and mother in screaming matches and my father hitting my mother was normal to me. Something didn’t feel right but that was mommy and daddy.
Eventually the verbal and physical abuse started to happen to me. It wasn’t until middle school in some health class that I learned my life wasn’t as normal as I had once thought. Life had taught me at this point people were cruel. I wasn’t entirely sure why my teachers would say my life wasn’t normal when those same teachers would degrade students in front of the class, and those same students were just as degrading to their peers. Even my peers were both physically and verbally abusive, not just to me but each other. They had to have learned it from somewhere.
We learned to be cruel by watching others, by observing, imitating the interactions we have seen whether it be from home or from school. We learned to be the people that we are by observing the human interactions around us. We are conditioned not only through societies words but through our societies actions. We see forms of conflict, submission, and abuse all around us. Yes, we know it is wrong but we are conditioned to know that it happens and that it will always happen because it is normal for there to be evil in the world.
Hence we are taught to believe that abuse is normal even if we know that it is wrong.
2. Fear
I know my mother will never leave her relationship with my father even if she knows what he is doing to her isn’t normal like I figured out. She is afraid of the unknown. For almost 30 years she has lived with him in that environment, what would she do without him in her life? “What if.” Like my mother that has always been one of the big questions I asked myself before I did anything. “What if.” What if my father tried to take me and my siblings away from my mother? What if my father won us in court and now we don’t have our mother to take the beatings for us??? What if I never saw my mother again?
I remember not wanting my mother to leave because I knew she couldn’t take us with her. And I remember feeling horrible and scarred when I begged my mother to stay. I remember just last year asking her why she wouldn’t leave him now that all of us kids are out of the house. She couldn’t give me a straight answer but I didn’t really need to ask. I knew why she feared leaving him, I just wanted to hear her say it.
But like her I have been in a relationship where I feared leaving. I feared what he would say about me, I feared that he would beat me harder for trying to leave and failing. I remember how it felt to be so attached to someone that I realized all the friends I had left were actually his and that I would have no one when I left him. I remember fearing that no one else would want me just like he had told me many times.
I realized I was in the same position as my own mother and I remember fearing all the what if’s and the unknown. I remember fearing how unpredictable those men in my life have been and could be. Attachment is the next thing I want to get into.
3. Love
I remember being in love with the two men I dated, the one was mostly verbally abusive. The one I was most afraid to leave was very physically abusive. I remember being so happy when he smiled and said how much he loved me. I also remember him telling me at times he was angry at me for not loving him as much as he loved me. He would tell me how sorry he was that it came down to him beating me but told me it was my own fault he got this mad. He would beg me not to make him angry next time and would hold me telling me how everything will be okay and that he loved me.
I remember how charming they were, especially at the beginning of our relationship. They were so romantic and passionate about everything. I believed everything they said because they told me to and I wanted to. They always had me second guessing myself believing it was always something I did or didn’t do. I remember thinking that they did nothing wrong and that I need to be put in my place, that I was the cause of the problems.
I only wanted it to go back to him gently touching me versus beating me every other day. I remember thinking that this is how love was and that if I made him happy I would be too. When they finally had enough of me and got rid of me I thought it was all because of me, that it was my fault I couldn’t make them happy.
In the end realize that all three of these things are often tied together by low-self-esteem, possibly money or other resources the person feels like they have with their abusive partner. The reason I never asked for help and hid from my best friend now fiancé is because I was embarrassed and ashamed of myself. I just remember feeling guilty all the time.
As my fiancé says some of these people deserve an ass kicking. And I find the best way to get someone out of that situation is by just being there. I wasn’t allowed to be around other people in that relationship. I felt like I was being a horrible person for having my fiancé as my friend at the time. If my man at the time had known I was friends with another male and hadn’t told him, It doesn’t take much for me to imagine what would have happened to me.
If you’re reading this and you’re in an abusive relationship, it’s not your fault. Don’t you let him break you anymore than he already has.
P.M me if you need to.
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