What is she doing with that guy? I thought she was too smart to date a jerk like him!”I overheard someone say that the other day. When it comes to dealing with abusive relationships, I prefer to focus on the ways to contain the abuser and get him to eliminate his bad behaviours, but sometimes it is important to take time to address the questions that we hear about victims of abuse. And this is one that I hear a lot: Why do so many smart women make such bad choices when it comes to relationships?
Let’s talk about it:
Q: My friend is a really smart woman, but she got into an abusive relationship. How is that even possible?
A: Because becoming involved in an abusive relationship has nothing at all to do with how smart you are. I have done a lot of research on this issue. I have worked with a whole lot of abusive men and with many, many battered women. In my opinion, whether or not someone gets involved with an abuser has absolutely nothing to do with her intelligence. Rather, it has everything to with luck.
There are a huge number of abusers out there. And a lot of them are extremely sophisticated. And incredibly smart. So unless a woman can read other people’s minds and/or predict the future, she has no way of knowing whether or not her new relationship will become abusive. Most abusers will wait until after they’ve gotten their hooks deep into you before they start yanking you around. Significant abuse rarely occurs at the very beginning of the relationship.
A: Nothing.
Q: What? Do you mean to say there is nothing that any of us can do to ensure that we never find ourselves in that situation?
A: Well, that’s my sense of things: it really is just a matter of luck. And unless you choose not to be involved with anyone at all, there is nothing that you can do to eliminate the possibility that when you begin a new relationship you may in fact be getting involved with an abuser.
A: Yes, it is. But the key is not to focus on the impossible task of predicting the future (or on the energy-depleting exercise of always preparing for the worst), but to focus instead on learning to recognize abuse if and when it happens, and being ready to respond appropriately at that time.
Some men who behave abusively will actually change their ways if they see that continuing their bad behaviour will mean losing the relationship altogether. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that it is only a very small minority of abusers will ever actually change their ways. And the chances are that your guy won’t be one of them.
The only generally reliable way to stop being abused by your partner is to stop being in a relationship with him. And even then the abuse doesn’t always stop.
A: Glaring behaviours like torturing small animals, a violent past, or active drug or alcohol addiction are often pointed out as warning signs that someone is not good partner material. But short of that, a lot of the behaviours that we may see in retrospect as having been warning signs of abuse are in fact some of the exact things that we also experience as being simply part of the process of falling in love: someone sweeps you off your feet, wants to spend every waking (and sleeping) moment with you, obsessively thinks about you... the continual phone calls, the texting, the messaging, him surprising you at work or at school or when you are out with your girlfriends...
Q: My smart friend’s abusive boyfriend tells her that he loves her. And she believes him. How can she think that? Doesn’t she understand that abuse is not love?
Q: My friend also says that she loves him even though he treats her badly. How can she love a guy like that?
A: It is entirely possible (and very common) to love someone who is abusing you. A lot of abusive relationships end not because the love is gone, but because the pain of staying has become too great. We all have the capacity to love someone even though they are hurting us. But when someone is abusing you, the cost that you are being asked to pay is simply too great.
Q: They had some early fights. Wasn’t that a sign of things to come?
A: Even during those blissful early months most couples will experience conflict. An early fight or two or three is normal. One of the tasks that new couples face is figuring out how to manage conflict in the relationship. And at this early stage it is pretty difficult to know if someone’s anger is an honest response to the situation (and perhaps being enhanced strong emotions of a new relationship), or whether his anger is actually serving as a tactic of abuse and control.
Q: She let him do things that pushed her out of her comfort zone. Why didn’t she stop him?
Q: But she has gotten involved with a number of abusive men. Doesn’t that say something bad about her?
A: It does say something about her – but that something is not bad. What it says is that despite all of her failures in love she has still been willing to give it a try. What it also says about her is that she has managed to get out of all of those situations – which is no easy task!
On the other hand, what it says about the world is pretty bad. It says that there are unfortunately a lot of abusive men out there. And her ex-boyfriends likely went on to abuse their next partners as well. So the abuse wasn’t about your friend. It really wasn’t. If they hadn’t been abusing your friend, they probably would have been abusing someone else. It wasn’t about her!
Q: So it’s not because she’s dumb?
A: No! I know many, many, brilliant women who have been involved with abusers.
Q: And it’s not because of the family she grew up in?
A: No! I know women who grew up in violent households who were later abused by their partners. But I also know many women who grew up in happy homes who were later abused by their partners. The only thing these women had in common was that they were unlucky in whom they hooked up with.
Q: And it’s not because she is weak?
A: Not at all! A lot of abusive men are actually attracted to strong, successful women! They are drawn to the woman’s great dynamism. And then, like vampires, they set out to suck you dry of all of your vital life energy.
Q: But shouldn’t she have somehow known what was going to happen?
A: No! Abusers lie! That is what they do! They lie about who they are! And about how they are! They lie constantly!
And please internalize this message: You never know when you are being lied to! You simply never know. For instance, as I sit here looking out the window at Canada’s beautiful Bay of Fundy...
That is a lie.
I am not actually at the beautiful Bay of Fundy. I am actually at a friend’s cottage on New Brunswick’s beautiful Grand Lake.
That is another lie.
You are never to blame for believing a lie that you have been told! The shame is not on you for believing it. It is on me for lying to you in the first place. Believing what you are told does not mean that you are dumb or naive. It means that you are a person who operates in good faith. But the person who tells you lies is being mean and manipulative.
Q: So you seem to be saying that a really smart woman – or any woman, for that matter – is not to blame for having gotten into an abusive relationship?
A: No!
Q: Really and truly?
A: Really and truly! She is not to blame!
Really! And Truly!
Yes and No